Would you like to duplicate your selling success to other ideal prospects in your target market?<\/p>\n
One of the strongest ways to persuade prospects to buy your service is the use of testimonials in your marketing materials.<\/p>\n
A testimonial — an endorsement from an individual that is similar to the kind of prospects you want to attract as clients — can\u00a0have\u00a0a tremendous impact on the effectiveness of all your marketing materials, including:<\/p>\n
Good testimonials do two things:<\/strong><\/p>\n Two baseline requirements before you start a testimonial program<\/strong><\/p>\n So having a lot of good testimonials sounds great, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n The reality is that implementing a testimonial program is a challenge. But it can be done successfully if you have these two requirements in place:<\/p>\n First, like all good marketing, it requires you to purposefully focus your attention on your clients, and not your business or yourself. Good testimonials are focused on satisfied clients expressing benefits about your service, not generically praising how great your company is.\u00a0 Recognizing this is key to be able to develop the most effective testimonials.<\/p>\n Second, a testimonial requires a commitment to an ongoing effort and strategy.\u00a0\u00a0 You must be in contact with your satisfied clients — always keeping in touch and “in the know” on any specific and measurable results they’ve had by using your service. And in that process, you must be willing to ask for testimonials from these clients — and know how to ask the right questions.<\/p>\n So let’s get started on developing\u00a0your testimonial program…<\/em><\/p>\n Two must-have elements of a strong testimonial<\/strong><\/p>\n Generic accolades about you or your company are not effective.\u00a0Things like:<\/p>\n “We love your work. Keep it up!”<\/em><\/p>\n “I’m so glad I signed up for this. I recommend it to everyone.”<\/em><\/p>\n The above testimonials will have very little impact on a prospect’s decision to buy from you.<\/p>\n Instead, strong testimonials should have these two key elements:<\/strong><\/p>\n How many testimonials should you have?<\/strong><\/p>\n There’s no magic number, but ideally you should ask for testimonials from as many clients as possible.<\/p>\n Here are some guidelines:<\/p>\n Obviously the more you have, the better.<\/p>\n Be willing to ask for them.\u00a0\u00a0 But what do you ask?<\/strong><\/p>\n Often a satisfied client is willing to give a testimonial, but they might ask for assistance on what to say.\u00a0 This is good.\u00a0 Don’t be afraid to direct them.<\/p>\n In fact, being prepared to “lead” them a bit with certain types of questions will help you capture a stronger testimonial. With some nudging, you will normally find that most clients like to talk about how well things are going.<\/p>\n Here are some guidelines of the types of questions to ask:<\/p>\n (Be sure to download the testimonial worksheet<\/a>\u00a0for specific sample questions)<\/p>\n Ask questions that will:<\/strong><\/p>\n Remember, the strongest testimonials will get the prospect thinking: “hey, this person is just like me. He or she has the same problem as I do, and it got solved with this service. I want to buy this service, too.”<\/p>\n How do you find testimonials?<\/strong><\/p>\n Be direct and ask them the results they are getting from your service.\u00a0\u00a0 Then ask “may I quote you?”\u00a0\u00a0 If they agree, write down their statement. Then send it to them by mail or email with a note stating that you’d like their permission to use the testimonial in your marketing materials.<\/p>\n A good way to solicit testimonials is to conduct a survey of your clients. While every response may not be useful for a testimonial, you’ll probably get some (and any other comments can probably be used to help you improve your service).<\/p>\n Surveys can be conducted by regular mail, or can easily and affordably be conducted by email, using an online survey utility like Survey Monkey<\/a> or Survey Gizmo<\/a>.<\/p>\n To improve response rates, make the survey easy and quick for your client to complete. Keep it to less than 10 questions (five or six might be even better), and be sure to mix up the style of questions (include both open-ended and closed-ended questions.)<\/p>\n Should you offer clients a gift for their\u00a0testimonials?<\/strong><\/p>\n Gifts are optional, but they can add a nice touch to your testimonial program. You just need to be careful how you approach gift-giving so that your testimonials are objective and “pure.”<\/p>\n When contacting customers directly, by phone or in person, if you want to send a thank-you gift, it is often better to do so after the client gives you permission to use a testimonial (that is, not announcing in advance that “I’m giving gifts if you give me a testimonial”).\u00a0\u00a0 Usually when you make direct contacts, satisfied clients are quite willing to talk and don’t need an incentive to do so.<\/p>\n When surveying clients, however, you can often increase your response to the survey by offering a small gift for completing the survey (note: the gift is an incentive for completing the survey<\/em> — not for providing\u00a0positive comments about your service!<\/em>).<\/p>\n What kind of thank-you gifts can be used?<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Gifts could be an article or special report that you’ve written that would be helpful to their business, a low-cost item (such as a calendar, notepad, writing pen, etc.), or perhaps a gift certificate to a coffee house or online bookstore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Would you like to duplicate your selling success to other ideal prospects in your target market? One of the strongest ways to persuade prospects to buy your service is the use of testimonials in your marketing materials. A testimonial — an endorsement from an individual that is similar to the kind of prospects you want […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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