How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract new customers, only to get the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that generating new business can be difficult. Just trying to remain 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 web-based and social-driven economy, ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what consumers may be saying online about your business!
You are also doing your business a great disservice if you are not promoting the positive things your clients are saying about your products, services, client training, support, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, 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.
In this article, you’ll learn how to achieve better results online using effective customer testimonials.
Customer Reviews
P.T. Barnum, legendary American businessman and showman, 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-driven content is a powerful and effective way of promoting your business. Reviews from your existing users are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new customers, clients or users than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is a source of untapped business growth potential that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews and testimonials from your customers!
Reviews and customer testimonials are a fantastic way to build credibility for your services and products.
Tests conducted by leading firms all seem to lead to the same conclusion: adding reviews and customer testimonials to your point of sale pages decreases doubts potential customers may have about buying your products or services, helps with product selection and increases the number of product sales.
Below are just some of the findings available to support this:
- According to a study by eVoc Insights, an organization that researches and measures user experience, “In general, 63% of users indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has ratings and consumer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, reviews can result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Site visitors who interact with both user 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 user-generated content (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).
(The figures above were sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Client Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation
Adding positive reviews and testimonials to your website from customers who are delighted with your services is essential for creating a solid online reputation.
Testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both negatively or positively.
People may not be saying bad things about your products directly to your face, but they could have posted updates on Facebook or a forum group about a bad experience they’ve just had with your business and this could be doing far more damage to your business than all the good work you’ve been putting into building it.
This is where online reputation management becomes vitally important to your business success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) may be causing damage to your business without you even being aware of this.
See this article to learn more about a simple WordPress plugin that allows you to legally and ethically manage your customer feedback:
Tips On Improving Your Sales Conversions With Customer Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be added to your content. When you quote responses from users in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help prospects identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.
Below are some tips on how to create testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try to use your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps preserve the authenticity of your testimonials.
- Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are far more effective and memorable than simply providing facts and statistics. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a more lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about excellent service and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: Add testimonials to your web content where it makes the most sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are truly ecstatic about your support before offering guarantees or providing content designed to help your readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “As a direct result of installing your XYZ solution, we were able to increase our revenue by $63,878 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution helped us grow our sales?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales or reduce their costs by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours of work you have helped them save, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Vary the testimonials on your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your website. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special discount for clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you choose to use it.
- Appeal to your target audience: As every infomercial featuring a celebrity endorsement, subject expert or “busy mom” knows, if you know who your best customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become can be a very 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 posts fantastic feedback on your Facebook page praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Only use real client testimonials. Your prospects need to believe that the testimonials displayed on your site are real. Don’t destroy your reputation with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Clients
Ask For Testimonials
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied customer can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful tips for requesting testimonials:
- Make a point of contacting customers after 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after performing a service.
- Include a text box for entering testimonials in all client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you meet with clients or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a very quick video testimonial/feedback interview. During the video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to capture their positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy for them. Whenever clients send you positive written feedback that contains snippets of useful testimonial material interspersed with the rest of their message, grab the juiciest sections (only use what they have written – don’t put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to use it. Explain that you have done this to help them save time and let them know they are completely free to modify what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To Their Site Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to publish a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients providing you with a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.
Add Testimonial Requests To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in one of your newsletter broadcasts. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your clients have had a chance to assess the results of using your product, service or solution. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking clients for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to request testimonials for your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite simple and user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (tip: offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Section On Your Site
Create a new page for customer testimonials and place a “more client testimonials …” link to this page whenever you plan to display new testimonials on your site.
Practical Tip: You can measure how useful testimonials are by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for monitoring what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics software you can add to your site to observe visitor behaviour here:
Useful Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your site or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms to your pages inviting users to submit testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), all you have to do is refer customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Here are some great testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into a Page or Post using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you insert a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
Easy Testimonials also comes with a “pro” version that offers additional features and developer support.
Visit this site to download this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your blog. You can insert testimonials 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 has plenty of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in functions for better search engine results and technical support.
To learn more about the plugin, go here:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin offers many great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
- Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.
Visit this site to learn more about using this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Customer reviews and client testimonials are great sources of content that can help your business in terms of adding credibility, building authority, improving online reputation, and growing your sales funnel. Always ask for testimonials, reviews, and feedback from existing customers or clients, and start publishing these on your website.
Resources
The articles below are a great source of information about creating effective testimonials and were also used when researching information for sections of this article:
- 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 and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website, 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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