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 and retain new 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 very difficult. 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 digital, mobile and social-driven economy, ignoring what your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what customers may be saying online about your business!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a great disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your customers say about your services or products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be included as part of your content.
In this article, we’ll show you tips for turning more visitors into qualified leads with captivating customer testimonials.
Testimonials And Customer Reviews
P.T. Barnum, legendary American showman and successful promoter, 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-driven content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting genuine reviews from your satisfied clients is existing clients are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new customers, clients or users than anything you can 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 … reviews from customers!
User reviews and customer testimonials are a great way to build credibility for your products and services.
Tests conducted by many leading research firms all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: user reviews and testimonials eliminate doubts potential customers may have about buying products, help users select products and help increase conversions of visitors into sales.
Here are just some findings 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 customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Web 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 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 – Online Reputation Management
Adding positive testimonials and reviews to your site from clients who are thrilled with the results they’ve obtained by using your services is important for helping you grow your business and creating a solid online reputation.
Customer testimonials and customer reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both negatively or positively.
People may not be saying bad things about your products directly to your face, but they could have posted negative comments on Facebook, or a discussion thread or forum about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your staff members 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 aspect of your online success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need to worry about it) may be seriously causing damage to 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 problem reviews about your business through effective customer review management:
Creating User Testimonials – Useful Tips
User reviews, testimonials, 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 strategy. When you quote responses from users in your content, you:
- Show prospects exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
- Help potential customers identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates moving them closer to a buying decision.
Below are some useful tips on improving your sales conversions with testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try using the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps preserve the authenticity of your testimonials.
- Use photos of real people: Images of people’s faces draw attention on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are much more effective and captivating than providing mere facts and statistics. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about excellent support and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add customer testimonials in your web content where it makes the most sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help 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 sells for before posting your product or service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are genuinely thrilled about your customer service before offering guarantees or providing content that helps readers overcome their 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 using your services, we were able to grow our profits by an additional $22,724 during the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ product has helped us grow our business?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their market share or reduce their costs by 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.
- Vary the customer testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial everywhere on your web pages. Depending on your business, 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 best customer: As every infomercial featuring a celebrity endorsement, subject expert or “busy mom” knows, if you know who your ideal customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become can be a powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials that appeal directly to your ideal customers.
- Reprint across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook page praising your customer service, send them a message asking permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Only use real testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing professional writers to write your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective customers need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t destroy your reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Customers
Just Ask
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.
Here are some useful tips for soliciting testimonials from your clients:
- Contact customers after 90 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after performing a service.
- Include a field for entering testimonials in your client surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you visit clients or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording the video, explain to viewers what you have done for the client and make sure to capture the client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy for them. If clients send 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 – don’t put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to use it. Explain that you have done this to save them time and let them know they are completely free to modify what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link To The Source Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial
Offer to add a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.
Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in a scheduled auto responder broadcast. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to use your solution. Use words like “I need your help” in the subject of your email and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking users for feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you obtain testimonials for your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (you can offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section On Your Site
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “read more testimonials …” link to this page throughout your content sections.
Practical Tip: You can measure how effective client testimonials are by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for observing visitor behaviour on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap software you can add to your site to predict visitor behaviour here:
Testimonial Plugins
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 inviting users to submit feedback and testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you then send users to your “Testimonials” section.
Check out the plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into posts and pages using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you add a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, 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 that offers additional features and technical support.
To download this plugin, go here:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your blog. You can insert 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 Testimonials Widget plugin makes loads more features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and plugin support.
To learn more about using this plugin, go here:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium plugin that provides many 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, grid layout, list layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colors, font types and more.
Go here for more information about using the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Client testimonials and user reviews are great sources of content that can help your business in terms of adding credibility, building authority, improving online reputation, and growing your sales funnel. Always ask for testimonials, reviews, and feedback from your customers or clients, and start publishing these on your web site.
Additional Info
The articles below provide useful information about creating effective 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 and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality 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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