Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, and getting the exact same results? As most small business owners know, that finding effective ways to generate new business can be extremely difficult. Just trying to remain in business takes up 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-driven economy, it’s foolish to ignore the effect of what potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.

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

You could be doing your business a disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your clients say about your services and products. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be included in your content marketing strategy.

In this article, you will learn tips for creating better results online with more effective user testimonials.

Testimonials And Consumer Reviews

P.T. Barnum, legendary businessman and showman, once stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting reviews from your satisfied users is existing customers are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new customers than anything you have to say about your own products or services.

There is clearly an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … client reviews and testimonials!

Customer testimonials and user reviews are effective for building credibility for your business.

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

Below are just some of the findings available to support this:

• According to research by eVoc Insights, an organization 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 consumer reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can mean 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 UGC. (Bazaarvoice, Conversation Index, Q2 2011).
• Customer 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 Client Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation

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

User reviews and testimonials, however, can work both ways and impact your business both in a negative or positive way.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to your face, but they could have posted negative comments on a forum 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 a vitally important aspect of your online business success.

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 causing damage to your business without you even being aware of it.

See this article to learn more about a simple WordPress plugin that can help to avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your services through effective user review management:

• How To Easily Manage Bad Client Feedback On WordPress With Power Online Reviews Plugin

Tips For Creating Testimonials

User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be included as part of your content. When you quote your own user responses in your content, you:

• Show others exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
• Help your visitors identify their objections and address these.
• Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a buying decision.

Here are some tips on how to create user testimonials:

• Avoid over-editing: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps to keep it ‘real’.
• Use real photos: It’s a proven fact 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 site’s content.
• Tell a powerful story: Stories are so much more powerful and captivating than just providing statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a far longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” the support was and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
• Keep it in context: Add testimonials in your web content 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 can create on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting price information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your support before offering a risk-free guarantee or addressing objections.
• Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our net profit by $68,172 in the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ product definitely helped us grow our business?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, 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.
• Vary the customer testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out and have very few clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout your web pages. Depending on your business, you could try to obtain more testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special launch discount for 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 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 ideal customers.
• Reprint across different platforms. If you get fantastic feedback on your Facebook wall praising your products or services, contact them privately asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
• Only use genuine client testimonials. Your prospects need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity with a false testimonial.

How To Get Client Testimonials

Ask

If you have just completed 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 tips for requesting testimonials:

• 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 your service.
• Add a text box for testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
• Take out your phone when you next meet with 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. When recording your video, describe to viewers what you have done for the client and capture their positive reactions and responses.
• Make it easy and write it for them. If 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 – never put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact the 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 modify what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Publish A Link To The Source Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial

Offer to publish a link to their site 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.

Add Testimonial Requests To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

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

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to solicit testimonials from other members 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 (tip: offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Testimonials Section

Create a new page for client testimonials and add a “read more testimonials …” link to this section whenever you plan to add small blocks of testimonials on your content sections.

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 measuring what visitors are doing on your pages.

We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your site to monitor visitor behaviour here:

• Spy On Your WordPress Site Visitors With Heatmapping Software – Heat Map Tracker Review

Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

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 (make sure to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you can then refer users to your “Testimonials” section.

Here are some testimonial plugins you can check out:

Easy Testimonials

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

The plugin also comes with a “pro” version that has additional features and technical support.

Visit this site to download the plugin:

• Easy Testimonials – WordPress Plugin

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 web site. 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.

Testimonials Widget has loads more features available via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and plugin support.

To download and use this plugin, visit this site:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

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

To learn more about the plugin, go here:

• Testimonials WordPress Plugin

To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Conclusion …

User reviews and testimonials are powerful sources of content that 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 or clients, and publish positive content about your business on your site.

Additional Info

The articles below provide useful information on creating engaging users testimonials and were also 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

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