Building Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, and getting the exact same results? As most small business owners know, that finding new ways of generating new customers can be quite difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat takes up 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, you simply can’t afford to ignore the impact of what potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Don’t ignore what users may be saying online about your business!
You could be doing your business a disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your clients say about your services or products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be included as part of your content.
In this article, you’ll discover how to achieve better results online with highly effective customer testimonials.
Customer Reviews And Testimonials
The great American showman and businessman P.T. Barnum once stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful and effective way of promoting your business. Reviews from satisfied customers are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new customers, clients or users than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is clearly a source of untapped business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews and testimonials from your users!
Customer testimonials and reviews are a fantastic way to build credibility for your products and services.
Tests conducted by leading companies all point to the same conclusion: adding consumer reviews and testimonials to your sales pages eliminates doubts potential customers may have about buying your product, helps users select products and helps increase sales.
Here are just some of the stats available to support this:
- According to research findings by eVoc Insights, a company that researches and measures user experience, “In general, 63% of users indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has ratings and customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, user reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can mean 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).
- 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 – Online Reputation Management
Adding great reviews to your site from clients who are thrilled with your services is essential for helping you grow your business online.
Customer testimonials and consumer reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both in a positive as well as negative manner.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to you, but they could post disparaging remarks 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 vital part of your online success strategy.
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 to worry about it) could be hurting your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple WordPress plugin that lets you legally and ethically manage your customer reviews:
Creating Powerful Customer Testimonials – Useful Tips
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing strategy. When you quote responses from customers in your content, you:
- Show other users exactly what problems and pains your products and services can solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help your visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and facilitate moving them closer to a buying decision.
Below are some useful tips on improving your sales conversions with standout client testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try using the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep things ‘real’.
- Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your content.
- Tell a story: Stories are far more effective and memorable than providing mere statistical facts. The ability 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 using generalized statements about excellent 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 customer testimonials to your site copy where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help 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 can be purchased for before posting product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are genuinely thrilled about your support when offering a risk-free guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “Since using XYZ solution, we grew our bottom line by an additional $89,512 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution definitely helped us grow our sales?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, like how much your solution helped to increase their market share or reduce their costs in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours they have saved, 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 on your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out and have very few clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site. 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 clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you decide to use it.
- Appeal to your ideal customer: As every infomercial featuring a celebrity endorsement, subject expert or “busy mom” knows, if you know who your ideal customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to can be 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 publishes fantastic feedback on your Facebook wall praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, ask them permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Don’t use fake client testimonials. Many people can tell if you are employing professional writers to produce your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective customers need to believe that the testimonials published on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with ”made up” testimonials.
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.
Here are some tips for requesting testimonials from your clients:
- Contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 14 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after completing your service.
- Add a text box for entering testimonials in all your client surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next meet with clients or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. During the video, explain to viewers what you have done for your client and try to capture the client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. When clients send you positive written feedback that contains snippets of useful testimonial material interspersed with the rest of their message, grab the juiciest sections (only use what they have written – never put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have already prepared something to save them time and let them know they are completely free to change what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link Back To The Source
Offer to post a link back to their website 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.
Add A Testimonial Request To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder messages. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to experience your products or services. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you solicit testimonials from other members for your profile. 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 recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (tip: offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Page
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “more customer testimonials …” link to your main testimonials page throughout your content sections.
Tip: You can measure how useful client testimonials are by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to monitoring what visitors are doing on your site.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics technology you can add to your site to track visitor behaviour here:
Useful WordPress Plugins
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 inviting users to submit reviews and testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), all you have to do is send users to your “Testimonials” section.
Check out the testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you publish a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which you can use to add a photo of the testimonial author, a company logo, etc.
The plugin also can be upgraded to a “pro” version that has additional features and developer support.
To download and use the plugin, go here:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your website. 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.
The Testimonials Widget plugin makes plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and plugin support.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium plugin that offers plenty of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Display options for your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.
To learn more about using the plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
User reviews and client testimonials are powerful 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 start publishing these on your website.
Additional Info
The articles below are a great source of information about creating engaging testimonials and were also used when researching information for sections of this article:
- 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 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. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
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