Building Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews

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

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

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

By the same token, you are also doing your business a disservice if you are not promoting the positive things your customers say about your products, solutions, customer training, support, etc. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing.

In this article, you’ll discover how to improve your visitor-to-sales conversions with captivating customer testimonials.

Testimonials And Consumer Reviews

Legendary American showman P.T. Barnum once said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful and effective way of getting your business promoted. Testimonials from your existing clients are far more persuasive for attracting new clients than anything you can say about your own products or services.

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

Testimonials and reviews are terrific for building credibility for your products or services.

Tests conducted by many leading firms all point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding customer testimonials and reviews to your point of sale pages eliminates doubts potential customers may have about buying products that you are trying to sell, helps users select products and increases sales.

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

• According to research findings 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 web site if it has ratings and reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews play a significant role in creating an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Web site visitors who interact with both customer 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).
• Consumer 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 Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation

Adding reviews to your site from clients who are delighted with your products or services is important for helping you grow your business online and creating a solid online reputation.

Testimonials and user reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both negatively or positively.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could post negative comments on Facebook, or a forum or discussion group about a bad experience they’ve just had with your services 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 vital part of your business and content marketing strategy.

Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need to worry about it) may be harming your business without you even realizing this.

See this article to learn more about a simple WordPress plugin that can help to avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your services through effective user review management:

• Easily Manage Your Online Reputation On WordPress With Power Online Reviews Plugin

Tips On How To Create Customer Testimonials

User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing. When you quote responses from clients in your content, you:

• Show potential customers exactly what pains and problems your products and services can solve for them and how easily it can do this.
• Help your visitors identify their objections and address these.
• Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.

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

• Avoid over-editing: Try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
• Use photos of real people: It’s a proven fact that using images of people’s faces draws the attention of visitors on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your content.
• Tell a powerful story: Stories are far more powerful and memorable than just providing facts and statistics. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about excellent customer support and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
• Keep it in context: It’s good to add testimonials in your web content where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s mind if you were to add a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting your product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before presenting the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are genuinely ecstatic about your customer service when offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
• Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would consider to be more powerful: “Since using your XYZ services, we were able to grow our revenue by $93,809 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ product has helped us grow our sales?” Whenever possible, ask clients to specify quantifiable results when submitting testimonials, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales or reduce their costs in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours you have helped them save, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate during a specific financial quarter, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
• Vary the client testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout 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 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 target audience is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become is 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 testimonials across different platforms. If you get fantastic feedback on your Facebook wall praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, send them a message asking for their permission to reprint the content on your blog.
• Don’t use fake testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing copywriters to create your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential clients need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are genuine. Don’t destroy your reputation with a false testimonial.

How To Get Testimonials From Customers

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.

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

• Contact your customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 30 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after performing a service.
• Add a text box for entering testimonials in all your client surveys.
• Pull out your phone next time you meet with clients or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, explain to viewers what you have done for your client and record your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
• Make it easy for them. When clients send you a positive email thanking you for a great service that contains snippets of useful testimonial material interspersed with the rest of their message, grab the juiciest sections (only use what they have given you – never put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have already prepared something to help them save time and let them know they are completely free to change what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.

Offer To Publish A Link Back To Their Site Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial

Offer to add a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive for clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.

Add A Testimonial Request To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in a periodic auto responder broadcast. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your customers have had a chance to use your 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 customers for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.

Use LinkedIn

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

Create A Client Testimonials Page

Create a new page for customer testimonials and place a “more client testimonials …” link pointing to this section throughout your site.

Useful 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 your testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to measuring visitor behaviour on your site.

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

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

Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

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

Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (make sure to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), all you have to do is send clients to your “Testimonials” page.

Below are some plugins you can check out:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into your pages and posts using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you insert a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, a business logo, etc.

The plugin also can be upgraded to a “pro” version that offers additional features and developer support.

Go here to download and use the plugin:

• 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 provides extra features via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and plugin support.

To download and use the plugin, visit this site:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This is a premium WP plugin that offers a range of 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 testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.

Visit this site to download this plugin:

• 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 great sources of content that 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 your clients or customers, and publish positive content about your business on your web site.

Resources

For additional sources of information and resources about creating engaging customer testimonials refer to the articles below:

• 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 and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to 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!

***

***