Building Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, and getting the exact same results? As most business owners know, that trying to generate new business can be hard. Just trying to survive in business takes 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!

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

You may also be doing your business a disservice if you are not boosting the positive things your clients are saying about your products and services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be used in your content.

In this article, you’ll discover tips for converting more visitors into qualified leads with highly effective customer testimonials.

User Reviews

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

There is a source of untapped opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews from your customers!

Customer testimonials and customer reviews are effective for building credibility for your products or services.

Research conducted by many marketing companies all point to the same conclusion: testimonials and user reviews help to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about buying your products or services, help users select products and increases sales.

Here are just some statistics that 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 reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews are responsible for producing 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 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 Consumer Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation

Adding testimonials and reviews to your website from people who are thrilled with the results they’ve obtained by using your services is important for helping you grow your business online and creating a solid online reputation.

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

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your products directly to you, but they could be posting unhelpful words on Facebook or a discussion group about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your employees 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 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 causing damage to your business without you even being aware of this.

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

• Easily Manage Bad Customer Feedback On WordPress With Power Online Reviews Plugin

Tips For Creating Compelling Testimonials

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be used in your content. When you include your own client responses in your content, you:

• Show other users exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
• Help potential customers identify their objections and address these.
• Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates moving them further along the sales process.

Here are some tips on improving your sales conversions with standout client testimonials:

• Avoid over-editing: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps preserve your testimonials’ authenticity.
• Use photos of real people: Research shows that using images of people’s faces will draw the most attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your content.
• Use the power of storytelling: Stories are much more powerful and memorable than providing mere statistical facts. 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 generic statements about how “excellent” your support was and giving “two thumbs up” service 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 they can most effectively help you sell your point. Think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception if you were to insert a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are truly ecstatic about your customer service before 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 is more powerful: “Since using XYZ product, we have seen our revenue increase by $10,925 in the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution definitely 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 profits 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 customer testimonial repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out and have very few clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial everywhere on your web pages. 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 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 a very 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 best audience demographic.
• Reprint across different platforms. If someone publishes a great comment on your Facebook page praising your products or services, ask them permission to reprint the content on your site.
• Never use fake client testimonials. Your potential clients need to believe that the testimonials published on your site are real. Don’t compromise your credibility with a false testimonial.

How To Get Testimonials

Ask

Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.

Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials from your customers:

• Contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 14 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
• Add a text box for entering testimonials in your client satisfaction surveys.
• Pull out your phone next time you visit a client or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a quick video testimonial/feedback interview. During your video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and capture the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
• Make it easy 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 best sections (only use what they have given you – never put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to use it. 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 see fit before replying with their approval.

Offer To Publish A Link Back To Their Site Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial

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

Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

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

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you solicit testimonials for your account. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a 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 Customer Testimonials Section

Create a new section on your web site for client testimonials and place a “read more client testimonials …” link to this section whenever you plan to display new testimonials on your content sections.

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

We have written an article about a heatmap analytics technology you can add to your sites to analyze visitor behaviour here:

• How To Spy On Your WordPress Site Visitors Using Analytics Software – Heat Map Tracker Review

WordPress Plugins

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

Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), all you have to do is send customers to your “Testimonials” section.

Check out the plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into your pages and posts using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you publish a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which you can use to add a photo of the testimonial author, their company logo, etc.

Easy Testimonials also provides users with a “pro” version with additional features and developer support.

To download and use this plugin, go here:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your pages and posts. You can insert client testimonials via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.

Testimonials Widget offers a range of additional features via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and technical support.

Visit this site to download and use the plugin:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium WordPress plugin provides a range of great features right out of the box, including:

• Responsive design that resizes to display correctly on any device or browser.
• Display options for your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, grid layout, list layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
• Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.

For more information about this 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 Conclusion …

User reviews and client testimonials 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 your customers, and start publishing these on your site.

Resources

For additional resources about creating effective customer testimonials see these 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 actionable information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content for your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

***

***