Last Updated 4 months by Emily Standley-Allard
Your Guide to Getting Winning Reviews and Testimonials!
Reviews and testimonials for your business are a sure-fire way of establishing trust with your readers and customers whether you are running a blog, an e-commerce store, or a good old-fashioned brick and mortar business. It is also one of the most important things that customers look at before adding an item into their cart, before starting their subscriptions and even prior to contacting you. But how do you get winning reviews and testimonials for your business to shine online? Read on to find out!
Why are reviews & testimonials so important?
Reviews and testimonials for your business are the modern-day equivalent of word-of-mouth recommendations. It has become quintessential in modern commerce to have a sound word of mouth strategy for every business today.
One of the most straightforward ways to collect testimonials is to deploy a form on your web page that can be used by visitors to submit testimonials or embed Google business reviews to your website, for instance, so that users could be redirected to your account and leave their feedback if they want.
Here’s a few reasons why reviews and testimonials have become so vital to your business or website:
Carefully curated reviews and testimonials can reduce friction points in your business
It’s not uncommon to observe cart abandonment in case of high-ticket items.
In such cases, carefully placed reviews and testimonials highlighting the long-term benefits of an item, service or product can be used as a soft nudge for purchase completion.
Hire me to write a winning review for your business!
Reviews and testimonials bring credibility to your brand
Modern customers have learned to disregard jargon-filled sales marketing campaigns when making a purchase.
Instead, the user experience of a fellow customer is far more relevant in influencing their purchasing decisions.
But what exactly is a review or testimonial for your business?
A business review or testimonial at its core is an assurance/endorsement shared by someone who has had real-life experience with your products, services, or with your business in general.
Such a third-party endorsement is referred to as ‘Social Evidence’ of the quality your business provides, and it carries a lot of weight in the eyes of your customers.
What makes a great review or testimonial?
There are a few qualities that make a compelling review and testimonial for your business are as follows:
Honest and authentic content
Reviews and testimonials are sacred in the eyes of the customer.
Hence, it must be real statements shared by real people. Today’s tech-savvy clientele can sniff a doctored or faked review from a mile away.
A testimonial with a headshot and a link to their business or personal profile is more reassuring than one without.
So, don’t hesitate to ask your reviewers for their headshot or link to their business when you ask for their legal permission for using their testimonial.
Content that is helpful to your visitors
Reviews or testimonials that provide a fresh approach to using your products or services keep your audience glued to your page and make them want to know more about your business and how it can help them.
Once you receive high quality reviews of your products or services, pin them on top of your testimonials page.
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Content that highlights unique features
Truly fantastic reviews and testimonials are those that emphasize the unique feature set that your product and services apart which is the reason the reviewer opted for your product instead of your competitors’.
So, how to get authentic reviews and testimonials for your business?
Here are some effective strategies to get truly awesome reviews and testimonials for your business:
Become a Social Search Ninja
You hopefully are already using social media to promote your business and to interact with your audience. There is a great possibility that people are already talking about your business on social media.
Social media listening tools can clue you in on exactly who is paying attention.
It could be in the form of traditional reviews people have left on blogs or social networks like Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn, and so on.
Or they could be in the form of video testimonials generated by influencers on YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, TikTok, and so on.
It could also be in the form of podcasts where people are talking about your business.
You can search for these golden snippets of reviews and curate them into your brand pages.
Linking reviews and testimonials from such authoritative sites create a sense of ease in the minds of your customers when they are contemplating buying one of your products or utilizing your services.
Search review sites and forums for testimonials
Portals like Trust-Pilot, Yelp, Google My Business, Birdseye, or other similar local sites are designed exclusively for people to list their experiences with various brands and products.
Even if you don’t have an official presence on these sites, there is a possibility that people may have already left reviews about your brand or product on these sites.
What’s more wonderful is the fact that these sites provide ways to officially claim accounts that represent your brand so that you can directly engage with your customers.
There are also niche-specific forums where people may be talking about their experience with your products and brand.
Even if you don’t find any suitable reviews or testimonials, you can always ask the highly passionate niche community, former customers or partners to review your product or brand.
People spend a lot of their time on social media feeds interacting with their friends and family as well as businesses.
Asking your social media followers is a great way to gather high-quality review and testimonial material in a short span of time.
Free goods in exchange for reviews and testimonials
You can offer your visitors free merchandise in exchange for reviewing your business or products that they may have used in the past.
Freebies can be your brand content, opt ins, templates, eBooks, swipe files, merchandise or whatever special products you offer on your site.
Free distribution of goodies also offers you with valuable brand awareness created by your reviewers.
Giveaway of products you want to be reviewed
One great way of increasing your brand awareness and promoting products is to organize a giveaway of the products you want to be reviewed. This approach has the added benefit of increasing interaction with your target audience.
This can be achieved by organizing a giveaway or contest for the product whose entry requires answering simple questions related to the product you are giving away. Ask your winners to leave a testimonial after they have used the product for some time.
Ask friends for reviews and testimonials
If you are just starting out your business, it can be quite challenging to list reviews and testimonials on your website due to low traffic.
In such cases, it’s a great idea to ask your friends, relatives, colleagues, or co-workers with whom you have dealt at a professional level in the past to leave a review for your brand.
Use quotes from appreciation emails
One place where people often leave honest testimonials is in your business email.
Look for such appreciation mails in your inboxes and ask the reviewer’s permission to use their quotes in the testimonial section of your brand pages.
Search the comment section in your blog
It is always advisable to engage in conversation with your audience via the comment section in your blog.
Quite often, you may find wonderful nuggets of admiration for your brand that can be linked in the testimonial section of your brand page.
There may also be other blogs where people may be talking about your brand or products in the comment section.
Ask for permission and link them to your review and testimonial pages.
And don’t forget to say thank you!
Review and testimonial swap
Every online business or blog was a beginner at some point.
The webmasters and administrators of such businesses are open-minded to such symbiotic testimonial requests.
However, any request for testimonials must be made politely only after you have already written your own review or testimonial about their brand.
Newsletter asking for reviews and testimonials
Your customers are your most passionate followers, as they have chosen to spend their hard-earned money on your brand. They are your most vocal supporters and will help you in any way they can.
Make it a point to politely ask your customers for their review or testimonials in your newsletter.
Review and testimonial form or bot
One of the most straightforward ways to collect testimonials is to deploy a form on your web page that can be used by visitors to submit testimonials.
This can be achieved by using various plugins like WP forms, Typeform, and so on.
You can also deploy simple chat-bots on your product pages that ask visitors to leave a testimonial of the product they are browsing.
Create a survey
Create surveys using form tools like jot form, Google form, type form, or Microsoft forms to ask your customers about various products.
Implement logic that asks the reviewer to write a testimonial when they leave a five-star review for any product.
10 Ways to Collect Valuable Data with Contests
Send emails asking for reviews and testimonials
Asking your customers who have already purchased a product or used your business is a great way to gather testimonial material.
Since you know which of your customers have purchased which product, or used your services, you can tailor your tools to send emails asking for testimonials to only those customers who have purchased a product for which you want reviews.
Blog testimonials work great as well.
Add a notification bubble to ask for reviews and testimonials
Notification bubbles are similar to pop-ups, with the added benefit of being non-intrusive.
Unlike pop-ups, they don’t negatively impact the user experience.
You can create and configure a notification bubble to appear on a specific page with various web notification tools to notify the user to leave a review after they have purchased something from your store.
Push notification to ask for reviews and testimonials
It’s not always possible for your customers to have access to a PC or laptop when browsing your online store. In fact, the majority of digital interaction that they have is via their smartphone, smartwatch, or other wearable devices.
This is where push notifications come into the picture.
This service is used to send notifications to users about order shipping, delivery status, and so on.
The same service can also be leveraged to gather reviews and testimonials from customers.
Search overlooked resources
The internet is a vast place, and it’s quite easy to miss a relevant testimonial resource.
Thus, it’s advisable to be constantly on the lookout for new resources that can be used to gather high-quality reviews and testimonials to create a winning reputation online!
Hire me to create a winning review or testimonial for your business today!
