Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, and getting the exact same results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that finding new ways of generating new business can be very difficult. Just trying to stay in business 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 online economy, ignoring what consumers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what clients may be saying online about your business!
By the same token, you could be doing your business a disservice if you are not boosting the positive things your customers say about your services or products. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective 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 tips for converting more visitors into prospects with sales boosting user testimonials.
Testimonials And User Reviews
P.T. Barnum, the great, legendary showman and businessman, is often quoted as having stated 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 promoting your business. Genuine testimonials from your existing customers are far more persuasive for drawing new customers, clients or users than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … client testimonials and reviews!
Reviews and customer testimonials are a powerful way to build credibility for your services or products.
Studies conducted by leading firms all seem to lead to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews decrease doubts potential customers may have about buying your products or services, help users select products and help increase conversions of visitors into sales.
Here are just some findings that support this:
- According to a study 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 web site if it has ratings and customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Website 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).
(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Customer Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
You should be adding positive reviews from really happy clients who have experienced positive results with your business to your website.
Customer reviews and customer testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both positive and negative ways.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could post negative comments on Facebook, or a forum or discussion group about a bad encounter they’ve just had with one of your staff 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 significant part of your online success strategy.
Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need to worry about it) may be hurting your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple plugin for WordPress users that allows you to legally and ethically manage your customer feedback:
Tips For Creating Meaningful Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing. When you quote your own client responses in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help prospects identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.
Below are some useful tips on improving your sales with client testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep things ‘real’.
- Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your content.
- Tell a story: Stories are much more effective and captivating 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 longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” the service was 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 web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s perception if you were to present a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting your product or service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are truly thrilled about your support when offering guarantees or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping us grow our bottom line by $80,488 during the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution 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 by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours of work they have saved, 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.
- Use different customer testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out and have very few clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial throughout your website. Depending on the type of business you run, you could try to obtain more client 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 choose 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 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 testimonials across different platforms. If someone publishes a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your customer service, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
- Only use genuine testimonials. Most 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 provided on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity with false testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Clients
Ask
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Follow these tips for requesting testimonials:
- Contact your clients after 90 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing your service.
- Include a field for testimonials in your client satisfaction surveys.
- Take out your phone next time you visit clients or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording the video, describe to viewers what you have done for the client and try to capture their positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy for them. If 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 – 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 help them save time and let them know they are completely free to edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To Their Site Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to add a link to their site 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.
Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in a scheduled email message. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your clients have had a chance to experience your services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in the subject of your email and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you request testimonials from other members for your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite simple and user-friendly and the person providing 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 profile in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Page On Your Site
Create a new page on your web site for customer testimonials and add a “more customer testimonials …” link pointing to this section throughout your content sections.
Useful 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 monitoring visitor behaviour on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap technology you can add to your site to analyze 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 a form to your pages where users can submit feedback and testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (remember to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), all you have to do is refer users to your “Testimonials” section.
Below are some great plugins you can check out:
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. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you publish a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which is great for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also can be upgraded to a “pro” version with additional features and plugin support.
Visit this site to download the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free 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.
Testimonials Widget makes plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and developer support.
To learn more about using this plugin, go here:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin offers a range of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.
To download the plugin, go here:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Client testimonials and user reviews 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 customers or clients, and start publishing these on your web site.
Resources
For additional sources of information and resources about creating engaging testimonials see 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 teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!
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