Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck 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 trying to generate new business can be extremely hard. Just trying to keep your business afloat takes up a lot of your 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 your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
You may also be doing your business a disservice if you are not promoting the positive things your customers are saying about your services and products. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content.
In this article, you’ll learn how to achieve better results online using knockout user testimonials.
Testimonials And Consumer Reviews
Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum, legendary American showman and businessman, 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 and effective way of getting your business promoted. Genuine reviews from your satisfied users are far more persuasive for attracting new customers than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is clearly an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … customer testimonials and reviews!
Customer testimonials and customer reviews are a powerful way to build credibility for your services and products.
Studies conducted by leading research companies all seem to point to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews reduce doubts potential customers may have about buying particular products, help with product selection and help increase sales conversions.
Here are just some of the findings available to support this:
- According to a study 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 web site if it has ratings and customer 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 translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Website visitors who interact with both consumer 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 Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
You should be adding great reviews and testimonials from happy customers to your site.
Testimonials and reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both negatively or positively.
People may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could have posted disparaging remarks on Facebook, or a forum or discussion group about a bad encounter they’ve just had with one of your employees and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes an integral part of your online success strategy.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need to worry about it) may be seriously harming your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective tool for WordPress users that can help you avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your products through effective user review management:
Tips On Improving Your Conversions With Testimonials
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 included in your content marketing. When you quote your own client responses in your content, you:
- Show others exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help your visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates moving them further along the sales process.
Here are some tips on creating testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: It’s a proven fact that using images of people’s faces will draw the attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are so much more effective and captivating than providing mere 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 presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” your support was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add testimonials in your web content 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 can create on your visitor’s mind if you were to insert a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are genuinely thrilled about your support before offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping us grow our profits by $22,707 during the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution has helped us grow our business?” 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 they have saved, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate, 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 have very few 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 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 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 aspire to become can be a really 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 content across different platforms. If you get fantastic feedback on your Facebook page praising your business, send them a message asking for their permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Never use fake client testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to write their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential customers need to believe that the testimonials you provide on your site are real. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Customers
Just Ask
Getting a testimonial from a happy client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials from your clients:
- Contact your clients after 30 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after completing your service.
- Add a text box for entering testimonials in all client surveys.
- Take out your phone next time you visit clients or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a very quick video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and record your client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy for them. Whenever 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 juiciest 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 publish it. Explain that you have done this to help them save time and let them know they are completely free to change what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link To Their Site
Offer to publish a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get 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 a request for a testimonial in one of your newsletter broadcasts. This should be done as soon as your clients have had a chance to experience your services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking customers for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you solicit testimonials from other members for your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your site (and offer to add a link back to their profile in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Section
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “read more client testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page throughout your content sections.
Practical 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 your testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to monitoring visitor behaviour on your pages.
We have written an article about a heatmap software you can add to your site to predict visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins
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 testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you then send users to your “Testimonials” page.
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 a Page or Post using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you add a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which can be used for adding a photo of the testimonial author, a company logo, etc.
The plugin also can be upgraded to a “pro” version that has additional features and technical support.
To download the plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your posts and pages. You can insert client testimonials using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
The plugin offers added features via a premium version, including built-in functions for improved search engine results and developer support.
To download and use the plugin, go here:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin provides many great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying 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 at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.
Visit this site to download and use this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Customer reviews and client testimonials are great sources of content that can help your business in terms of adding credibility, building authority, improving online reputation, and growing your sales funnel. Always ask for feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing customers, and start publishing these on your website.
Resources
The articles below provide useful information on creating effective users testimonials and were 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 useful content for your site 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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