Increase Sales With Testimonials
| Category: Sales Tips | Date: 2003-01-24 |
Testimonials are a great way to increase sales with any business. You see them used all over the place on TV ads to quotes from movie critic reviews in newspapers. Even busses have ads on their sides with quotes from someone or other.
How many times have you seen: "The best movie of the year!" - The N.Y. Sun or "Academy Award-winning material!" - The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
You probably get nice letters from happy customers, read them and then toss them or save them, but you don't use them.
Use them!
When someone writes you a nice letter telling you how they enjoyed your product or service, this is the highest form of praise. This person actually took time out of their hectic day to say something nice, going out of their way because they were obviously very pleased.
Write the person back, via email or snail mail and ask for permission to use their letter as a testimonial. You can also include a link to their website if they have one or you can just mention their business. This makes the letter more legitimate. Readers can see this is a real person.
One important thing: Do not use their email address or street address. This is too personal and other than the fact that this is a spammer's dream, you do want to keep the customer's information private from all prying eyes.
Do not make up letters. For some reason or other they always seem to shine through as fake. It's a good idea to only run real testimonials that you have received.
If you have not received any testimonials you can approach a recent customer and inquire about the product or service. Ask them if the item arrived on time. Ask them how they like it. Their response will be your testimonial. (Hopefully it is a good response and not a complaint -- sometimes when you "open the door" by asking how a person liked something it has the reverse effect and you hear complaints).
When you have your testimonials, set up a web page with the praise you received. Put a link to that page on all of your other web pages. You may even choose to place one testimonial on your homepage and just continue the rest onto their own page inside the site somewhere, linking right from the home page testimonial.
Testimonials are well read. People do read what others have to say about a product or service. That is why you see testimonials all over the place and especially in movie ads.
They have proven to be high motivators on websites, especially on sites selling information like ebooks and such which are more of a service than product.
People like to see good reviews and see how others feel about a particular subject, website or item. It makes them feel part of a group. They see they are not alone in wanting to purchase from you.
By Tom Falco © 2002
http://www.XpectMore.com
About the Author
Tom Falco is editor of XpectMore.com Marketing eZine you can subscribe by visiting: XpectMore.com or ezine@xpectmore.com?subject=subscribe Tom also is Quiz Master of "American Pop Culture Trivia" Visit: http://www.xpectmore.com/pop.htm
support@xpectmore.com
http://www.xpectmore.com
How many times have you seen: "The best movie of the year!" - The N.Y. Sun or "Academy Award-winning material!" - The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
You probably get nice letters from happy customers, read them and then toss them or save them, but you don't use them.
Use them!
When someone writes you a nice letter telling you how they enjoyed your product or service, this is the highest form of praise. This person actually took time out of their hectic day to say something nice, going out of their way because they were obviously very pleased.
Write the person back, via email or snail mail and ask for permission to use their letter as a testimonial. You can also include a link to their website if they have one or you can just mention their business. This makes the letter more legitimate. Readers can see this is a real person.
One important thing: Do not use their email address or street address. This is too personal and other than the fact that this is a spammer's dream, you do want to keep the customer's information private from all prying eyes.
Do not make up letters. For some reason or other they always seem to shine through as fake. It's a good idea to only run real testimonials that you have received.
If you have not received any testimonials you can approach a recent customer and inquire about the product or service. Ask them if the item arrived on time. Ask them how they like it. Their response will be your testimonial. (Hopefully it is a good response and not a complaint -- sometimes when you "open the door" by asking how a person liked something it has the reverse effect and you hear complaints).
When you have your testimonials, set up a web page with the praise you received. Put a link to that page on all of your other web pages. You may even choose to place one testimonial on your homepage and just continue the rest onto their own page inside the site somewhere, linking right from the home page testimonial.
Testimonials are well read. People do read what others have to say about a product or service. That is why you see testimonials all over the place and especially in movie ads.
They have proven to be high motivators on websites, especially on sites selling information like ebooks and such which are more of a service than product.
People like to see good reviews and see how others feel about a particular subject, website or item. It makes them feel part of a group. They see they are not alone in wanting to purchase from you.
By Tom Falco © 2002
http://www.XpectMore.com
About the Author
Tom Falco is editor of XpectMore.com Marketing eZine you can subscribe by visiting: XpectMore.com or ezine@xpectmore.com?subject=subscribe Tom also is Quiz Master of "American Pop Culture Trivia" Visit: http://www.xpectmore.com/pop.htm
support@xpectmore.com
http://www.xpectmore.com
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