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 disappointing results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that trying to generate new business can be hard. Just trying to keep your business afloat 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 web-based and social media-driven economy, ignoring what your customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what your customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
You may also be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t publish the positive things your clients say about your products and services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content.
In this article, you’ll discover how to improve your conversions with sales boosting client testimonials.
User Reviews
Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, the great, legendary businessman and showman, is often quoted as having stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine testimonials from existing customers are far more persuasive for attracting new customers than anything you can 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 … testimonials and reviews from your clients!
Testimonials and consumer reviews are fantastic for building credibility for your services and products.
Research conducted by many leading marketing companies all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: user reviews and testimonials help to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about purchasing a product, help with product selection and increases sales conversions.
Here are just some statistics that 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 site if it has ratings and consumer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, user reviews can result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Web site visitors who interact with both customer 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).
(Source: eConsultancy.com)
Adding Consumer Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation
Adding great testimonials and reviews to your site from customers who are thrilled with the results they’ve obtained by using your products or services is important for growing your business online and creating a solid online reputation.
Reviews and testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can 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 be posting negative comments on Facebook about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had with your services and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes a vital aspect of your online success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, 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 harming your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a simple plugin for WordPress users that can help to avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business through effective user review management:
Creating Compelling Testimonials – Useful Tips
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of marketing your products and services online and should be added to your content. When you quote your own customer responses in your content, you:
- Show others exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help site visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.
Below are some practical tips on creating meaningful testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try to use your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention on a web page. Adding client photos 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 much more effective 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 longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about excellent customer support and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: It’s good to add testimonials in your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these 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 add a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting your service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are genuinely ecstatic about your customer service when offering guarantees or providing content that helps readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “Since installing your XYZ software, we have seen a profit growth of $42,227 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ product helped us grow our business?” 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 of work you have helped them save, 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 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 using the same testimonial everywhere on your web pages. Depending on the nature of 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 best customer: 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 targeted to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If you get fantastic feedback on your Facebook page praising your products or services, send them a message asking for their permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
- Only use genuine testimonials. Your potential clients need to believe that the testimonials published on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Customers
Just 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 soliciting testimonials:
- Contact clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after completing a service.
- Add a field for testimonials in your client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next visit clients or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a short video testimonial/feedback interview. During your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for the client and try to capture your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write it for them. Whenever 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 shape these into a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have done this to save them time and invite them to change what you have written however they see fit 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 a great incentive to get clients providing you with a testimonial. It also makes the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.
Include A Testimonial Request In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in a regularly-spaced auto responder message. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to assess the effect of using your product, service or solution. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them for feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to request testimonials that become part of your profile. 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 positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (and offer to add a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Page
Create a new page for testimonials and add a “more client testimonials …” link to this section throughout your content sections.
Practical Tip: You can measure how useful testimonials are by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for measuring visitor behavior on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics technology you can add to your site to analyze visitor behaviour here:
WordPress Plugins
If your site or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages inviting users to submit testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you then refer customers to your “Testimonials” section.
Here are a few useful 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 posts and pages 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 to add a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also comes with a “pro” version that offers additional features and plugin support.
To download and use this plugin, visit this site:
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 site. You can insert testimonials via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.
Testimonials Widget offers a range of additional features via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and plugin support.
Visit this site for more information about this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium plugin that offers a range of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
- Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.
To download and use this plugin, go here:
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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from your clients or customers, and publish positive content about your business on your website.
Resources
The articles below are a great source of information about creating engaging 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
We also recommend subscribing to our Free Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
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