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 disappointing results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that generating new customers can be extremely 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 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 could be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your customers are saying about your products and services. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included in your content marketing strategy.
In this article, you will learn all you need to know to achieve better results online with meaningful client testimonials.
User Reviews
The great, legendary showman and businessman Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum 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”. Using social proof as content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Reviews and testimonials from your satisfied clients are far more persuasive for drawing new customers, clients or users than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews and testimonials from their clients!
User reviews and customer testimonials are fantastic for building credibility for your services or products.
Tests conducted by many leading firms all point to the same conclusion: adding customer testimonials and reviews to your sales pages helps to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about purchasing products or solutions that you are trying to sell, helps users select products and helps increase sales.
Here are just some statistics that support this:
- According to research findings 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 site if it has ratings and user reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews can result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Site 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 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 Consumer Reviews And Testimonials – Online Reputation Management
Clearly, you should be adding positive testimonials and reviews from happy clients who have experienced positive results with your business to your website.
Customer testimonials and reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both in a negative and positive way.
People may not be saying bad things about your products directly to your face, but they could post disparaging remarks on a discussion thread about a bad experience they’ve just had using your products 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 online success.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) could be harming your business without you even being aware of this.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that allows you to legally and ethically manage customer reviews:
Tips For Creating Customer Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing strategy. When you include your own client responses in your content, you:
- Show prospects exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help prospects identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate the sales process.
Here are some tips on creating testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention to your content. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Tell a story: Stories are much more effective and memorable than just providing 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 using generic statements about how “excellent” the service was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: Add testimonials in your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help sell your point. For example, 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 pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are genuinely thrilled about your support when offering a money-back guarantee or providing content that helps your readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would find more powerful: “Since using your XYZ services, we have seen an additional sales increase of $95,054 in the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ software 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 sales or reduce their costs 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 business quarter, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Avoid using the same testimonial 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 displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your site’s pages. Depending on your business, you could try to obtain more user 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 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 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 speak directly to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If someone posts a great comment on your Facebook page praising your business, contact them privately asking for permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Only use real client testimonials. Most people can see through sites that employ copywriters to produce their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective clients need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Client Testimonials
Ask
When you complete performing a service, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials from customers:
- Make a point of contacting customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 30 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after performing a service.
- Add a field for entering testimonials in all your client surveys.
- Take out your phone next time you meet with a client or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for the client and capture their positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. If a client sends 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 given you – never 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 help them save time and let them know they are completely free to edit what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link To The Source Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to add a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes the 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 requests for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder messages. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your clients have had a chance to experience your products or services. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking clients for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to solicit testimonials from other members that become part of your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person providing 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 website or profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Page On Your Site
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “more client testimonials …” link to this page throughout your content sections.
Useful 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 the testimonial content. A great tool for monitoring visitor behavior on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap software you can add to your website to predict visitor behavior here:
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 reviews and testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you then refer users to your “Testimonials” page.
Here are some WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add user testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into your pages and posts using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you add a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which is great for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their company logo, etc.
The plugin also provides users with 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 randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos 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 Testimonials Widget plugin offers additional features via a premium version, including built-in options for better search engine results and developer support.
To learn more about using the plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium plugin that offers plenty of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. via a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.
To download and use this plugin, go here:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Client testimonials and user reviews are great 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 clients or customers, and start publishing these on your website.
Additional Info
For additional sources of information and resources on creating effective 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 show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
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