How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract new customers, and getting the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that finding new ways of generating new business can be quite hard. 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 digital, mobile and social media-driven economy, you simply can’t afford to ignore the effect of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are talking about your business.

Ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

You could be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your customers are saying about your solutions, client support, training, etc. 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 used in your content marketing strategy.

In this article, you will learn how to improve your conversions using engaging user testimonials.

Testimonials And Consumer Reviews

Legendary showman and successful promoter Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum 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-driven content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting genuine testimonials directly from satisfied customers is existing users are far more persuasive for attracting new clients than anything you 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 … reviews and testimonials from your happy customers!

Testimonials and customer reviews are a terrific way to build credibility for your business.

Studies conducted by many leading marketing firms all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: adding customer testimonials and reviews to your sales pages reduces doubts potential customers may have about purchasing your products or services, helps users select products and increases sales.

Below are just some of the stats available to 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 customer reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer 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 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

You should be adding positive reviews and testimonials from extremely satisfied clients who have experienced positive results with your business to your site.

Customer testimonials and reviews, 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 business directly to you, but they could post updates on Facebook, or a discussion group or forum about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had with your business and this could be costing you business.

This is where online reputation management becomes vitally important to your online success.

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

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

• Learn How To Manage Your Online Reputation On WordPress With Power Online Reviews Plugin

Creating Standout Testimonials – Useful Tips

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing strategy. When you quote your own user responses in your content, you:

• Show potential customers exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
• Help prospects identify and address their objections.
• Help prospects connect with their motivations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.

Here are some practical tips on creating user testimonials:

• Don’t over edit: You should try using the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep things ‘real’.
• Use real photos: It’s a proven fact that using images of people’s faces draws the attention of visitors on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
• Use the power of storytelling: Stories are so much more effective and memorable than just providing facts and statistics. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a far longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” your customer service has been and giving “two thumbs up” service 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 to sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s perception if you were to present a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting price information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are truly thrilled about your customer service before offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
• Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “Since implementing XYZ solution, we have seen an additional revenue increase of $37,856 in the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution 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 market share or reduce their costs by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours of work you have helped them save, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate in a recent financial quarter, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
• Use different customer testimonials on your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout your site. 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 can be a 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 content across different platforms. If you get great feedback on your Facebook wall praising your business, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
• Only use real client testimonials. Many people can tell if you are employing professional writers to write your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential clients need to see that the testimonials displayed on your site are real. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.

How To Get Testimonials From Your Clients

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.

Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials:

• 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.
• Add a field for entering testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
• Take out your phone next time you meet with clients or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and record the client’s positive reactions and responses.
• Make it easy for them. When a client sends you a positive email thanking you for a great service 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 – don’t put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to publish 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 Post 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 a great incentive for clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes an 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 autoresponder messages. This should be done after your clients have had a chance to measure the effect of using your services. 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 subscribers for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to request testimonials for your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation gets 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 publish a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Customer Testimonials Section On Your Site

Create a new section on your website or blog for testimonials and place a “read more testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page throughout your site.

Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of testimonials by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to observing visitor behavior on your pages.

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

• Monitoring User Behaviour On Your WordPress Site With Analytics Software – HeatMap Tracker Review

WordPress Testimonial Plugins

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

Once your plugin is installed and set up (make sure to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), all you have to do is refer customers to your “Testimonials” page.

Here are some plugins you can check out:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add client testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into your pages and posts using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you publish 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, a logo, etc.

The plugin also provides a “pro” version with additional features and developer support.

To download and use this plugin, go here:

• Easy Testimonials – WordPress Plugin

Testimonials Widget

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

Testimonials Widget makes plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and technical support.

To download the plugin, go here:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This is a premium plugin that offers many 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 slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. via a shortcode
• Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.

To download and use 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 …

Client testimonials and user reviews are powerful 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 customers, and publish positive content about your business on your web site.

Resources

The articles below provide useful information on creating engaging testimonials and were helpful in providing research and 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 show you how to drive more traffic to your website, 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 completely FREE!

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