How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract new customers, and getting the exact same results? As most business owners know, that finding new ways of generating new customers can be very difficult and confusing. Just trying to keep your business afloat takes a lot of time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.

In today’s web-based economy, it’s foolish to ignore the impact of online consumer behavior, especially if they are talking about your business.

Don’t ignore what clients may be saying online about your business!

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

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

Consumer Reviews And Testimonials

P.T. Barnum, legendary American showman, 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-driven content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine reviews from existing users are far more persuasive for attracting new customers, clients or users than anything you have to say about your own products or services.

There is clearly an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … testimonials and reviews from your previous clients!

User reviews and testimonials are great for building credibility for your services and products.

Tests conducted by many leading research firms all seem to point to the same conclusion: user reviews and testimonials help decrease doubts potential customers may have about products or services that you are trying to sell, help users select products and increases the number of product sales.

Below are just some of the findings available to support this:

• According to research 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 customer reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, user reviews play a significant role in creating an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Website visitors who interact with both customer 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 User Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management

Adding reviews to your site from satisfied clients is important for helping you grow your business and creating a solid online reputation.

Customer testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and impact your business both negative and positive ways.

People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could post disparaging remarks on Facebook, or a forum or discussion group 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 a significant part of your business and content marketing strategy.

Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need to worry about it) may be seriously hurting your business without you even being aware of it.

See this article to learn more about a simple WordPress plugin that can help to avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your products through effective customer review management:

• Managing Negative User Reviews With Power Online Reviews Plugin For WordPress

Tips On How To Create Customer Testimonials

User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing. When you include your own client responses in your content, you:

• Show others exactly what pains and problems your products and services can solve for them and how easily it can do this.
• Help your visitors identify their objections and address these.
• Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates the sales process.

Here are some tips on how to create customer testimonials:

• Don’t over edit: Try to use your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep things ‘real’.
• Use photos: 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 increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
• Use the power of storytelling: Stories are far more powerful and captivating than providing mere statistical facts. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a far more lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about excellent customer support and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
• Keep it in context: Add customer testimonials in your web content where it makes the most sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help to sell your point. Think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting your product or service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are truly ecstatic about your support when offering a risk-free guarantee or providing content designed to help your readers overcome their objections.
• Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would consider to be more powerful… “As a direct result of installing XYZ software, our profits grew by $37,162 during the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution has 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 they have saved, 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.
• Vary the client testimonials on your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site. 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 discount for clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you choose to use it.
• Appeal to your best customer: 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 can relate to is a 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 ideal customers.
• Reprint content across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook page praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, ask them permission to reprint the content on your blog.
• Never use fake client testimonials. Your prospects need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with a false testimonial.

How To Get Client Testimonials

Ask

When you complete a service for someone, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.

Follow these tips for requesting testimonials from clients:

• Make it a part of your business processes to 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 your client satisfaction surveys.
• Pull 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 brief video testimonial/feedback interview. During your video, explain to viewers what you have done for your client and record their positive reactions and responses.
• Make it easy and write it for them. When clients send 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 given you – don’t 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 save them 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 Publish Their Testimonial

Offer to publish a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.

Add A Testimonial Request To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder broadcasts. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to assess the results of using your products. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking subscribers for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to solicit testimonials that become part of your account. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is 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 site (you can offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Testimonials Section

Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “more testimonials …” link to this page throughout your site.

Useful Tip: You can measure how effective customer 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 observing visitor behavior on your pages are “heatmaps”.

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

• How To Spy On Your WordPress Site Users Using Heat Mapping Tools – HeatMap Tracker Review

Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages inviting users to submit testimonials.

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

Below are some plugins you can check out:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free WP plugin that lets you add customer testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you publish a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which is great to add a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.

The plugin also comes with a “pro” version that offers additional features and developer support.

To download the plugin, visit this site:

• Easy Testimonials – WordPress Testimonials 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 blog. 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 has loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options for better search engine results and technical support.

Visit this site to download this plugin:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium WP plugin provides many 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 sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. by adding 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 colours, font types and more.

For more information about the plugin, visit this site:

• Testimonials Plugin

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

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Summary …

Customer reviews and testimonials are great 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, and start publishing these on your website.

Resources

For additional sources of information and resources on creating effective customer testimonials refer to 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 easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your 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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