Building Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck in a cycle of 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. Just trying to stay in business 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 and social media-driven economy, you simply can’t afford to ignore the impact of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting comments about your business.

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

By the same token, you could be doing your business a disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your clients say about your products or services. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be included throughout your content.

In this article, we’ll show you tips for converting more visitors into qualified leads using knockout client testimonials.

Client Reviews

The great American showman Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum is often quoted as having said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Reviews quoted directly from existing customers are far more persuasive for attracting new clients than anything you can say about your own products or services.

There is clearly a source of untapped business growth potential that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … customer testimonials and reviews!

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

Tests conducted by many leading companies all seem to point to the same conclusion: user reviews and testimonials decrease doubts potential customers may have about products, help with product selection and help increase the number of sales.

Below are just some findings that support this:

• According to research findings 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 site if it has ratings and consumer reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, reviews can result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Web 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 Customer Reviews – Managing Online Reputation

Adding reviews and testimonials to your website from delighted customers is essential for helping you grow your business online.

Reviews and testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can 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 a forum about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with you or your business and this could be costing you business.

This is where online reputation management becomes a vitally important aspect of your success.

Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need it) could be hurting your business without you even realizing this.

See this article to learn more about a plugin for WordPress users that lets you legally and ethically manage user reviews:

• How To Manage Bad Customer Reviews In WordPress With Power Online Reviews

How To Create Profit Boosting User Testimonials – Useful Tips

User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing. When you include responses from clients in your content, you:

• Show prospects exactly what pains and problems your products and services can help to 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.

Below are some useful tips on improving your sales with sales boosting user testimonials:

• Don’t over edit: Try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
• Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention to your content. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
• Tell a powerful story: Stories are far more effective and captivating than simply providing statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than using generalized statements about excellent customer support and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
• Use it in context: Add testimonials in your site copy where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help you sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind if you were to display a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are truly ecstatic about your customer service when offering a money-back guarantee or providing content that helps readers overcome their objections.
• Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for growing our revenue by $25,278 in the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution has 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 profits or reduce their costs by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours they have saved, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate in a recent 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 client testimonial repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your site. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more user 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 ideal 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 an extremely powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials targeted to your ideal customers.
• Reprint across different platforms. If someone publishes fantastic feedback on your Facebook page praising your business, ask them for permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
• Never use fake testimonials. Many people can tell if you are employing copy writers to write your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your prospects need to see that the testimonials published on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with false testimonials.

How To Get Testimonials

Just 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 tips for soliciting testimonials:

• Make a point of contacting customers after 14 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
• Add a text box for testimonials in client surveys.
• Pull out your phone next time you meet with a client or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a short video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording the video, explain to viewers what you have done for your client and record their positive reactions and feedback.
• Make it easy 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 – never put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to use it. Explain that you have done this to help them save time and invite them to edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Publish A Link Back To The Source Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial

Offer to publish a link back 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 real and can be verified.

Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in one of your newsletter mailouts. Preferably, this should be done after your clients have had a chance to experience your services. 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 users to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to obtain testimonials for 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 their permission to reprint it on your site (you can offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Client Testimonials Page

Create a new page for customer testimonials and add a “more testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page wherever you are adding new testimonials on your site.

Practical Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your user testimonials by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for measuring what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.

We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your website to observe visitor behavior here:

• How To Track User Behaviour On Your WordPress Site With Heatmapping Tools – HeatMapTracker Review

Using Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

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

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

Below are some WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add testimonials to your 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 testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which you can use to add a photo of the testimonial author, a business logo, etc.

The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides a “pro” version that offers additional features and developer support.

To download and use this plugin, visit this site:

• Easy Testimonials

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 site. 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 options for improved search engine results and plugin support.

To download and use the plugin, visit this site:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium plugin offers plenty of great features right out of the box, including:

• Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
• Display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list 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 colors, font types and more.

Visit this site to download the plugin:

• Testimonials WordPress Plugin

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

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Summary …

User 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 or customers, and publish positive content about your business on your web site.

Resources

The articles below are a great source of information on creating engaging testimonials and were also used when researching 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 web site, 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 100% FREE!

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