Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that finding effective ways of generating new business can be extremely difficult, time consuming and frustrating. Just trying to survive in business takes a lot of your time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.
In today’s web-based and social media-driven economy, you just can’t ignore the impact of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Ignoring what clients 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 clients are saying about your products, solutions, client training, support, etc. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be used in your content.
In this article, you’ll discover how to get better results online with compelling user testimonials.
Client Reviews And Testimonials
The great American showman Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum is often quoted as having said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-driven content is a powerful and effective way of promoting your business. Genuine testimonials from satisfied users are far more persuasive for attracting new customers, clients or users than anything you 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 … user reviews and testimonials!
Testimonials and customer reviews are a fantastic way to build credibility for your products or services.
Marketing studies conducted by leading research firms all lead to the same conclusion: adding reviews and testimonials to your site reduces doubts potential customers may have about purchasing a particular product or service, helps users select products and helps increase sales.
Here are just some statistics that support this:
- According to research findings 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 user reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews can result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Web site visitors who interact with both customer 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 Client Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Adding positive testimonials and reviews to your website from people who are thrilled with the results they’ve obtained by using your products or services is important for helping you grow your business online and creating a solid online reputation.
Customer testimonials and user reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both positive and negative ways.
People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could have posted unhelpful words on Facebook or a discussion thread about a bad 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 vitally important aspect of your online success.
Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, 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 harming your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a plugin for WordPress users that lets you legally and ethically manage your customer reviews:
Tips For Creating Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing strategy. When you include responses from customers in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help site visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate the sales process.
Here are some practical tips on creating testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: It’s a proven fact that using images of people’s faces will draw the attention of visitors on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are so much more powerful and memorable 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 longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about how “excellent” your customer support was and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: Add customer testimonials in your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help to sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception if you were to add 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 discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are genuinely thrilled about your support when offering guarantees or providing content that helps your readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our revenue by $42,866 during the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ product 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 by 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, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Use different customer testimonials on 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 repeatedly throughout your web pages. Depending on the type of business you run, you could try to obtain more client testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special discount for 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 best customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become can be an extremely 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 testimonials across different platforms. If someone publishes a great comment on your Facebook page praising your customer service, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Only use real client testimonials. Prospective customers need to see that the testimonials displayed on your site are real. Don’t destroy your credibility with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Client Testimonials
Just Ask
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials from clients:
- Contact clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 60 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
- Include a text box 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 would be happy to record a quick video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, describe to viewers what you have done for your client and try to record the client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write it for them. Whenever a client sends you a positive email thanking you for a great job 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 – don’t 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 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 Back To Their Site
Offer to publish 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. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to assess the results of using your products. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you obtain testimonials that become part of your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (and offer to publish a link back to their profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Page
Create a new section for testimonials and place a “read more client testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials section wherever you have added new testimonials on your site.
Useful Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your testimonials by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to understanding visitor behavior on your site.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your website to predict visitor behaviour here:
Using Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your website or blog is powered by 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 testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you can then refer customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into posts and pages 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 for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their company logo, etc.
The plugin also provides users with a “pro” version with additional features and technical support.
Go here for more information about using this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your blog. You can insert customer testimonials via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple 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 better search engine results and technical support.
To download and use this plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium WordPress plugin provides 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 slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.
Visit this site to learn more about the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
User reviews and testimonials are great sources of content that help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for testimonials, reviews, and feedback from your customers, and publish positive content about your business on your site.
Resources
For additional sources of information and resources about creating effective testimonials see the articles below:
- 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 and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
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