subject: How Good Review And Testimonial Will Effect Your Business Reputation [print this page] Good reviews and testimonials are still two of the most important things that you can need working for your internet business. But how do you get them? What is the difference between each? And why is it important to need both? These are all questions you need to understand the answers to before moving forward with your web marketing platform. But before you get there, it is important that you focus on the most important thing for your business, period, and that is delivering a great product or service that actually fulfills a user need. Getting shills to speak for an unproven business may work in the beginning, but as you expand your reach, the product or service will stand up based on its own merit, and if there isn't any merit, then your success will be minimal at best, and in the end, non existent. With that said, it's time to address the three key questions mentioned above.
1. How do you get reviews and testimonials?
Getting reviews and testimonials is natural if you are sincere in your purposes and inviting to people on social networks and in the real world. Everyone with an internet identity is champing at the bit to get something useful for free, and if it's truly useful, then getting a testimonial or review should be natural. Many will even leave good comments out of thankfulness, even if they didn't really like the product or service. Being friendly, sincere, inviting and tech savvy will allow you access to a trove of people, who will help you spread the word and get those initial sales.
2. What is the difference between a testimonial and a review?
These two are closely related, so it's natural to see how they are looked at interchangeably, but there really is a key difference. With a testimonial, a person is speaking to all the ways that the product or service helped them solve their problems. Testimonials are mostly praise heavy and more appreciative than analytical. Reviews, on the other hand, can often need praise in them, but they mostly evaluate the product based on its merits (or the lack thereof) with the purpose of helping others see the value. Reviews are mostly found on retail sites for the product (or third party sites on the content area), while testimonials are usually direct contacts between the business and the consumer, and can be found on the company marketing materials.
3. Why is it important to need both?
Your users come from all walks of life, and the Internet has hundreds upon hundreds of millions of users. Expanding your digital footprint as wide as you possibly can will be the key to long lasting success.
