How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract new customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that generating new customers can be very hard. 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 digital, mobile and social media-driven economy, you simply can’t afford to ignore the significance of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Don’t ignore what customers may be saying online about your business!
You could be doing your business a disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your customers say about your products, services, customer training, support, etc. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive ways of marketing your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing strategy.
In this article, you will learn how to get better results online using knockout user testimonials.
Customer Reviews
P.T. Barnum, the great American showman and successful promoter, once said 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 way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine testimonials from existing clients are far more persuasive for drawing new clients, customers or users than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … testimonials and reviews from their existing customers!
Testimonials and customer reviews are a terrific way to build credibility for your products or services.
Studies conducted by leading marketing research firms all lead to the same conclusion: user reviews and testimonials help to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about products, help with product selection and increases sales conversions.
Below are just some of the findings available to support this:
- According to a study 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 user reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Website 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).
(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding User Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding positive testimonials and reviews to your website from people who are thrilled with the results they’ve obtained by using your services is essential for creating a solid online business reputation.
Consumer reviews and testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both in a positive or negative way.
People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could post damaging words on Facebook, or a discussion group or forum about a bad encounter they’ve just had with you or 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 a vitally important aspect of your online business success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need to worry about it) could be harming your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective tool for WordPress users that can help you avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your business through effective customer review management:
Improving Your Conversions With Engaging Client Testimonials – Useful Tips
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing strategy. When you include responses from users in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly what problems and pains your products and services can solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help potential customers identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.
Below are some practical tips on how to create awesome testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: 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.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are far more powerful and memorable than simply providing statistical facts. Being able 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 generalized statements about how “excellent” the customer support has been and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: It’s good to add testimonials to your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help you 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 retails for before posting your product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are truly 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 find more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for growing our revenue by $34,858 in the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ software has helped us grow our business?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales or reduce their costs 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 customer testimonials on your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial everywhere on your site. Depending on your business, you could try to obtain more customer 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 best customer: 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 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 publishes fantastic feedback on your Facebook page praising your solution, ask them permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Never use fake client testimonials. Most people can see through sites that employ copywriters to produce their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential clients need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Clients
Ask
When you complete a service for someone, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Here are some useful guidelines for requesting testimonials:
- Contact your clients after 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after completing your service.
- Add a text box for entering testimonials in all client satisfaction surveys.
- Take 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 wouldn’t mind recording a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and record their positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy for them. Whenever a client sends 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 best sections (only use what they have written – never put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. 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 Post A Link Back To The Source
Offer to publish a link back to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive for clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake 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 autoresponder mailouts. Preferably, this should be done after your clients have had a chance to assess the effect of using your services. 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 to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product 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 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 for permission to reprint it on your site (and offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Page
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “more client testimonials …” link pointing to this section throughout your site.
Tip: You can measure how useful 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 understanding what visitors are doing on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics technology you can add to your site to measure visitor behavior here:
WordPress Testimonial Plugins
If your website or blog is powered by 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 feedback and testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (make sure to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), all you have to do is refer users to your “Testimonials” section.
Check out the testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add user testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into posts and pages using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you add a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which can be used for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
Easy Testimonials also can be upgraded to a “pro” version that has additional features and developer support.
To learn more about the plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your WordPress site. You can insert testimonials using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.
The Testimonials Widget plugin provides additional features via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and developer support.
To download and use the plugin, visit this site:
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.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.
Visit this site to download and use this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Customer reviews and testimonials are great sources of content that help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing customers, and publish positive content about your business on your website or blog.
Additional Info
For additional sources of information and resources on creating engaging clients 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 teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!
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