Building Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews

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

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

You may also be doing your business a great disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your customers are saying about your products or services. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing.

In this article, you’ll learn how to achieve better results online with knockout user testimonials.

Consumer Reviews

Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, the great American showman, is often quoted as having stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine reviews and testimonials from your existing users are far more persuasive for attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you say about your own products or services.

There is clearly an untapped source of business growth potential that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … client reviews!

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

Studies conducted by many leading research companies all seem to point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding testimonials and reviews to your point of sale pages reduces doubts potential customers may have about purchasing a specific product or service, helps users select products and helps increase the number of sales.

Below are just some statistics that support this:

• According to research 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, consumer reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Site visitors who interact with both consumer 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 Client Reviews – Online Reputation Management

Adding reviews and testimonials to your site from clients who are delighted with your products or services is important for growing your business and creating a solid online reputation.

User reviews and customer testimonials, however, can work both ways and impact your business both in a positive as well as negative manner.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to you, but they could post updates on Facebook or a forum 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 significant part of your business and content marketing strategy.

Misconceptions about online reputation management, 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 causing damage to your business without you even being aware of this.

See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that lets you legally and ethically manage user reviews:

• Manage Your Online Reputation With Power Online Reviews

Tips On Improving Your Conversions With Testimonials

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing. When you quote your own user responses in your content, you:

• Show other users exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
• Help prospects identify their objections and address these.
• Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate the sales process.

Below are some useful tips on improving your conversions with captivating testimonials:

• Don’t over edit: Try to use your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
• Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention to your content. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
• Tell a story: Stories are far more powerful and memorable than simply providing statistical facts. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a far more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about excellent support and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
• Use it in context: It’s good to add testimonials to your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help 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 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 thrilled about your support before offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
• Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “As a direct result of using your services, we have noticed an additional net profit growth of $70,206 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ software definitely helped us grow our business?” Whenever 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 during a specific period, 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 a little difficult when you are just starting out or have very few clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial 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 launch 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 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 someone publishes great feedback on your Facebook page praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
• Never use fake client testimonials. Most people can see through sites that employ copywriters to create their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective clients need to see that the testimonials provided on your site are genuine. Don’t destroy your reputation with false testimonials.

How To Get Testimonials From Clients

Ask For Testimonials

If you have just completed performing a service, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.

Follow these tips for requesting testimonials:

• Make a point of contacting customers after 60 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
• Add a field for entering testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
• Pull out your phone next time you visit clients or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a short video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, explain to viewers what you have done for your client and try to capture your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
• Make it easy for them. When 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 given you – never 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 invite them to change what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Post A Link To Their Site Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial

Offer to add a link 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 the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.

Add A Testimonial Request To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a subscriber list, 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 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 subscribers to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.

Use LinkedIn

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

Create A Client Testimonials Section

Create a new page for customer testimonials and place a “read more customer testimonials …” link to this page throughout your site.

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

We have written an article about a heatmap analytics software you can add to your website to predict visitor behavior here:

• Spy On Your WordPress Site Visitors Using Heat Map Software – HeatMapTracker Review

Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

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

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

Check out the testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add client testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into posts and pages using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you add a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which is great for adding a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.

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

Go here to learn more about this plugin:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your blog. 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.

Testimonials Widget provides a range of additional features via a premium version, including built-in functions for improved search engine results and technical support.

Go here to learn more about using this plugin:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This is a premium plugin that provides plenty of great features right out of the box, including:

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

Visit this site to download this plugin:

• Testimonials Plugin

To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Conclusion …

Testimonials and user reviews are great 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 customers, and start publishing these on your website.

Resources

The articles below are a great source of information on creating engaging users testimonials and were also helpful in providing research and 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 regular training emails with actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

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