Building Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract new customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? As most small business owners know, that trying to generate new business can be very difficult, time consuming and frustrating. Just trying to keep your business afloat 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 significance of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Don’t ignore what customers may be saying online about your business!
By the same token, you could be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your customers are saying about your products and services. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be included as part of your content.
In this article, you’ll discover how to create better results online using profit-boosting customer testimonials.
Testimonials And User Reviews
The great, legendary showman and businessman Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum is often quoted as having said 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. Genuine testimonials and reviews quoted directly from satisfied clients are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new customers than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is a source of untapped opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … user reviews!
Testimonials and reviews are a powerful way to build credibility for your services or products.
Research conducted by many leading marketing companies all lead to the same conclusion: adding customer testimonials and reviews to your sales information helps to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about buying products or solutions that you are trying to sell, helps users select products and helps increase conversions of visitors into sales.
Below are just some of the findings available to 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, consumer reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can mean 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).
(The figures above were sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Consumer Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding positive reviews to your website from existing clients is essential for creating a solid online reputation.
Customer testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and impact your business both negatively or positively.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to you, but they could have posted updates on Facebook about a bad experience they’ve just had using your products 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 an integral part of your business and content marketing strategy.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need to worry about it) may be seriously causing damage to your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a tool for WordPress users that can help you avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business, products or services through effective user review management:
Tips On Improving Your Sales Conversions With Profit Boosting Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content. When you include your own client responses in your content, you:
- Show others exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help solve for them and how easily it can do this.
- Help visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and facilitate moving them closer to a decision to purchase.
Here are some tips on how to create 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 things ‘real’.
- Use 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 your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are so much more effective and captivating than providing mere statistical facts. Being able 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 presenting generalized statements about excellent service and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: Add testimonials in your web content where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help to sell your point. Think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception if you were to insert a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are truly thrilled about your support when offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “Since using your services, we have seen our net profit increase by $29,136 in the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution 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 you have helped them save, 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 testimonial 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 displaying the same testimonial throughout your site’s pages. Depending on your business, you could try to obtain more 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 can relate to can be a very powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials targeted to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If someone posts a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your business, send them a message asking for their permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Only use genuine testimonials. Many people can tell if you are employing copy writers to produce your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your prospects need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Clients
Just Ask
When you complete performing a service, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Here are some tips for soliciting testimonials:
- Contact customers after 30 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing your service.
- Include a field for testimonials in client surveys.
- Take 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 short video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording your video, describe to your viewers what you have done for the client and make sure to record their positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. If clients send 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 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 invite them to change what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To Their Site Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to post a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great 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 list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder messages. 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 the subject of your message and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking users to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you request testimonials from other members that become part of your account. With LinkedIn, 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 for permission to reprint it on your website (tip: offer to add a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “more customer testimonials …” link pointing to this page throughout your content sections.
Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your client testimonials by how long visitors stay 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 adding heatmap analytics to your site to observe visitor behaviour here:
Testimonial Plugins
If your website or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages where users can submit feedback and testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), all you have to do is send users to your “Testimonials” page.
Below are a few useful testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into your pages and posts using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you add 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, their logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also comes with a “pro” version with additional features and plugin support.
Visit this site to learn more about this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your site. You can insert client 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 makes loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options for improved search engine results and technical support.
Visit this site to download this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin offers many great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes to display correctly on any device or browser.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. via a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colors, font types and more.
To download and use the plugin, go here:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Testimonials and customer 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 existing customers, and publish positive content about your business on your website.
Additional Info
For additional resources about creating effective testimonials refer to these useful 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 and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
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