I owe my success in business to my customers.
As a small business owner, the expense of hiring and training sales people can be overwhelming. In the 11 years since I took the entrepreneurial plunge, I have found that my customers are my best sales people - and they’re not even on the payroll.
Believe it or not, over 33% of my business this year is in some way a result of customer referrals. Typically, the referring person has already done the sales job for me; I just need to confirm the order details.
Customer testimonials break down natural resistance and make your marketing claims credible by saying things that would sound too good to be true if you said them yourself. Hearing the details of a good buying experience from a fellow customer can move mountains in terms of overcoming buyer skepticism.
I am convinced it is absolutely critical not to overlook the wealth of marketing power we hold in our customer records. We all spend so much time looking for new business when we have acres of diamonds in our existing customer base! These are the most powerful tools a business owner can use to market his business.
As a business owner, you know how difficult it is to play all of the roles you need to play in order to keep your business afloat. With all of this juggling, it is easy to lose site of the bare essentials that keep your business trudging on - marketing. Systematic marketing, where a repeatable system is in place, is a must-have, yet is too often taken for granted. And when that sale is complete, you need a system for turning that satisfied customer into more leads by requesting and harnessing that all-powerful testimonial.
I feel so strongly about the topic of customer testimonial marketing that I have decided to bring you an entire series of comprehensive blogs on the topic. I will show you, step by step, how to put together an effective testimonial marketing strategy and explain to you exactly why it works.
This series will cover:
• Why Your Customer Can Say What You Can’t
• Why Customer Testimonials Work
• How to Use Testimonials in Your Marketing Materials
• 7 Ways to Increase Response Using Testimonials
• Testimonial Checklist
Keep checking in for the great tips and updates I’ll provide in the rest of this series. I promise, your business will never be the same.
In my next blog, I’ll tell you why your customers have the power to say the things you could never say yourself.
