Customer testimonials are one of the most effective and powerful tools you could add to your selling and marketing arsenal. A testimonial from a third party basically will do the selling for you, and the best part is you can get these endorsements for free. A potential customer is much more likely to buy your product or service when they can see clear examples of fellow consumers having success because of you and your service. Getting customers to place testimonials on your website and your marketing materials is not that difficult if you understand how to motivate them to do so.
Recent studies have shown that sales to your website will increase in excess of 20% if there are valid customer testimonials that a prospective client can read. The biggest problem many website owners face is that happy customers do not aggressively search out a website to place a testimonial. Unhappy consumers eagerly look for websites that they have had problems with and gladly warn the world of the horrible service. It is just the nature of the beast. If you do receive a few positive testimonials on your website, there are twenty times more customers who also enjoyed your product or service and just did not feel like leaving a testimonial, or do not understand how a positive testimonial impacts your business. Your job is to contact those people who email you, or call you praising your business, and simply ask them to leave you a testimonial. If they have taken the time to send you a message about how happy they were, ask them to take it a little further.
You can implement buttons on your website that go directly to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and again encourage people who praise your service to take a few seconds and spread the work by clicking the like button after leaving a testimonial. Make it easy for them to spread the word by implementing social media plugins on your website. Do not assume they will go to their social media accounts and talk about you. You have to aggressively ask them for the testimonial. You must become proactive when it comes to getting customers to talk positively about your business.
Prospective customers will most likely check you out online before they make a substantial purchase, and if you have no ratings or no customer testimonials, that seems to raise a red flag with most people. That being said, if you are found online having 5 star ratings, and positive testimonials, the likelihood that they will make the purchase increases dramatically. When you have a buyer who is happy with your service, ask for the testimonial. Once you have it, you want to place it on your website and be certain to give the testimonial some credence by posting the buyer’s name and location. Potential buyers can see through the fake endorsements that are all over the internet that have a first name and vague location. You need to put an identity to that endorsement so potential buyers feel confident that they should make a purchase from you.
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