Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? As most business owners know, that finding new ways of generating new customers can be difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat takes a lot of your time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.
In today’s online and social-driven economy, it’s foolish to ignore the significance of what potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Ignoring what users may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a great disservice if you are not promoting the positive things your clients say about your services and products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content.
In this article, we’ll show you ways to improve your visitor-to-sales conversions using sales boosting client testimonials.
User Reviews And Testimonials
The great, legendary showman and successful promoter P.T. Barnum once 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 promoting your business. Quoting testimonials from your satisfied clients is satisfied customers are far more persuasive for attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … customer reviews and testimonials!
Customer reviews and testimonials are a great way to build credibility for your services and products.
Studies conducted by many leading marketing research firms all point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding consumer reviews and testimonials to your sales pages reduces doubts potential customers may have about buying your product, helps users select products and helps increase the number of sales.
Below are just some of the stats available to support this:
- According to research findings 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 user reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Website 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).
(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Customer Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding reviews and testimonials to your site from people who are thrilled with your products or services is essential for growing your business online.
Reviews and customer testimonials, however, can work both ways and affect 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 about a bad encounter they’ve just had with you or your business 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 an essential part of your success strategy.
Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need it) may be seriously harming your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a simple WordPress plugin that can help you avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your products through effective user review management:
Tips For Creating User Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included in your content marketing. When you quote your own user responses in your content, you:
- Show others exactly what pains and problems your products and services can help to solve for them and how easily it can do this.
- Help visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and this facilitates the sales process.
Below are some tips on how to create customer testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try using your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: Marketing tests show 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 your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are much more effective and captivating than simply providing statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” your customer service was and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: It’s good to add testimonials in your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind if you were to present a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting price information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly thrilled about your support before offering a risk-free guarantee or providing content that helps readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful… “As a direct result of using your XYZ product, we have noticed our revenue grow by $18,899 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ product definitely 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, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Vary the client testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out or have very few clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site’s pages. Depending on your business, you could try to obtain more client 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 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 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 someone publishes a great comment on your Facebook page praising your customer service, ask them permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Only use real testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to create content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential customers need to believe that the testimonials displayed on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Clients
Always Ask For Testimonials
Getting a testimonial from a happy customer can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some tips for requesting testimonials:
- Contact your clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 30 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 all your client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next visit a client or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for the client and try to capture the client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. When clients send you positive written feedback that contains snippets of useful testimonial material interspersed with the rest of their message, grab the juiciest sections (only use what they have written – don’t put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this to save them time and invite them to modify what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To Their Site
Offer to post a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes the 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 list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in one of your newsletter mailouts. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your clients have had a chance to use your products. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them for feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you solicit testimonials for your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (you can offer to publish a link back to their profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “read more customer testimonials …” link to your main testimonials section wherever you plan to display blocks of testimonials on your site.
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. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to monitoring what visitors are doing on your pages.
We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your site to track visitor behaviour here:
Using Testimonial Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms to your pages inviting users to submit testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (remember to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then refer users to your “Testimonials” section.
Check out the testimonial 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 publish a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which is great to add a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.
Easy Testimonials also can be upgraded to a “pro” version that offers additional features and technical support.
Go here to download and use this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your blog. 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 Testimonials Widget plugin has plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in functions for better search engine results and technical support.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium WordPress plugin that offers plenty of 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. 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:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
User reviews and 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from your customers, and start publishing these on your website.
Resources
The articles below provide useful information on creating effective 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
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