Building Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, and getting the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that finding new ways of generating new customers can be confusing, frustrating and extremely hard. Just trying to keep your business afloat 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 online and social-driven economy, it’s foolish to ignore the impact of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.

Ignoring what your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

You may also be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your clients are saying about your products or services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing.

In this article, we’ll show you how to improve your sales conversions with awesome user testimonials.

Testimonials And Consumer Reviews

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

P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-driven content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine reviews from your satisfied customers are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new customers than anything you can say about your own products or services.

There is an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews and testimonials from their users!

Reviews and testimonials are a fantastic way to build credibility for your business.

Marketing studies conducted by leading companies all lead to the same conclusion: adding reviews and customer testimonials to your site helps to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about your product, helps users select products and helps increase the number of sales.

Here are just some of the statistics available to support this:

• According to research findings by eVoc Insights, a company 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 customer reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, user reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Web 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 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 Consumer Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management

Adding positive reviews to your site from clients is important for growing your business and creating a solid online reputation.

Customer testimonials and user reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both negatively and positively.

People may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to you, but they could have posted unhelpful words on Facebook about a bad experience they’ve just had using your products 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 a vitally important aspect of your 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) may be hurting your business without you even realizing this.

See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that allows you to legally and ethically manage customer reviews:

• Managing Your Online Reputation With Power Online Reviews Plugin

Improving Your Sales With User Testimonials – Useful Tips

User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included in your content marketing. When you include your own user responses in your content, you:

• Show prospects exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
• Help visitors identify and address their objections.
• Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates moving them further along the sales process.

Below are some practical tips on improving your sales conversions with user testimonials:

• Don’t over edit: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelt words 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 photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your content.
• Tell a powerful story: Stories are much more powerful 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 longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about how “excellent” your support was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
• Use it in context: Add testimonials in your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help to 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 retails for before posting your pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are genuinely ecstatic about your support before offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
• Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “Since implementing XYZ software, we we were able to grow our sales by an additional $29,333 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution has helped us grow our business?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, like how much your solution helped to increase their profits 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.
• Use different testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial throughout your site’s 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 decide 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 can relate to is a really powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials targeted to your best audience demographic.
• Reprint content across different platforms. If someone posts fantastic feedback on your Facebook wall praising your customer service, ask them for permission to reprint the content on your blog.
• Only use genuine client testimonials. Many people can tell if you are employing copywriters to produce your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective customers need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity with a false testimonial.

How To Get Testimonials

Ask

Getting a testimonial from a satisfied customer can be as simple as just asking for it.

Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials from your customers:

• Contact your customers after 30 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after performing a service.
• Include a field for entering testimonials in your client surveys.
• Pull out your phone when you next visit clients or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a quick video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording your video, describe to your viewers what you have done for the client and make sure to capture your client’s 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 best sections (only use what they have given you – never put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to use it. Explain that you have already prepared something to save them time and let them know they are completely free to edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Publish A Link To The Source

Offer to post a link back to their site 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 Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in one of your newsletter mailouts. This should be done after your customers have had a chance to experience your services. Use words like “I need your help” in the subject of your email and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking clients for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to request testimonials from other members that become part of your account. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (once again, you can offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Client Testimonials Page On Your Site

Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “read more testimonials …” link to this section throughout your site.

Practical Tip: You can measure how effective user testimonials are by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for monitoring what visitors are doing on your site are “heatmaps”.

We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your sites to observe visitor behavior here:

• How To Analyze Visitor Behavior On Your WordPress Site With Analytics Software – Heat Map Tracker Review

Useful Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If your site or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms to your pages where users can submit testimonials.

Once your plugin is installed and set up (remember to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then send customers to your “Testimonials” section.

Check out the testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

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

Easy Testimonials also provides users with a “pro” version with additional features and technical support.

Go here to download and use the plugin:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

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

Testimonials Widget offers added features via a premium version, including built-in options for improved search engine results and technical support.

Visit this site to download and use this plugin:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium plugin offers plenty of great features right out of the box, including:

• Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
• Display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, grid layout, list layout, etc. via a shortcode
• Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.

For more information about using 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 …

Client testimonials and customer reviews are powerful 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from your customers, and publish positive content about your business on your website.

Resources

For additional resources about creating effective users testimonials read these useful 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 regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach exactly 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 completely FREE!

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