How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User 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 small business owners don’t need to be told that generating new customers can be very hard, time consuming and frustrating. Just trying to keep your business afloat requires a lot of your time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.
In today’s web-based and social media-driven economy, ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what users may be saying online about your business!
You may also be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your clients are saying about your products or services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of marketing your products and services online and should be included in your content marketing strategy.
In this article, you will learn tips for turning more visitors into prospects with sales boosting customer testimonials.
Consumer Reviews
Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, legendary American showman, is often quoted as having said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting genuine testimonials from existing customers is existing clients are far more persuasive for drawing new customers, clients or users than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is clearly an untapped source of business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … customer reviews and testimonials!
Testimonials and reviews are effective for building credibility for your services and products.
Studies conducted by leading marketing research companies all lead to the same conclusion: user reviews and testimonials reduce doubts potential customers may have about your product, help with product selection and increases sales conversions.
Here are just some statistics that support this:
- According to a study 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 site if it has ratings and reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Site visitors who interact with both consumer 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 Customer Reviews And Testimonials – Online Reputation Management
You should be adding great reviews from really happy clients who have experienced positive results with your business to your site.
Consumer reviews and customer testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both negative and positive ways.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to you, but they could have posted unhelpful feedback on Facebook, or a forum or discussion group about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your team members 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 the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) may be seriously harming your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a WordPress plugin that can help you avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your services through effective user review management:
Tips On Improving Your Sales Conversions With Profit Boosting Customer Testimonials
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. When you include your own user responses in your content, you:
- Show prospects exactly what problems and pains your products and services can solve for them and how easily it can do this.
- Help potential customers identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate moving them closer to a buying decision.
Below are some useful tips on improving your sales with captivating client testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try using the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
- Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention to your content. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are far more powerful and memorable than providing mere facts and statistics. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generalized statements about excellent support and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials to your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind if you were to add 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 your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are truly ecstatic about your support before offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “Since using your services, we were able to grow our bottom line by $60,323 in the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution 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 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.
- Avoid using the same testimonial throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout your site’s pages. 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 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 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 that appeal directly to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your customer service, send them a message asking for their permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Never use fake client testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing copy writers to produce your 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 with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials
Ask
Getting a testimonial from a happy client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials:
- Contact your customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 30 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
- Include a text box for entering testimonials in your 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 quick video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, describe to viewers what you have done for the client and try to 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 service 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 – don’t put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have done this 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 Publish A Link Back To Their Site
Offer to post a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive for clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes the 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 list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in a scheduled auto responder broadcast. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to measure the impact of using 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 clients to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to obtain testimonials that become part of your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person providing 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 Section
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “more client testimonials …” link to this section whenever you display new testimonials on your site.
Practical 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 your testimonial content. A great tool for observing what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your sites to predict visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms to your pages inviting users to submit testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you can then send users to your “Testimonials” page.
Below are some great testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you insert 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.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also comes with a “pro” version that offers additional features and plugin support.
For more information about this plugin, go here:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your 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 plugin provides extra features via a premium version, including built-in functions for improved search engine results and developer support.
To download this plugin, go here:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium plugin that provides a range 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 sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. via a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colors, font types and more.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Customer reviews and testimonials are powerful sources of content that help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for testimonials, reviews, and feedback from your clients, and start publishing these on your website or blog.
Resources
For additional sources of information and resources on creating engaging customer testimonials read these useful articles:
- 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 website, save money creating useful content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
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