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? As most business owners know, that finding effective ways to generate new business can be 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-driven economy, it’s foolish to ignore the significance of what potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.
Ignoring what users may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a great disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your customers say about your products, services, client support, etc. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing strategy.
In this article, we’ll show you how to improve your visitor-to-lead conversions with standout user testimonials.
User Reviews And Testimonials
Legendary businessman and showman P.T. Barnum is often quoted as having said 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 from existing clients are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new clients than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews and testimonials from happy customers!
Testimonials and customer reviews are fantastic for building credibility for your services and products.
Marketing studies conducted by many leading companies all seem to lead to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews decrease doubts potential customers may have about purchasing products or services, help users select products and help increase the number of product sales.
Below are just some of the stats available to support this:
- According to a study 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 reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews play a significant role in creating 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 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 – Online Reputation Management
Adding reviews to your site from people who are thrilled with the results they’ve obtained by using your services is important for helping you grow your business and creating a solid online reputation.
Testimonials and reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both negative and positive ways.
People may not be saying bad things about your products directly to you, but they could post damaging words on Facebook, or a discussion thread or forum about an unpleasant 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 important to your online business success.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need to worry about it) could be seriously causing damage to your business without you even realizing it.
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 services through effective customer review management:
Tips On How To Create Client Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing. When you include your own customer responses in your content, you:
- Show prospects exactly what pains and problems your products and services can solve for them and how easily it can do this.
- Help visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them closer to a decision to purchase.
Here are some practical tips on how to create engaging testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps preserve the authenticity of your testimonials.
- Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention to your content. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are so much more effective and memorable than simply providing statistical facts. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a far more lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about excellent customer service and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials to your site copy where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help to sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting your pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before talking about the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are genuinely ecstatic about your customer service before offering a risk-free guarantee or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our net profit by $79,607 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution definitely helped us grow our business?” Whenever 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 they have saved, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate in a recent period, 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 when you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout your website. 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 existing clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you decide 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 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 you get a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your products or services, contact them privately asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Only use genuine client testimonials. Prospective clients need to believe that the testimonials displayed on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity with false testimonials.
How To Get Customer Testimonials
Always Ask For Testimonials
If you have just completed 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 tips for soliciting testimonials:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact clients after 90 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after performing a service.
- Include a field for testimonials in your client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you visit clients or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording your video, describe to your viewers what you have done for the client and try to capture your client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write it for them. If clients send you a positive email thanking you for a great job 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 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 save them 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 Back To The Source
Offer to publish a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake 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 regularly-spaced email broadcast. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to assess the results of using your product, service or solution. Use words like “I need your help” 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 review of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to request testimonials for your account. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite 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 website (you can offer to publish a link back to their profile in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Page
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “read more testimonials …” link pointing to this page whenever you plan to display new testimonials on your content sections.
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 the testimonial content. A great tool for understanding what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics technology you can add to your site to understand visitor behaviour here:
Using Testimonial Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to 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 (remember to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you then send clients to your “Testimonials” section.
Here are some plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add client testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into a Page or Post using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you publish a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which you can use to add a photo of the testimonial author, their business logo, etc.
Easy Testimonials also provides a “pro” version that offers additional features and plugin support.
Go here to download the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your web site. You can insert testimonials content using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
The Testimonials Widget plugin has plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in options for better search engine results and developer support.
For more information about using this plugin, go here:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium WP plugin provides 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. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.
To download the plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
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 testimonials, reviews, and feedback from your customers, and publish positive content about your business on your website.
Resources
For additional resources on creating engaging users testimonials read 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, 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 100% FREE!
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