How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews

Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract new customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? As most business owners know, that generating new customers can be difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat requires 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, you just can’t ignore the effect of what potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.

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

You could be doing your business a great disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your customers say about your services, solutions, client support, etc. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be included throughout your content.

In this article, we’ll show you how to achieve better results online using profit-boosting customer testimonials.

Consumer Reviews

Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum, legendary American showman and businessman, once stated 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 way of getting your business promoted effectively. Testimonials and reviews quoted directly from existing clients are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new clients than anything you 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 … reviews and testimonials from clients!

Testimonials and user reviews are great for building credibility for your products or services.

Studies conducted by leading research firms all point to the same conclusion: adding customer testimonials and reviews to your sales information pages reduces doubts potential customers may have about purchasing your product, helps with product selection and increases the number of product sales.

Below are just some statistics that support this:

According to a study by eVoc Insights, a company 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 consumer reviews.”
According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
Site 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).
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 Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation

You should be adding reviews and testimonials from really happy customers to your site.

Testimonials and user reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both negatively or positively.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business directly to you, but they could post negative comments on Facebook or a forum group about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had with your services 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 significant part of your online business success strategy.

Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) could be seriously hurting 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 you avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business, products or services through effective user review management:

Learn How To Manage Your Online Reputation In WordPress With Power Online Reviews

How To Create Powerful Testimonials – Useful Tips

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be included in your content marketing. When you quote responses from users 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 your visitors identify their objections and address these.
Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate the sales process.

Below are some useful tips on how to create standout customer testimonials:

Don’t over edit: You should 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 the most attention to your content. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your content.
Tell a powerful story: Stories are far more effective and memorable than providing mere 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 presenting generic statements about how “excellent” your customer service was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
Use it in context: Add testimonials to your site copy 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 mind by adding 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 discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your customer service when offering a risk-free guarantee or addressing objections.
Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “Since implementing XYZ software, we were able to grow our profits by an additional $97,764 during the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ software definitely 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 market share or reduce their costs by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours of work they have saved, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate in a recent period, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
Use different customer testimonials on your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out or have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site. Depending on the type of business you run, you could try to obtain more customer 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 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 speak directly to your best audience demographic.
Reprint content across different platforms. If someone posts a great comment on your Facebook page praising your business, contact them privately asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
Don’t use fake client testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing copywriters to write your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential customers need to see that the testimonials displayed on your site are genuine. Don’t destroy your reputation with ”made up” testimonials.

How To Get Testimonials From Your Customers

Ask For Testimonials

When you complete a service for someone, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.

Follow these useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials:

Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 60 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after performing a service.
Include a text box for testimonials in all client surveys.
Pull out your phone next time you meet with a client or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a very quick video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, explain to viewers what you have done for your client and try to record their positive reactions and responses.
Make it easy for them. If a client sends you a positive email thanking you for a great service that contains snippets of useful testimonial material interspersed with the rest of their message, grab the juiciest sections (only use what they have given you – never put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have done this to save them time and invite them to edit what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.

Offer To Publish A Link Back To Their Site Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial

Offer to post a link back to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients providing 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 subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in a periodic newsletter broadcast. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to assess the results of using your products or services. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking clients to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you request testimonials from other members for your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (and offer to publish a link back to their profile in exchange).

Create A Customer Testimonials Section On Your Site

Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “read more customer testimonials …” link pointing to this section whenever you plan to add single testimonials on your content sections.

Useful 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 observing what visitors are doing on your site are “heatmaps”.

We have written an article about a heatmap analytics software you can add to your site to monitor visitor behaviour here:

How To Monitor User Behavior On Your WordPress Site Using Heat Map Software – Heat Map Tracker Review

Using Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages inviting users to submit feedback and 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 send users 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 user testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you publish a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which is great to add a photo of the testimonial author, a company logo, etc.

The plugin also provides a “pro” version with additional features and plugin support.

To download and use this plugin, go here:

Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your pages and posts. You can insert testimonials via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different 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 plugin support.

To download the plugin, visit this site:

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium WP 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, grid layout, list layout, etc. using a shortcode
Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colors, font types and more.

To learn more about using this 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 Summary …

Customer reviews and testimonials are powerful sources of content that can help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing customers or clients, and publish positive content about your business on your website or blog.

Additional Info

For additional resources about creating effective customer testimonials read the articles below:

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 exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful 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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Tag: User Reviews

Building Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews