Building Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews

Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, only to get the exact same results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that finding new ways of generating new business can be hard. 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, ignoring what your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

Ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

You could be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your clients say about your products and services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content.

In this article, you will learn ways to improve your visitor-to-lead conversions using highly effective client testimonials.

Testimonials And Customer Reviews

Legendary American businessman and showman Phineas Taylor 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 way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting genuine testimonials and reviews from your existing clients is existing clients are far more persuasive for drawing new customers than anything you can 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 … reviews and testimonials from happy customers!

Consumer reviews and customer testimonials are great for building credibility for your business.

Tests conducted by leading research firms all lead to the same conclusion: adding customer reviews and customer testimonials to your sales information pages reduces doubts potential customers may have about products and services, helps with product selection and increases sales.

Here are just some statistics that support this:

• According to research 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 result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Website visitors who interact with both user 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).

(Source: eConsultancy.com)

Adding Customer Reviews And Testimonials – Online Reputation Management

You should be adding great testimonials and reviews from really happy clients who have experienced positive results with your business to your website.

User reviews and testimonials, however, can work both ways and affect your business both negative and positive 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 discussion group about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your representatives 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 aspect of your business success.

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) could be seriously causing damage to your business without you even being aware of this.

See this article to learn more about a simple tool for WordPress users that allows you to legally and ethically manage customer feedback:

• Now You Can Manage Your Online Reputation In WordPress With Power Online Reviews Plugin

Tips For Creating Testimonials

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included in your content marketing strategy. When you quote responses from clients in your content, you:

• Show potential customers exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help to solve for them and how easily it can do this.
• Help visitors identify and address their objections.
• Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them closer to a buying decision.

Here are some useful tips on creating sales boosting testimonials:

• Avoid over-editing: You should try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep it ‘real’.
• Use photos of real people: 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 much more effective and memorable than simply providing facts and statistics. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a more lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” your customer service has been and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
• Use it in context: Add customer testimonials in your web content where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help to sell your point. 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 pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are genuinely thrilled about your customer service before offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
• Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “As a direct result of using XYZ product, we have seen a revenue increase of $99,204 during the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ product has 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 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.
• Use different testimonials on your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out or have very few clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your website. Depending on the type of business you run, you could try to obtain more customer 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 target audience: As every infomercial featuring a celebrity endorsement, subject expert or “busy mom” knows, if you know who your best customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become is an extremely 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 ideal customers.
• Reprint content across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook page praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, contact them privately asking for permission to reprint the content on your blog.
• Never use fake client testimonials. Your potential customers need to see that the testimonials displayed on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity with false testimonials.

How To Get Testimonials

Ask For Testimonials

Getting a testimonial from a happy customer can be as simple as just asking for it.

Here are some useful tips for requesting testimonials from your customers:

• Contact your clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 60 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
• Include a field for entering testimonials in all your client surveys.
• Take out your phone when you next meet with clients 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 short video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, describe to viewers what you have done for the client and capture the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
• Make it easy and write it for them. Whenever 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 written – don’t 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 invite them to modify what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.

Offer To Post A Link Back To The Source

Offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive for clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.

Add Testimonial Requests To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in a regularly-spaced newsletter broadcast. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to experience your products. 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 customers for feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you obtain testimonials for your account. With LinkedIn, 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 positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (you can offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Testimonials Page

Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “read more testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials section wherever you are displaying blocks of testimonials on your site.

Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your user testimonials 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 measuring visitor behaviour on your pages.

We have written an article about a heatmap analytics software you can add to your site to measure visitor behavior here:

• How To Spy On Your WordPress Site Visitors With Analytics Software – HeatMapTracker Review

Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms to your pages inviting users to submit reviews and testimonials.

Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), all you have to do is refer users to your “Testimonials” page.

Check out the testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free WP plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into posts and pages using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you add a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which can be used for adding a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.

Easy Testimonials also can be upgraded to a “pro” version with additional features and developer support.

To download and use the plugin, visit this site:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free 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 via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.

The plugin has plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in options for improved search engine results and developer support.

Visit this site to download and use the plugin:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This is a premium WP plugin that offers many great features right out of the box, including:

• Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
• Display options for 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 the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.

Go here to download and use this plugin:

• Testimonials Plugin

To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Conclusion …

Client testimonials and customer reviews 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 existing customers or clients, and start publishing these on your website.

Additional Info

For additional resources about creating effective 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will teach exactly 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 completely FREE!

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