Building Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck in a cycle of 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 customers can be extremely hard and confusing. Just trying to survive in business takes 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 media-driven economy, you just can’t ignore the impact of what potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting comments about your business.

Don’t ignore what users may be saying online about your business!

By the same token, you are also doing your business a great disservice if you are not boosting the positive things your customers are saying about your products, solutions, user support, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content.

In this article, you’ll learn how to turn more visitors into qualified leads with captivating user testimonials.

Customer Reviews And Testimonials

Legendary showman and successful promoter Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum is often quoted as having said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful and effective way of promoting your business. Genuine testimonials from your existing clients are far more persuasive for drawing new clients, customers or users than anything you say about your own products or services.

There is clearly a source of untapped opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … testimonials and reviews from existing clients!

Customer testimonials and reviews are terrific for building credibility for your services or products.

Marketing studies conducted by leading research companies all seem to lead to the same inevitable conclusion: adding reviews and testimonials to your sales information eliminates doubts potential customers may have about a specific product or service, helps users select products and increases sales conversions.

Here are just some of the findings available to 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 user reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, customer 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.
• Website 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).
• 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 Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management

You should be adding reviews and testimonials from really happy clients to your website.

Reviews and customer testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both negative and positive ways.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your products directly to your face, but they could have posted negative comments on a forum 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 a significant part of your business and content marketing strategy.

Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need to worry about it) could be hurting your business without you even being aware of it.

See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that can help you avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your business through effective customer review management:

• Manage Negative User Reviews With Power Online Reviews Plugin

Improving Your Sales Conversions With Testimonials – Useful Tips

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be used in your content. When you include responses from customers in your content, you:

• Show prospects exactly what pains and problems your products and services can help solve for them and how easily it can do this.
• Help your visitors identify their objections and address these.
• Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a decision to purchase.

Here are some practical tips on how to create standout testimonials:

• Avoid over-editing: Try using 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 real 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 increase visitor engagement with your content.
• Use the power of storytelling: Stories are much more powerful and captivating than simply providing facts and statistics. 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 generic 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: It’s good to add customer testimonials in your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help to sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind if you were to display a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your support before offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
• Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “As a direct result of implementing XYZ solution, our net profits have grown by $38,417 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ product 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 during a specific financial quarter, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
• Avoid using the same customer testimonial throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out and have very few clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your website. Depending on the nature of 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 best customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to is a 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 a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your business, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
• Don’t use fake client testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to create their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your prospects need to see that the testimonials displayed on your site are genuine. Don’t destroy your reputation with false testimonials.

How To Get Testimonials

Always Ask For Testimonials

Getting a testimonial from a satisfied customer can be as simple as just asking for it.

Follow these useful tips for requesting testimonials:

• Contact your customers after 30 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after performing a service.
• Add a field for entering testimonials in your client surveys.
• Take out your phone when you next visit a client or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very short video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, explain to viewers what you have done for the client and make sure to record their positive reactions and feedback.
• Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. When a client sends you positive written feedback that contains snippets of useful testimonial material interspersed with the rest of their message, grab the best 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 quote them on your site. 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 Back To Their Site

Offer to post a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive for clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes the 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 a periodic newsletter message. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to experience your solution. Use words like “I need your help” in the subject of your message and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking customers for feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to solicit testimonials for your account. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your site (once again, you can offer to publish a link back to their profile in exchange).

Create A Customer Testimonials Section

Create a new section on your web site for customer testimonials and place a “more client testimonials …” link pointing to this section throughout your content sections.

Practical Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your testimonials by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for monitoring what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.

We have written an article about a heatmap analytics technology you can add to your site to understand visitor behavior here:

• How To Understand User Behaviour On Your WordPress Site Using Analytics Software – HeatMap Tracker Review

Useful WordPress Testimonial Plugins

If your site or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms to your pages inviting users to submit reviews and testimonials.

Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you can then refer clients to your “Testimonials” section.

Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into a Page or Post using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you add a list of all 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 business logo, etc.

Easy Testimonials also provides users with a “pro” version with additional features and technical support.

Go here to download the plugin:

• Easy Testimonials – WordPress Plugin

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your WordPress site. You can insert customer testimonials using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.

The plugin provides extra features via a premium version, including built-in functions for better search engine results and plugin support.

Go here to download and use this plugin:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium plugin provides a range of great features right out of the box, including:

• Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
• Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. via a shortcode
• Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.

Go here to download and use the plugin:

• 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 great 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 your customers, and start publishing these on your web site.

Resources

For additional sources of information and resources about creating engaging clients testimonials refer to these articles:

• 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 actionable information and practical tips 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 completely FREE!

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