Testimonials
How many times when you are looking for products and services do you find yourself checking out the companies feedback on Google or comments on Facebook, or the star ratings on their website?
Checking reviews has become a central part of our smart buying decision-making process.
The best kind of marketing a company can employ is Word of Mouth testimonials. Many businesses believe this is out of their control. They think that they cannot control who tells who about their business.
This is rubbish!
You completely control if a person will recommend you by the quality of their interaction with them. Your goal is not just to sell someone a product or service, but to turn them into a card-carrying advocate for your business. Do this, and the testimonials, Google Reviews and Facebook Shares and Likes will follow.
The above being true, you can influence people who visit your site by creating a Word of Mouth Marketing system on your website. On your website often takes the form of a Testimonials page of which you list some of the positive feedback you receive from customers.
Additionally, you can use the content from Google Posts or comments left on Facebook to populate this page.
On a side note, we often design your website to have testimonials at other places that are relevant to help reinforce your message.
Structure of a Testimonial
When you put a testimonial on your website in needs to be short (20-30 words), it needs to be positive, and it needs to be truthful.
Name Dropping
If people do not want to be named on the testimonial, just tell them you will use their initials such as
T.A. – Hamilton
Don’t Go Over The Top
As with many things, it is quality and not the quantity of testimonials that are important. I would suggest you aim to have 8 – 12 outstanding testimonials on your site and when you get a new one, remove an old one.
The social proof and peer review power of testimonials on your website should never be underrated. Managed well this is a great way to reinforce your positive messages about your skills, services or products, with heartfelt confirmation from happy clients.
Getting Testimonials
Often happy clients will spontaneously send you a thank you email; this is fantastic, when it happens, however, if you have an after-sale system in place you will be able to encourage more people to give positive feedback.
After-sales follow up can be as simple as an email of appreciation you send to them a week or so following the sale or it could be an online survey you ask people o complete so you can understand how they felt you did in surveying their needs.
We use a combination of the two methods to allow us to refine how we deal with people regularly. This website was born out of the need for clients to get more support and guidance in not just the building of their website but also using it effectively once it is online. It is your users manual.
Social Proof
You need to review comments left on social media actively. If someone posts a positive message about you publicly, then you need to email them or PM them to ask for permission to use that comment on your website. You don’t need to ask permission if they have posted it on a public forum like Facebook, but it is all part of the customer experience to do so and keep that positive feeling coming.
Summary
This section has been quite long as it is very important. The dehumanisation of business contact due to using the internet means that you need to strive to create more human emotion on your website. People buy from people.