4 Ideas to Improve the Way You Publish Your Business Reviews

Client reviews and case studies can help convert users into customers and be extremely beneficial to your bottom line. In many cases, they can provide a sense of overall stability and establish trustworthiness for your brand.

Recently, WikiJob and VWO conducted an A/B test to see how just effective client testimonials were. During this test, they found that there was a 34 percent increase in sales when visitors to websites were able to see case studies and testimonials from previously-satisfied customers.

However, just posting these case studies and testimonials are not enough. You need to be smart about it. Here are four possible ideas:

Idea #1: Change the Location.

The first option to consider is the location of your testimonials. Research has shown that there are basically two spots on a page that prove to be the most popular with the way a user’s eyes move across an internet page: the sidebar and the product page itself.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that these two areas with prove the most popular for your own brand and product pages. It is best to conduct your own individual A/B tests to determine what is best for you. You want to look at everything, even something as small as the space between the “Add to Cart” button and the testimonial. It could make all the difference in the world to get that visitor to click that button.

Idea #2: Match Potential Customers with Previous Ones.

It is important to keep in mind that you shouldn’t just publish testimonials and case studies from your previous customers. Instead, you should also focus on making these relevant to your incoming, potential customers.

For instance, Sharefile, which is a service that shares documents, works with a number of Fortune 500 companies. They make sure that they are constantly tailoring their landing pages and case studies to their target audiences. What exactly does this mean? Well, leads that are generated from a site that focuses on the dental industry will be served best with a page that is primarily focused on the specific needs of that niche and should be accompanied by case studies and testimonials from individuals from the dental industry. 

In other words, testimonials and case studies are not one-size-fits-all. If they are, then they won’t leave a lasting impression on your site visitors – the ones that will are relevant and tailored to their needs.

Idea #3: Don’t Overlook the Importance of Cherry Picking.

Amazon, Alibaba and other ecommerce giants don’t get to choose the product reviews that get posted on their sites. However, as you are building your testimonials page, you do get the choice of which ones go on the page and which ones you can send packing. Therefore, you want to take your time going through all of your reviews to decide which ones you want the world to see.

Now, just because you see a negative testimonial, it doesn’t mean that it should be put on the back burner. After all, everyone isn’t going to love your product and it may be a good idea to let everyone know that. Your primary focus here is to make sure that the testimonials that you publish are relevant, specific and personal. You should also look for testimonials that mention a company presentative by their name, specific product features, etc.

Idea #4: Don’t Forget to Take Multimedia into Consideration.

In today’s day and age, social proof is imperative to the overall success of your business because people want to know that the decisions that they are making are putting them with others that have made similar (good) decisions.

Take, for instance, the experiment that Stanley Milgram conducted. He had one individual stand and stare up at a window on the sixth floor just to see how many others would join in with him. Then, he had 15 people do it. At the end of the study, he found that four percent of individuals going by would join in with the single individual, but 86 percent would join in with the group of people.

There are no face-to-face connections online, so you have to turn to impersonal written testimonials. To help avoid the doubt that these can bring, you may want to consider inviting your customers to take a multimedia approach, such as a video testimonial. It brings a much more emotional and enthusiastic approach to the feedback given.

Rather than just publishing the video testimonials on your company’s website, you could consider going above and beyond and posting them on other channels, such as Vimeo and YouTube, to bring in more traffic and spread the word even further about your product.

It All Boils Down to Reputation

It doesn’t matter if you are an actual business owner or if you are just a marketing manager of a brand, getting creating with your case studies and testimonials is going to pay off in the end. They help to build a solid reputation for your brand, and you can only build a reputation buy earning the trust of your customers. It is important that sales prospects know that your brand has a history of excellence and that the company is stable. The best way to communicate this to any of your potential customers is to publish the results of your previous clients.

If you have any questions or would like more information on publishing testimonials, contact us at WebDetail.