Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, only to get the exact same results? As most small business owners know, that finding effective ways of generating new business can be quite hard and frustrating. Just trying to survive in business 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 digital, mobile and social-driven economy, it’s foolish to ignore the significance of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.
Don’t ignore what consumers may be saying online about your business!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a great disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your clients are saying about your products or services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be included as part of your content.
In this article, we’ll show you tips for turning more visitors into prospects using standout user testimonials.
Testimonials And Customer Reviews
Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, the great, legendary showman and businessman, once said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-driven content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Testimonials and reviews from your existing customers are far more persuasive for drawing new clients, customers or users than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is a source of untapped business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … testimonials and reviews from your satisfied customers!
Testimonials and consumer reviews are great for building credibility for your business.
Marketing studies conducted by many leading firms all point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding reviews and customer testimonials to your sales pages reduces doubts potential customers may have about your products or services, helps with product selection and helps increase conversions of visitors into sales.
Here are just some statistics that support this:
- According to research 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 reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, reviews can result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Web site visitors who interact with both user 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).
- 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).
(The figures above were sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding User Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Clearly, you should be adding reviews and testimonials from happy clients to your site.
Testimonials and customer reviews, however, can work both ways and 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 about a bad experience they’ve just had using your products 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 important to your success.
Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need to worry about it) could be seriously harming your business without you even being aware of this.
See this article to learn more about a WordPress plugin that lets you legally and ethically manage customer feedback:
Tips On Improving Your Conversions With Compelling Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful ways of marketing your products and services online and should be included in your content marketing strategy. When you include your own customer responses in your content, you:
- Show others exactly what pains and problems your products and services can solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help site visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them closer to a buying decision.
Below are some tips on creating testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention on 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 content.
- Tell a story: Stories are so much more powerful and captivating than just providing statistical facts. The ability 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 using generalized statements about how “excellent” your support was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: Add customer testimonials in your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help you sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception if you were to insert a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are genuinely ecstatic about your support when 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 your prospects would find more powerful: “Since using your services, our sales grew by an additional $19,502 in the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ product has helped us grow our sales?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales or reduce their costs 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 on your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your website. 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 decide to use it.
- Appeal to your best 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 is a really 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, contact them privately asking for permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Only use genuine client testimonials. Prospective customers need to see that the testimonials published on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Clients
Ask
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied customer can be as simple as just asking for it.
Follow these useful tips for requesting testimonials:
- Make a point of contacting clients after 14 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after completing your service.
- Include a text box for entering testimonials in your client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next visit 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. During the video, describe to viewers what you have done for the client and make sure to capture their positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy 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 – don’t put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to use it. Explain that you have already prepared something to help them save time and let them know they are completely free to edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link To Their Site
Offer to post a link back to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an 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.
Add A Testimonial Request To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in a regularly-spaced newsletter message. Preferably, this should be done after your clients have had a chance to experience your product, service or solution. 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 product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to obtain testimonials for your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite simple and user-friendly and the person who provides 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 Testimonials Section
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “read more client testimonials …” link to this page wherever you have added single testimonials on your content sections.
Useful Tip: You can measure how effective customer testimonials are by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to monitoring visitor behavior on your pages.
We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your website to analyze visitor behaviour here:
WordPress Plugins
If your site or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms to your pages inviting users to submit feedback and testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), all you have to do is send customers to your “Testimonials” section.
Below are some great plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you publish 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 company logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also comes with a “pro” version that has additional features and plugin support.
To download this plugin, go here:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your posts and pages. You can insert user 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 makes plenty of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and plugin support.
Go here for more information about this plugin:
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 displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Display options for your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.
Go here to learn more about using the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
User reviews and client testimonials 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 your clients, and publish positive content about your business on your website.
Additional Info
For additional resources on creating engaging testimonials read the articles below:
- 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 and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful 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 completely FREE!
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