Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, only to get the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that generating new business can be very hard. Just trying to keep your business afloat requires 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 economy, ignoring what consumers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what consumers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
You are also doing your business a great disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your customers say about your services and products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing strategy.
In this article, you’ll learn how to convert more visitors into qualified prospects using more effective customer testimonials.
Customer Reviews And Testimonials
Legendary American showman and businessman Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum once stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful and effective way of getting your business promoted. Quoting genuine reviews from your satisfied customers is satisfied clients are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews from their users!
Testimonials and reviews are effective for building credibility for your services or products.
Studies conducted by many leading companies all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: adding reviews and customer testimonials to your site eliminates doubts potential customers may have about buying a particular product, helps users select products and increases sales conversions.
Here are just some of the stats available to 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 site if it has ratings and user reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- 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).
(Source: eConsultancy.com)
Adding Client Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Clearly, you should be adding positive reviews and testimonials from existing customers to your site.
Testimonials and customer reviews, however, can work both ways and impact your business both negative and positive ways.
People may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to your face, but they could post damaging feedback on a discussion thread about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your sales or customer support representatives 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 important to your business 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 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 can help you avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your business through effective customer review management:
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 added to your content marketing. When you include responses from users in your content, you:
- Show prospects exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help prospects identify and address their objections.
- Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a decision to purchase.
Below are some practical tips on improving your sales with sales boosting testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps preserve your testimonials’ authenticity.
- Use photos of real people: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are so much more effective and memorable than simply providing statistical facts. Being able 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 presenting generalized statements about excellent customer support and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials to your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help you sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting 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 support when offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for increasing our profits by $54,028 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution 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 in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours of work you have helped them save, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate in a recent financial period, 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 using the same testimonial everywhere on your site’s pages. 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 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 is a 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 content across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook page praising your products or services, ask them for permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Only use real client testimonials. Your prospects need to see that the testimonials provided on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility with a false testimonial.
How To Get Customer Testimonials
Just Ask
Getting a testimonial from a happy customer can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful tips for soliciting testimonials:
- Make a point of contacting customers after 30 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 all client surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you meet with clients or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a quick video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording the video, explain to viewers what you have done for the client and try to capture your client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy for them. When 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 best sections (only use what they have written – 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 help them save time and invite them to edit what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To The Source
Offer to add a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive for clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.
Include A Testimonial Request In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in one of your newsletter mailouts. This should be done after your clients have had a chance to measure the results of using your product, service or solution. 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 them for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to request testimonials from other members that become part of your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (you can offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section
Create a new section for testimonials and place a “more customer testimonials …” link to this section throughout your site.
Useful Tip: You can measure how effective testimonials are 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 observing visitor behaviour on your site.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics software you can add to your website to analyze visitor behaviour here:
WordPress Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages inviting users to submit reviews and 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 customers to your “Testimonials” section.
Below are a few useful WordPress 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 testimonials into posts and pages using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you publish a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which can be used to add a photo of the testimonial author, a business logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also comes with a “pro” version that offers additional features and technical support.
To download the plugin, visit this site:
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 posts and pages. You can insert testimonials content using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.
Testimonials Widget offers added features via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and technical support.
To learn more about using the plugin, go here:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium WordPress plugin that offers many great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. via a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colors, font types and more.
For more information about this plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Customer reviews and testimonials are great sources of content that 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 or clients, and start publishing these on your website or blog.
Additional Info
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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful 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 completely FREE!
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