How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, and getting the exact same results? As most business owners know, that finding new ways of generating new business can be confusing, time-consuming and quite hard. Just trying to remain in business requires 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-driven economy, ignoring what users may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

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

By the same token, you could be doing your business a disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your customers say about your products, services, user training, support, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be used in your content.

In this article, we’ll show you ways to achieve better results online with compelling user testimonials.

Testimonials And Customer Reviews

Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum, the great American showman and businessman, is often quoted as having said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful and effective way of promoting your business. Testimonials from existing clients are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you can say about your own products or services.

There is an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … client reviews!

Reviews and testimonials are terrific for building credibility for your services and products.

Studies conducted by leading research firms all seem to point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding testimonials and reviews to your sales information reduces doubts potential customers may have about products or services that you are trying to sell, helps with product selection and increases conversions of visitors into sales.

Here are just some of the findings available to 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 customer reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, reviews are responsible for producing 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 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 User Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management

Adding reviews and testimonials to your site from clients who are thrilled with the results they’ve obtained by using your services is important for growing your business and creating a solid online reputation.

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

People may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could be posting updates on a forum about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had with 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 vital part of your business and content marketing strategy.

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

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

• Managing Your Online Reputation With Power Online Reviews WordPress Plugin

How To Create Customer Testimonials – Useful Tips

Testimonials, user reviews, 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. When you include your own user responses in your content, you:

• Show other users exactly what pains and problems your products and services can solve for them and how easily it can do this.
• Help potential customers identify and address their objections.
• Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.

Here are some useful tips on creating testimonials:

• Avoid over-editing: You should try using the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
• Use photos of real people: Images of people’s faces draw 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 simply providing statistical facts. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic 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 to your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help you sell your point. Think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting your price information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your customer service before offering a risk-free guarantee or addressing objections.
• Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would consider to be more powerful: “As a direct result of implementing XYZ solution, we have increased our revenue by $75,448 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ software 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 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.
• Avoid using the same client testimonial repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out or have very few clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site. Depending on your business, you could try to obtain more customer testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special launch discount for existing clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you choose 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 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 across different platforms. If you get great feedback on your Facebook wall praising your solution, ask them permission to reprint the content on your site.
• Don’t use fake testimonials. Your potential clients need to believe that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.

How To Get Testimonials From Clients

Always Ask For Testimonials

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

Follow these useful tips for soliciting testimonials from customers:

• Make it a part of your business processes to contact clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 30 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
• Include a field for entering testimonials in all client surveys.
• Pull out your phone when you next meet with clients or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very quick video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording your video, describe to your viewers what you have done for the client and 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 written – never put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this to help them save time and invite them to modify what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.

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

Offer to add a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive for clients to provide 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 list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in one of your newsletter mailouts. This should be done after your customers have had a chance to experience your products or services. 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 honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you request testimonials from other members that become part of your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (tip: offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Testimonials Section

Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “read more testimonials …” link to this section throughout your site.

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 site are “heatmaps”.

We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your website to understand visitor behavior here:

• Analyzing User Behavior On Your WordPress Site Using Heatmapping Tools – HeatMapTracker Review

Using Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages where users can submit feedback and testimonials.

Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (make sure to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you then send users to your “Testimonials” page.

Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you insert a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.

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

Go here to learn more about the plugin:

• Easy Testimonials – WordPress Plugin

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 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.

The plugin makes loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and technical support.

Visit this site to download the plugin:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium WordPress 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. via a shortcode
• Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.

To download 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 great sources of content that can help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for testimonials, reviews, and feedback from existing clients, and publish positive content about your business on your web site.

Resources

For additional resources about creating effective testimonials read 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content for 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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