How can you get truthful, sales-enhancing, kick butt testimonials including all the elements that a top-notch testimonial requires including a picture, audio, and detailed information? Well, all you have to do is ask for them! More importantly however is ‘how’ you ask for your testimonials. You will be surprised that people are more than willing to tell you their story or talk about how they like your product if you ask them in the right way. Here are a few guidelines on what you can and should be doing in order to gather testimonials.

First off, make it really easy for you customer to give you a testimonial. The easier the better. Don’t just ask for a testimonial and leave it up to the customer to attach their picture and email everything to you. No! The secret to my success with gathering testimonials has been to make it EXTREMELY simple. I have a complete form set up and ready for customers to enter in their details, testimonials, and easily Browse and Attach an image to submit with their testimonial. I highly recommend you set up a similar page just for gathering testimonials with a form custom tailored for your customers. You can also add a phone number for leaving audio testimonials on the page as well. Doing this makes all the difference in getting customers to give you testimonials, all the difference!

Something you can do to improve the testimonials you receive is to add a small section on your form labeled “Tips to writing good testimonials”. This can include tips such as “Be Specific”, and “Tell us how the product improved your business”. Providing these little pointers will guide people in writing their testimonial, especially since most people don’t really know what they should write or how to write it.

You can also use incentives to gather testimonials. I typically don’t offer incentives for testimonials, although I do tell people that it can help others make the same wise decision that they made. Use anything from an extended use of your product, an extra ebook or mp3 audio, or a simple discount off your next product. If you decide to offer incentives then make sure you don’t represent your testimonials as ‘unsolicited’. You may want to read what the FTC says about endorsements and testimonials.

Timing is also key. In most cases I have an autoresponder set up to ask for testimonials about 7 to 10 days after purchase, however don’t hesitate to ask someone when the timing is right. If someone is emailing you about how they like your product or they are thanking you for great service, ask them for a testimonial! You should also never be afraid to ask people for a testimonial twice! If you aren’t getting a great response from your autoresponder then perhaps you should ask everyone again.

As you can see, with a little creativity and effort you can gather plenty of testimonials from your customers. After reading this series I hope you understand why testimonials from real customers are so important. I also expect that if you have a great product and satisfied customers you will be able to use these techniques to gather plenty of powerful testimonials and use them to double, triple, or quadruple your sales!

Read Part 1 or Part 2 of this series.

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One Comment on “Real Customer Testimonials - Part 3”

Pingback by Real Customer Testimonials - Part 1 » Internet Marketing Strategies by Miles Baker - March 5, 2008 @ 11:33 pm

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