Testimonials are fantastic marketing materials because they are exactly what a prospective customer wants to know – “What do your CUSTOMERS say about you?” So, make it a regular part of your marketing routine to give testimonials, ask for testimonials, and use them in your marketing!
It’s easy to forget some of the big but important tasks in sales and marketing. So focus on it one day a week – make it a point, every Tuesday, (it’s easy to remember because of the nice cheesy alliteration!) to do SOMETHING about testimonials for your product or service.
How to Get Testimonials
- Give a sincere testimonial to a partner or supplier.
- Ask for a testimonial from a customer.
- Add a question to your customer satisfaction survey – do they have any comments about your product or service? Ask them to check a box if you have permission to use their comments in your marketing.
How to Use Testimonials
Once you get a few good customer testimonials, use them to improve your marketing materials. Here are some great places to use them:
- Add them to your “About Us” page on your website. This is where people look for reassurance that your company is credible and they should do business with you.
- Near your order form or “buy” buttons on your website, or the order form in a direct mail piece. Customers need to be reassured before they buy from you.
- On product sheets, brochures, proposals, or recommendations.
- Set them apart visually from the rest of the text, using a different font, color, lines or boxes, This lets readers know that “someone else is speaking.”
- Testimonials are best when they come from someone who is likely to be knowledgeable in a relevant field. For that reason, it’s best to use names and titles attributing “who said it” whenever possible.
One more thing about testimonials – sometimes they’re not entirely positive. Customers don’t always say what we want them to say. My advice – use them anyway. It’s okay to clean them up for grammar, length or continuity (ask permission of the person who gave them to you to use the shortened or altered version) but don’t change the meaning.
So, there’s still some Tuesday left. Plenty of time to do something about your Testimonial strategy! ..
Paula – As consumers we’ve become used to reading product reviews – and testimonials are reviews of a person’s “service product.”
I write primarily for the real estate industry, and I urge all of my followers to send a short survey after every closing, simply because many people don’t think to send a review, even when they loved the service. I also remind them to hang on to complimentary notes and email messages – and to ask permission to use their contents.
Great plan – surveys are a good for so many reasons, more testimonials and reviews are just one of the many benefits of doing a customer satisfaction survey.