The Awesome Power of Testimonials in Your Marketing

Testimonials are a powerful tool for your marketing arsenal. This is especially true if you have a small business, if you are a consultant, coach or service professional. Having a website, videos, articles or blog posts and a clear marketing message is key. But people sometimes need more ‘proof’ to make the final decision to work with you or use your services. They need some kind of confirmation.

People seek confirmation in many ways. First, they may consult with someone they may know and trust who knows you and/or have worked with you or used your services. Short of that, testimonials by real people or real companies will also do the ‘trick’. Don’t get me wrong, the aim is not the use of trickery to get people to work with you, but rather to get your real, satisfied clients and customers to put in writing what they may already have expressed verbally.

There is also a distinct difference between showing your past or current clients on a webpage or brochure and showing a testimonial. Testimonials are more powerful as it is a message from your raving fan to a potential client.

You can get testimonials from your past clients in various ways

:

– Ask them to write an email that summarizes their experience with you, your team and your service
– Survey every client upon the completion of a project or assignment. Ask them what their past situation or problem was, what they needed your service to help them with and the end result after using your service.

In most cases, your clients will be happy to do this.

• Video testimonials are great. This is particularly useful and convenient at the end of a seminar, presentation or workshop you or your team conducted. It is real because it is on location and in the client’s own words.
• Audio testimonials can also be used and easily placed on your website.

Some tools to help you with some of the suggestions above:

To compile free surveys: SurveyMonkey.com

To record audio testimonials: Freeconferencecalling.com

To resize pictures used on your website, next to a written testimonial: Picnik.com

To record video testimonials: My fave and current video camera – Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video Camera (Black) [Affiliate link] or any digital camera with a video setting. Some cell phones may also work as long as you have the cable to connect and upload it to your computer. Then of course upload to a video site like YouTube, Vimeo or countless others.

See how you can utilize testimonials in your marketing today.

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