Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? As most business owners know, that generating new customers can be extremely difficult. 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 and social media-driven economy, ignoring what your customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what clients may be saying online about your business!
You could be doing your business a disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your customers say about your services and products. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be included as part of your content.
In this article, you will learn tips for converting more visitors into qualified prospects with effective user testimonials.
Testimonials And Customer Reviews
P.T. Barnum, legendary showman, is often quoted as having stated 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 way of getting your business promoted effectively. Testimonials from your satisfied clients are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new clients, customers or users 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 simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … consumer testimonials and reviews!
Customer testimonials and reviews are great for building credibility for your business.
Studies conducted by leading firms all point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding reviews and customer testimonials to your sales information helps decrease doubts potential customers may have about buying your products, helps with product selection and helps increase the number of sales.
Below are just some of the findings available to support this:
- According to a study by eVoc Insights, a company known for researching and measuring user experience, “In general, 63% of users indicate they are more likely to purchase from a web site if it has ratings and user reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, user reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can mean 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).
- 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).
(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Customer Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation
You should be adding great reviews from happy customers to your website.
Customer testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both negative and positive ways.
People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could post updates on Facebook or a forum about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your employees 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 vitally important aspect of your online success.
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) could be harming your business without you even being aware of this.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective tool for WordPress users that lets you legally and ethically manage your customer reviews:
Tips On Improving Your Conversions With Standout Client Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of 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 this can be done.
- Help visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a buying decision.
Below are some useful tips on improving your conversions with testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention to your content. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your content.
- Tell a story: Stories are much more powerful and captivating than just providing statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a far longer-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.
- 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 to sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting your service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are genuinely ecstatic about your customer service when offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “As a direct result of implementing XYZ product, we were able to increase our net profit by $54,373 during the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ product has 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 of work they have saved, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate during a specific financial period, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Use different testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out or have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout your site. Depending on your business, you could try to obtain more client testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special launch discount for 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 target audience is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become is a really 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 best audience demographic.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If someone posts a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, ask them permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Never use fake testimonials. Prospective customers need to see that the testimonials provided on your site are genuine. Don’t destroy your reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Client Testimonials
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 requesting testimonials:
- Contact your customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after completing a service.
- Add a field for testimonials in all client surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next visit a client or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a very short video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, explain to viewers what you have done for the client and try to capture your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write it for them. Whenever a client sends 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 written – never put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this to save them time and let them know they are completely free to edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link Back To The Source Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial
Offer to publish a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.
Include A Testimonial Request In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in a periodic email broadcast. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to assess the results of using your product, service or solution. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to solicit testimonials for your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite simple and user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (you can offer to publish a link back to their profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section
Create a new page on your web site for customer testimonials and add a “read more testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page throughout your content sections.
Practical 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. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to monitoring what visitors are doing on your pages.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your sites to monitor visitor behaviour here:
Using Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your site or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms to your pages where users can submit testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (make sure to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), all you have to do is refer users to your “Testimonials” section.
Here are some great WordPress testimonial 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 testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin 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 to add a photo of the testimonial author, a company logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also can be upgraded to a “pro” version that offers additional features and plugin support.
Go here to download and use this plugin:
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 pages and posts. You can insert testimonials content 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 more features available via a premium version, including built-in options for improved search engine results and technical support.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium plugin that offers 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 sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.
To learn more about the plugin, go here:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Customer reviews and testimonials 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing customers, and publish positive content about your business on your web site.
Additional Info
For additional information about creating engaging users 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 regular training emails with actionable information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content that will add value to your 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 completely FREE!
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