One of the most effective forms of advertising that you can use is the user testimonial. Reading what other buyers had to say about a product or service can provide prospective buyers comfort and can result in pushing those that are “on-the-fence” into buying into whatever you are selling. If you pay attention to some of the most effective sales pages on the web, you’ll notice that nearly all of them have customer or third-party testimonials. The only reason that more online marketers aren’t using them is that testimonials are thought to be very difficult to obtain.
Fortunately, this is not really the case. There are several ways to get testimonials, but perhaps the easiest (and most overlooked) method is to use your current clients! When someone buys your product or service, give them some time to enjoy the benefits, then send them a quick email and ask if they are happy with their purchase. Kindly ask your customer if they can take a moment to do you a HUGE favor and write a brief note about their experience with your product or service. Keep in mind that many will not respond, but if you do this with each and every customer, you will have some excellent testimonials in no time!
One method of increasing the number of responses you get for your testimonial requests is to offer some sort of gift or bonus to the customer for providing specific feedback. It is important to make sure it doesn’t appear that you are trying to buy positive reviews, but providing a little bit of compensation (non-monetary, of course!) is perfectly fine. After all, your customer is using his or her valuable time to provide you feedback, so offering a little something in return can help make it worth their while.
Some of the most powerful and effective testimonials that you can receive are from respected third-parties in your industry or business. One common practice in the online world is to offer your product or service free of charge to an industry “expert”. Believe me, the top names in any industry get these sort of offers all the time. I recommend writing to the expert and offering them free access to your product or service in exchange for their feedback. Including something like, “If you find [insert your product here] to be a great value, I would be very appreciative if you would be willing to provide a testimonial for us to use in our marketing efforts”.
These individuals are experts for a reason and they know how marketing works. If they have time to review your product and find it valuable, most will be willing to provide a testimonial for you. Try emailing your free offer to several “experts” that you identify and hopefully you’ll hit on one or two. Even if you aren’t given an endorsement to use in your marketing, you can often get great feedback on your product and ways to improve it.
Before I end this post, I want to touch on one related topic. I often see people online offering to endorse a product for a fee. While, on the surface, this seems very unethical, the reality is that it is no different than the millions that are paid to celebrities for product endorsements each year. I don’t like to tell others how and how not to market their products, so use your own judgement. Personally, I think it is fine to hire someone to “endorse” your product or service, as long as it is clear that they are being compensated for the endorsement.
