Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract new customers, and getting the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that finding effective ways to generate new business can be quite 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 and social media-driven economy, ignoring what consumers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what your customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you may also be doing your business a disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your clients are saying about your services or products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful 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, we’ll show you how to achieve better results online using powerful user testimonials.
Client Reviews
Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum, legendary businessman and showman, once 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 getting your business promoted. Quoting testimonials and reviews from existing customers is satisfied customers are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new customers, clients or users than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is clearly a source of untapped business growth potential that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews from your previous clients!
User reviews and testimonials are fantastic for building credibility for your services or products.
Tests conducted by leading research companies all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: adding customer testimonials and reviews to your site eliminates doubts potential customers may have about products or services, helps users select products and helps increase sales.
Here are just some of the statistics available to support this:
- According to research 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 site if it has ratings and reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- 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 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 Client Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation
You should be adding great reviews and testimonials from clients to your site.
Customer reviews and testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both positively and negatively.
People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could post disparaging remarks on Facebook or a discussion group about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had with your services and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes a vital aspect of your 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) may be causing damage to your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a tool for WordPress users that can help to avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business through effective user review management:
Improving Your Sales Conversions With Testimonials – Useful Tips
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing strategy. When you quote your own user responses in your content, you:
- Show others exactly what pains and problems your products and services can help solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help potential customers identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them closer to a buying decision.
Below are some practical tips on improving your sales conversions with powerful testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep things ‘real’.
- Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are so much more powerful and captivating than just 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 presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” your service has been and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials in your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help you sell your point. Think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception if you were to add a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting your price information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are truly ecstatic about your customer service when offering a risk-free guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our revenue by $33,846 during the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ software definitely 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 by 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 period, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Avoid using the same testimonial throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out or have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your website. 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 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 target audience is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to is a very powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials that speak directly to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your customer service, ask them for permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Only use real testimonials. Most people can see through sites that employ copywriters to write content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential customers need to believe that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with a false testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Clients
Ask
When you complete performing a service, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Follow these useful guidelines for requesting testimonials:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact clients after 30 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing your service.
- Include a text box for entering testimonials in all client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you meet with a client or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording your video, explain to viewers what you have done for your client and capture the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write it for them. When 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 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 done this to help them save time and let them know they are completely free to edit what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To Their Site
Offer to post a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an 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.
Include A Testimonial Request In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in a periodic newsletter broadcast. 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 the subject of your message and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking clients for feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to request testimonials from other members that become part of your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (tip: offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Section
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “more client testimonials …” link to this page throughout your content sections.
Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your testimonials by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for observing what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your website to analyze visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms to your pages where users can submit feedback and testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then send customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free 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 add a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.
Easy Testimonials also provides a “pro” version that has additional features and developer support.
To learn more about using the plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your blog. You can insert customer testimonials using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
Testimonials Widget provides additional features via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and technical support.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium WordPress plugin offers plenty 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, customized font and background colors, font types and more.
To learn more about the plugin, go here:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Client testimonials and customer reviews are powerful sources of content that can help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for feedback, reviews, and testimonials from your customers or clients, and publish positive content about your business on your website or blog.
Additional Info
For additional information on creating effective customer 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 web site, save money creating high-quality content for your site 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 100% FREE!
***
***
"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum