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Using Testimonials
by Tash Hughes
of Word Constructions (www.wordconstructions.com.au)
Testimonials are
a great marketing tool for your business. They provide
an external opinion about your business which can
reassure potential customers and help them make a buying
decision.
Gathering
testimonials from satisfied customers can take a bit of
time, but it is well worth the effort. Keep them in a
file together so you can always access them as required.
What to do
with testimonials
Obviously,
testimonials make you feel good and can pick you up at
times when business is a bit slow. Although this is a
legitimate use of testimonials, they are of more use
when you share them with potential customers.
Testimonials can
be included on websites, brochures, flyers, the back of
business cards, posters, information sheets, in media
releases, advertisements, product packaging and more. In
fact, you can be creative and put your testimonial in
all sorts of places.
You may even
find some testimonials can be useful for developing a
new tag line or slant for your advertising copy.
How to
present them
Testimonials can
be used by themselves, such as a testimonials page on
your website or a list you can hand out.
For a customer
who is looking for some reassurance or a better sense of
your business, this list may be useful. However, many
people probably wouldn’t take a lot of notice of this
page on your site or in an information pack.
The more
effective use of testimonials is to intersperse them
with your main text.
For instance, if
you sell a range of products, you can have testimonials
for each product on the relevant sales page for that
product. Customers after only one product will then see
the relevant testimonials as they are deciding whether
or not to buy from you.
Having
testimonials throughout your general information makes
it more visible and useful. A few well placed
testimonials are more convincing than an overwhelming
list that includes more information than is required.
Naming
customers
Make sure that
all customers giving you a testimonial are aware that
you intend to use their words publicly. If any request
their name to be presented in a given way, then do so –
for instance, many people would prefer to be listed as
Mary or Mary A rather than Mary
Alexander.
Be careful of
divulging too much information about your customers. Not
only does this violate your customer’s privacy and
perhaps their trust in you, it may make other people
wary of trusting you with their details.
If customers are
happy to be contacted as a referral, give those details
out as required rather than spreading their email
address or phone number everywhere. This is where a
sheet of testimonials with some contact details can be
useful to have on file to give selected people who wish
to hear personal testimonials.
If testimonials
come from business owners, offer to list their business
name as well as their personal name. So a testimonial
could be from ‘Tash Hughes of Save Time Online’ instead
of ‘Tash Hughes’. This a nice extra for your customer
and also makes their testimonial look a little more
official and credible if you are offering business
services.
When adding
testimonials to your website, there are extra
considerations.
For instance,
you can hyperlink the customer’s business name to their
site rather than just list the name. Of course, this
helps increase the page ranking for both sites so it is
an advantageous policy.
Because of the
public nature of the web, don’t include email addresses
or phone numbers of people giving you testimonials.
Listing their email addresses opens them up to spam, if
nothing else, so it isn’t looking after your customers.
Tell potential customers to contact you if they want
contact details to go with any testimonials.
On the other
hand, not naming people at all in testimonials reduces
their impact. If no name is attached, what
differentiates it from your main message? An unnamed
testimonial is more likely to be perceived as being
written by you and thus of no meaning.
Tash Hughes is
the owner of
Word Constructions and is available to solve all
your business writing problems! From letters to
policies, newsletters to web content, Word Constructions
writes all business documents to your style and
satisfaction.
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