Building Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract 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 hard. Just trying to keep your business afloat takes up a lot of time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.

In today’s digital, mobile and social media-driven economy, ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

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

By the same token, you are also doing your business a great disservice if you are not boosting the positive things your customers are saying about your solutions, user training, support, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be included in your content.

In this article, you’ll discover ways to improve your conversions using engaging user testimonials.

Testimonials And User Reviews

The great, legendary showman Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum once stated 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 testimonials and reviews from your satisfied clients is existing customers are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients than anything you have to say about your own products or services.

There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … user testimonials and reviews!

Reviews and customer testimonials are terrific for building credibility for your services and products.

Tests conducted by leading research firms all seem to lead to the same conclusion: adding customer reviews and testimonials to your sales information pages helps reduce doubts potential customers may have about purchasing products, helps users select products and increases sales.

Here are just some of the findings available to 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 consumer reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, reviews play a significant role in creating an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Web 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 user-generated content (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 – Managing Online Reputation

Clearly, you should be adding reviews and testimonials from really happy clients to your site.

Reviews and testimonials, however, can work both ways and impact your business both in a positive as well as negative manner.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could be posting updates on Facebook, or a discussion thread or forum about a bad experience they’ve just had with your services 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 vitally important to your business success.

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) may be harming your business without you even being aware of this.

See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective plugin for WordPress users that can help you avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business, products or services through effective user review management:

• Now You Can Easily Manage Negative Customer Reviews In WordPress With Power Online Reviews

Tips On Improving Your Sales Conversions With Compelling Client Testimonials

User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content. When you include your own user responses in your content, you:

• Show potential customers exactly what pains and problems your products and services can solve for them and how easily this can be done.
• Help visitors identify their objections and address these.
• Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.

Here are some practical tips on how to create client testimonials:

• Avoid over-editing: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
• Use photos of real people: Marketing tests show that using images of people’s faces will draw the attention of visitors browsing 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 powerful and memorable than simply providing 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 customer service 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 you believe these can most effectively help to sell your point. Think about the impact you can create 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 service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly thrilled about your customer service before offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
• Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would consider to be more powerful… “Since using your services, we were able to grow our profits by $68,594 during the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution helped us grow our sales?” If 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 by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours of work you have helped them save, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate during a specific period, 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 somewhat difficult when you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site’s pages. Depending on the nature of your business, 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 ideal customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become can be an extremely 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 testimonials across different platforms. If you get fantastic feedback on your Facebook page praising your customer service, ask them permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
• Only use real client testimonials. Your potential customers need to believe that the testimonials published on your site are genuine. Don’t destroy your credibility with a ”made up” testimonial.

How To Get Testimonials From Clients

Just Ask

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

Here are some tips for requesting testimonials from your clients:

• Contact clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after performing a service.
• Include a field for testimonials in all client satisfaction surveys.
• Pull out your phone next time you meet with clients or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording the video, describe to viewers what you have done for your client and try to record their positive reactions and responses.
• Make it easy for them. When a client sends you positive written feedback 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 use these to create a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have already prepared something to save them time and let them know they are completely free 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 not fake and can be verified.

Add Testimonial Requests To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder mailouts. This should be done after your clients have had a chance to measure the results of using your products or services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking users for feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to solicit testimonials that become part of your account. With LinkedIn, 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 positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (you can offer to add a link back to their profile in exchange).

Create A Customer Testimonials Section

Create a new page on your site for client testimonials and add a “more customer testimonials …” link to this section wherever you plan to display new testimonials on your site.

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 your testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to measuring visitor behavior on your site.

We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your site to observe visitor behaviour here:

• How To Predict Visitor Behavior On Your WordPress Site Using Analytics Software – Heat Map Tracker Review

Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If your website or blog is built using 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 (remember to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), all you have to do is refer customers to your “Testimonials” page.

Check out the testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add user testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The 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 company logo, etc.

The plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that has additional features and developer support.

Go here to download and use the plugin:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you randomly slide or list 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 plugin offers extra features via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and developer support.

To learn more about the plugin, go here:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium plugin offers a range 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 sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
• Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.

To download this plugin, go here:

• Testimonials WordPress 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 great sources of content that can 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 existing clients, and publish positive content about your business on your web site.

Resources

For additional resources on creating engaging users testimonials see 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 regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content that will add value to 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 completely FREE!

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