Marketing Strategy 75: Testimonials

n today’s lesson we are going to talk about testimonials.Testimonials are quotes or videos from happy clients who recommend your service. They are incredibly important for a number of reasons:

• Credibility: Testimonials give you credibility because what other people say about your business is more believable than what you say.
• Believability: One of the biggest reasons people don’t buy a product or service is that they don’t think it is ‘right for them’. You can ease this nagging doubt if you have testimonials from people who are similar to your prospects.

What Makes A Good Testimonial?

A good testimonial should be:

Short and easy to read at a glance
One common mistake businesses make is using long paragraphs as testimonials. Prospects skip over them, so you lose the benefit.

Specific and interesting
Vague testimonials like ‘XYZ Carpet Cleaner is great’ are no good for selling. You want to get specific comments like ‘My carpets looked so clean, I could have returned them to the store as new’.

The aim is to get testimonials that address a specific benefit.For example, if you promise that the carpet dries in 4 hours, then you want testimonials of customers confirming this benefit.For each benefit you would like to highlight, try to have at least one testimonial. Obviously two or more is better.You can neverhave too many testimonials on hand.

Believable
Your prospect needs to believe the testimonial is real to make it effective.That’ why it’s a good idea to include a name, location and photo with a testimonial. Or to use a video if possible. Now you know why testimonials are important and what a good one looks like, let’s look at how to get them.

TODAY’S TASK: GettingTestimonialsTestimonials are great.

However, you can’t just ask clients for them because you will get rambling paragraphs that you cannot use. Instead, you should follow these steps to get a good testimonial for your marketing:

1. Phone a client who loves your service.Ask them if they would be willing to give feedback about your business.
2. Ask what impressed them most about your service. They will usually give a rambling vague answer. Just take notes of what they say.
3. Thank the client. Ask their permission to write out the testimonial in a way you can use and then send it to them for approval.
4. Once the client approves you have a great testimonial. You can use this in your marketing to increase your sales and grow your business.

Downloadable Marketing Strategy 75 Form