How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User 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 extremely difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat requires 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 and social media-driven economy, ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what consumers may be saying online about your business!
You may also be doing your business a disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your customers are saying about your solutions, user training, support, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be used in your content.
In this article, you’ll discover how to improve your visitor-to-sales conversions using meaningful user testimonials.
Consumer Reviews
Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, legendary showman, is often quoted as having said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Testimonials from your existing users are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new clients than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is a source of untapped opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … client reviews and testimonials!
Consumer reviews and customer testimonials are a terrific way to build credibility for your products and services.
Research conducted by leading marketing companies all lead to the same conclusion: adding user reviews and testimonials to your sales information pages helps reduce doubts potential customers may have about your products, helps with product selection and helps increase 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 web site if it has ratings and consumer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, reviews can produce 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 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 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).
(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Consumer Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Adding reviews to your website from customers is essential for creating a solid online business reputation.
Consumer reviews and customer testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both negatively and positively.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business directly to you, but they could be posting damaging comments on Facebook, or a forum or discussion thread about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had with your services 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 the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need it) could 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 lets you legally and ethically manage customer reviews:
Tips On How To Create Knockout Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, 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 strategy. When you quote your own client responses in your content, you:
- Show others exactly what problems and pains your products and services can solve for them and how easily it can do this.
- Help site visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate moving them closer to a buying decision.
Below are some practical tips on improving your sales conversions with client testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use real photos: Research shows that using images of people’s faces draws the most attention of visitors on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are much more powerful and captivating than providing mere facts and statistics. The ability 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” the service 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 in your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help you sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting your price information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are truly thrilled about your customer service before offering guarantees or providing content designed to help your readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “As a direct result of implementing XYZ software, our profits have grown by $62,817 in the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ product 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 profits or reduce their costs in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours 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.
- Use different testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site’s pages. Depending on the type of business you run, you could try to obtain more client 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 best customer 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 targeted to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint across different platforms. If you get great feedback on your Facebook page praising your business, contact them privately asking for permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Never use fake testimonials. Most people can see through sites that employ copywriters to create their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective clients need to see that the testimonials published on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Customers
Just 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 clients:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing a service.
- Include a field for entering testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
- Take 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 would be happy to record a short video testimonial/feedback interview. During your video, describe to viewers what you have done for your client and record their positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial 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 juiciest sections (only use what they have written – 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 save them 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
Offer to publish 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 real 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 newsletter broadcasts. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to assess the results of using your product, service or solution. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking users to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to solicit testimonials for your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your site (tip: offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Page
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “more client testimonials …” link to this section wherever you add single testimonials on your content sections.
Useful Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of user testimonials by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for monitoring what visitors are doing on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your website to measure visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms 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), all you have to do is refer customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add customer testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into posts and pages 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 can be used for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
The plugin also provides a “pro” version with additional features and technical support.
To download the plugin, go here:
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 website. You can insert client testimonials via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.
The Testimonials Widget plugin offers additional features via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and technical support.
Go here to download and use the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium WP plugin provides 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 sliders, slideshows, grid layout, list layout, etc. using 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 colours, font types and more.
To download this plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
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 web site.
Additional Info
For additional resources about creating effective testimonials see 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 regular training emails with actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to 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 100% FREE!
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