How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? As most small business owners know, that generating new business can be very difficult. Just trying to stay in business takes a lot of your time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.

In today’s digital, mobile and social media-driven economy, it’s a mistake to ignore the effect of online consumer behavior, especially if they are talking about your business.

Don’t ignore what users may be saying online about your business!

By the same token, you are also doing your business a disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your customers are saying about your services or products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be added to your content.

In this article, you will learn how to improve your visitor-to-sales conversions with profit-boosting client testimonials.

Testimonials And Client Reviews

Legendary American showman Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum is often quoted as having stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful and effective way of getting your business promoted. Testimonials and reviews quoted directly from existing clients are far more persuasive for attracting new customers, clients or users than anything you say about your own products or services.

There is an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … client reviews and testimonials!

User reviews and customer testimonials are a powerful way to build credibility for your products and services.

Studies conducted by many leading marketing firms all point to the same conclusion: adding reviews and customer testimonials to your sales information eliminates doubts potential customers may have about buying products or solutions that you are trying to sell, helps users select products and helps increase the number of sales.

Below are just some of the stats available to support this:

• According to research findings by eVoc Insights, an organization known for researching and measuring user experience, “In general, 63% of users indicate they are more likely to purchase from a web site if it has ratings and reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews can produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Web site visitors who interact with both consumer reviews and customer questions and answers are 105% more likely to purchase while visiting and spend 11% more than visitors who don’t interact with UGC. (Bazaarvoice, Conversation Index, Q2 2011).
• Customer reviews are significantly more trusted (nearly 12 times more) than descriptions that come from manufacturers, according to a survey of US internet users by online video review site EXPO. (eMarketer, February 2010).

(Source: eConsultancy.com)

Adding Customer Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management

Clearly, you should be adding great testimonials and reviews from extremely satisfied clients who have experienced positive results with your business to your website.

Customer testimonials and reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both positive and negative ways.

People may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to your face, but they could be posting negative comments on Facebook or a forum about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had with your services and this could be costing you business.

This is where online reputation management becomes important to your business success.

Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) could be seriously causing damage to your business without you even being aware of this.

See this article to learn more about a plugin for WordPress users that can help to avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business, products or services through effective user review management:

• Manage Poor Customer Reviews Easily With Power Online Reviews Plugin For WordPress

Creating Customer Testimonials – Useful Tips

User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing strategy. When you include your own user responses in your content, you:

• Show other users exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
• Help visitors identify and address their objections.
• Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates moving them closer to a buying decision.

Here are some useful tips on how to create captivating customer testimonials:

• Don’t over edit: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps to keep it ‘real’.
• Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention to your content. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
• Use the power of storytelling: Stories are much more powerful and captivating than providing mere statistical facts. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a far longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about excellent support and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
• Use it in context: It’s good to add testimonials in your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help to sell your point. Think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting your price information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your support before offering guarantees or addressing objections.
• Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would find more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our sales by $32,631 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ software definitely helped us grow our business?” If possible, ask clients to specify quantifiable results when submitting testimonials, like how much your solution helped to increase their profits or reduce their costs in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours they have saved, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate in a recent financial period, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
• Avoid using the same customer testimonial throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out and have very few clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial everywhere on your web pages. Depending on the type of business you run, you could try to obtain more testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special launch discount for existing clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you choose to use it.
• Appeal to your best customer: As every infomercial featuring a celebrity endorsement, subject expert or “busy mom” knows, if you know who your target audience is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become can be a powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials targeted to your ideal customers.
• Reprint content across different platforms. If someone publishes a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your products or services, ask them for permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
• Never use fake testimonials. Your potential customers need to see that the testimonials displayed on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity with a ”made up” testimonial.

How To Get Testimonials From Clients

Just Ask

If you have just completed performing a service, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.

Follow these tips for soliciting testimonials from your clients:

• Contact clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 60 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
• Include a text box for entering testimonials in all your client satisfaction surveys.
• Take out your phone when you next meet with clients or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and record their positive reactions and responses.
• Make it easy for them. When a client sends you positive written feedback that contains snippets of useful testimonial material interspersed with the rest of their message, grab the best sections (only use what they have written – never put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have done this to save them time and invite them to change what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Publish A Link To The Source

Offer to add a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients providing a testimonial. It also makes the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.

Include A Testimonial Request In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in a scheduled auto responder message. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to use your products or services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in the subject of your email and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking subscribers for feedback, a testimonial, or a review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to solicit testimonials from other members for your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite simple and user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (and offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Client Testimonials Page

Create a new section for client testimonials and place a “more testimonials …” link to this page wherever you are adding small blocks of testimonials on your content sections.

Useful Tip: You can measure how effective customer testimonials are by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to observing visitor behavior on your pages.

We have written an article about a heatmap software you can add to your sites to predict visitor behavior here:

• How To Measure Visitor Behaviour On Your WordPress Site Using Analytics Software – Heat Map Tracker Review

Using WordPress Testimonial Plugins

If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages where users can submit testimonials.

Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you then send users to your “Testimonials” section.

Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add client testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you insert a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which can be used to add a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.

The plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that has additional features and technical support.

To download the plugin, visit this site:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your site. You can insert testimonials content via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.

Testimonials Widget makes plenty of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and developer support.

To learn more about this plugin, go here:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This is a premium WordPress plugin that offers a range of great features right out of the box, including:

• Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
• Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. using a shortcode
• Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.

To download and use the plugin, visit this site:

• Testimonials Plugin

To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Conclusion …

User reviews and client testimonials are powerful sources of content that can help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for testimonials, reviews, and feedback from existing customers, and start publishing these on your website.

Resources

For additional sources of information and resources on creating engaging testimonials read these articles:

• Ecommerce Consumer Reviews: Why You Need Them And How To Use Them
• How To Create Captivating Customer Testimonials
• 5 Tips For Knockout Testimonials
• Make Customer Testimonials Meaningful
• 7 Simple But Powerful Customer Testimonial Examples You Can Steal
• Your 5-Minute Guide To Writing an Amazing LinkedIn Recommendation
• How To Get Great LinkedIn Recommendations

We also recommend subscribing to our Free Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content for your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

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