Building Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that trying to generate new customers can be hard. Just trying to remain in business 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 digital, mobile and social media-driven economy, you simply can’t afford to ignore the significance of what potential customers are doing online, especially if they are talking about your business.
Ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your customers are saying about your services or products. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be added throughout your content.
In this article, you’ll discover all you need to know to start getting better results online using effective user testimonials.
Testimonials And Client Reviews
Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, the great American businessman and showman, once stated 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 getting your business promoted. Testimonials from your existing users are far more persuasive for attracting new customers, clients 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 just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews from your clients!
Reviews and customer testimonials are terrific for building credibility for your business.
Studies conducted by many marketing companies all seem to lead to the same inevitable conclusion: user reviews and testimonials help to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about your products or services, help users select products and increases the number of product sales.
Below are just some of the stats available to support this:
- According to research findings 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 user reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Web site 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).
- 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 Customer Reviews And Testimonials – Online Reputation Management
Clearly, you should be adding great reviews and testimonials from really happy customers to your site.
Reviews and customer testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both positively and negatively.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could post disparaging remarks on Facebook or a discussion group 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 an integral part of your online business success strategy.
Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need to worry about it) could be causing damage to your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a simple WordPress plugin that can help to avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your business through effective user review management:
Tips On How To Create User Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be added to your content. When you include your own user responses in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help potential customers identify and address their objections.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a decision to purchase.
Here are some practical tips on improving your sales conversions with testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try to use your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps preserve your testimonials’ authenticity.
- Use photos: Marketing studies show that using images of people’s faces will draw the attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are much more powerful and captivating than simply providing facts and statistics. The ability 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 generic statements about how “excellent” the support has been and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: It’s good to add testimonials to your site copy 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 add a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting product or service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your support when offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our revenue by $42,295 during the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ software helped us grow our sales?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, like how much your solution helped to increase their profits 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 during a specific financial quarter, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Vary the client testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial everywhere on your site. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more client 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 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 target audience is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to can be a really 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 someone posts great feedback on your Facebook page praising your products or services, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Only use real client testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing copywriters to produce your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your prospects need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are real. Don’t destroy your reputation with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials
Always 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.
Here are some useful tips for soliciting testimonials:
- Contact your customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing your service.
- Include a text box for testimonials in your client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you visit 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 short video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for the client and make sure to capture the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy for them. If clients send 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 – 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 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 Publish A Link To The Source Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to add a link back to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients providing you with a testimonial. It also makes the 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 subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in one of your newsletter mailouts. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to use your services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking subscribers to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you request 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 gets a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your site (tip: offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Page
Create a new section for customer testimonials and add a “more customer testimonials …” link to this section wherever you have displayed blocks of testimonials on your content sections.
Useful Tip: You can measure how useful user testimonials are by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for monitoring visitor behavior on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your sites to observe visitor behaviour here:
Useful Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms 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), all you have to do is send clients to your “Testimonials” section.
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 them into your pages and posts using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you add a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which can be used to add a photo of the testimonial author, their business logo, etc.
Easy Testimonials also provides users with a “pro” version with additional features and technical support.
For more information about using this 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 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.
Testimonials Widget offers extra features via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and developer support.
Go here to download and use the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin offers plenty of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Display options for your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. by adding 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.
Visit this site to learn more about using the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
User reviews and testimonials are powerful 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 existing clients or customers, and start publishing these on your website.
Additional Info
The articles below provide useful information on creating effective testimonials and were also helpful in providing research and information for sections of this article:
- 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 show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content for your site 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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