Building 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 business owners don’t need to be told that finding effective ways of generating new business can be quite difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat takes up a lot of your 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 users may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what your 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 boosting the positive things your customers say about your services or products. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing strategy.
In this article, you will learn how to convert more visitors into qualified prospects with profit-boosting user testimonials.
User Reviews And Testimonials
P.T. Barnum, legendary American showman and businessman, once stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting genuine reviews from satisfied customers is existing customers are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new customers, clients or users than anything you have to 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 … testimonials and reviews from your clients!
Testimonials and consumer reviews are a powerful way to build credibility for your services and products.
Research conducted by marketing companies all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: adding testimonials and reviews to your sales information pages decreases doubts potential customers may have about your product, helps users select products and helps increase the number of sales.
Below are just some of the statistics available to support this:
- According to a study by eVoc Insights, an organization 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 reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews can produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can translate into 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 user-generated content (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 Consumer Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Clearly, you should be adding great testimonials and reviews from clients to your site.
Consumer reviews and customer testimonials, however, can work both ways and affect your business both negatively and positively.
People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could be posting damaging comments on a forum about a bad encounter they’ve just had with one of your team 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 vitally important aspect of your 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) may be seriously hurting your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that allows you to legally and ethically manage customer feedback:
Tips On Improving Your Sales With Compelling Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing strategy. When you include your own user responses in your content, you:
- Show prospects exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
- Help site visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.
Below are some useful tips on creating customer testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps preserve the authenticity of your testimonials.
- Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are much more effective and captivating than simply providing statistical facts. The ability 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 presenting generalized statements about excellent service and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add testimonials to your web content where it best makes 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 perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting product or service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are truly ecstatic about your customer service when offering a money-back guarantee or providing content that helps readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping us grow our net profit by $84,982 during the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ product has 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 they have saved, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate in a recent financial quarter, 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 or have very few clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial everywhere on your site. 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 discount for existing clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you decide to use it.
- Appeal to your ideal 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 can relate to can be 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 testimonials across different platforms. If someone publishes fantastic feedback on your Facebook wall praising your customer service, ask them for permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Never use fake client testimonials. Prospective customers need to believe that the testimonials you provide on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Customer Testimonials
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.
Follow these useful tips for soliciting testimonials from clients:
- Contact your customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after completing your service.
- Add a field for entering testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next meet with a client or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to capture your client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write it for them. If clients send 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 written – don’t put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have already prepared something to save them 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 a great incentive to get clients providing a testimonial. It also makes an 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 list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in a scheduled email message. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to use your product, service or solution. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them for feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to request testimonials that become part of your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person who provides 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 publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Page
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “more client testimonials …” link to this page throughout your site.
Tip: You can measure how effective customer 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 understanding what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics software you can add to your website to understand visitor behaviour here:
Useful Testimonial Plugins
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 (remember to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then send users to your “Testimonials” section.
Check out the plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free WP 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 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, a logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides a “pro” version that has additional features and developer support.
To learn more about the plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your blog. You can insert testimonials content via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
The plugin has plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and plugin support.
To download and use this plugin, go here:
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.
- 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, customized font and background colors, font types and more.
Visit this site to download the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Customer reviews and client 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 your clients or customers, and publish positive content about your business on your website or blog.
Resources
For additional resources about creating effective clients 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, 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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