Building Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that finding effective ways of generating new customers can be very difficult. 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, you just can’t ignore the impact of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.
Ignoring what your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
You are also doing your business a great disservice if you don’t publish the positive things your customers say about your services and products. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be added to your content.
In this article, you will learn how to improve your sales conversions with standout user testimonials.
Testimonials And User Reviews
Legendary American showman and successful promoter Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum once said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-driven content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine reviews from existing customers are far more persuasive for attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is clearly an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews and testimonials from your customers!
Customer reviews and testimonials are a fantastic way to build credibility for your services or products.
Tests conducted by leading research companies all seem to lead to the same conclusion: adding reviews and customer testimonials to your sales pages eliminates doubts potential customers may have about products and services, helps users select products and increases the number of product sales.
Here are just some statistics that support this:
- According to a study by eVoc Insights, an organization known for researching and measuring 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, consumer reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can translate into 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 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).
(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Client Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Adding positive reviews to your website from clients who are thrilled with your products or services is important for growing your business online and creating a solid online reputation.
Reviews and testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both positive and negative ways.
People may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could have posted negative feedback on Facebook or a discussion thread 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 an important aspect of your online business success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need it) may be seriously hurting your business without you even being aware of this.
See this article to learn more about a simple tool for WordPress users that can help you avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your products through effective user review management:
Tips On How To Create Awesome Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be added to your content. When you include responses from customers in your content, you:
- Show others exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help site 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 tips on creating testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
- Use photos of real people: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are so much more effective 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 far longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about excellent customer service and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: It’s good to add testimonials in your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help you sell your point. Think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting your product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your support when offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “Since implementing your XYZ solution, we have seen our profits increase by $13,142 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ software helped us grow our business?” 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 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 in a recent financial period, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Vary the 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 displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your website. Depending on 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 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 best customer 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 that appeal directly to your ideal customers.
- 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 comment or post on your site.
- Only use real client testimonials. Prospective clients need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Customers
Ask
If you have just completed a service for someone, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Here are some tips for soliciting testimonials:
- Contact your customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing your service.
- Add a field for entering testimonials in client surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you visit clients or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. During the video, explain to viewers what you have done for the client and make sure to capture their positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write it for them. Whenever a client sends 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 shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this 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 Publish A Link Back To Their Site
Offer to add a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes the 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 a request for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder messages. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to use your product, service or 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 customers to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to obtain testimonials from other members for your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your site (once again, you can offer to add a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Section
Create a new section for testimonials and add a “more customer testimonials …” link to your main testimonials section whenever you are displaying new testimonials on your site.
Practical Tip: You can measure how effective testimonials are by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to measuring what visitors are doing on your pages.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics software you can add to your sites to predict visitor behavior here:
Useful Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages where users can submit feedback and testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (remember to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then refer users to your “Testimonials” page.
Here are a few useful testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add customer testimonials to the 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 testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
Easy Testimonials also comes with a “pro” version with additional features and plugin support.
Go here to download and use this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images 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 makes loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and technical support.
For more information about this plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium WP plugin offers plenty of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes to display correctly on any device or browser.
- Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
Go here to download and use this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Testimonials and customer 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 existing clients or customers, and start publishing these on your website.
Resources
The articles below provide useful information on creating engaging users testimonials and were also helpful in providing research and 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 exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to 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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