4 Reasons Why You Need Testimonials to Sell More

The other day I was writing a sales brochure for a West Coast manufacturer. As I got to what I’ll call the “proof” section of the brochure, I was rummaging around for testimonials.

The company already had a full-blown Web site and a solid PowerPoint presentation. So I was hopeful that I’d find some ready made testimonials or at least some material I could use to create some.

As it turned out, they had one case study with a couple of customer quotes. I pieced the material together to create one measly testimonial. It was less than adequate.

Well, maybe it’s no big deal. After all, I wrote strong copy. Why even bother with testimonials? I’ll give you four good reasons.

1. Credibility

Testimonials give your company, product, or service credibility. Everyone is bombarded with advertising messages every day. It’s a brutal marketplace. If you want to sell something to somebody, you stand a much better chance if you can convince them that you’re credible. Testimonials are like references on a resume. They’re the people who vouch for you.

2. Identification

Your prospects identify with your customers who are providing the testimonials. They have similar concerns, problems, hopes and desires. They commiserate. This is good. You want this in your marketing. (Sorry, but your prospects don’t identify with you. Not really. You’re trying to sell them something!)

3. Proof

Proof, alone, is reason enough to gather and use testimonials. This is where your customers say, in effect, “They’re right, Mr. or Ms. Prospect. They can save you 50% … or make you feel 18 again … or make you enough money to retire at 50. They did it for me and I’m thrilled!” Testimonials notarize your marketing speak.

4. Closure

Testimonials help close the sale. Sure, they can be used throughout a marketing piece. But they definitely come in handy toward the end. You’ve introduced the problem or need, your product or service, the features and benefits, and more. Then you line up your testimonials, all the customers whose heads are nodding and saying, “Yep, it worked for me.” Soon after, you ask for the order.

For many reasons, testimonials give your prospects the confidence they need to buy from you for the first time. And once your prospects turn into new customers, the door to repeat sales swings wide open.

(c) 2005 Neil Sagebiel

3 Perfectly Effective Ways to Lose Customers

1. Let Them Procrastinate

Yeah, procrastination has stolen millions of dollars from the pockets of business men and women just like yourself. The longer it works on the customer, the less likely they will be to open their wallet and hand over the dinero they’ve been hording there.

Here’s how it works… First, the customer leaves your store without making the purchase. Second, time causes the desire for the product to fade, and distracts them from making their way back. Finally, your “almost customer” totally forgets about making the purchase, and you can kiss potential profits good-bye.

Don’t let it happen to you! Make deals so irresistible they just can’t say no, and set an expiration date. Yes, put a little press on them to buy TODAY! Reward them for complying, and make sure they forfeit the deal if they don’t. Don’t be victimized by “almost sales” that could be turned into REAL profits!

2. Stay Off The Top Of Their Priority List

Hey, sometimes we need to be reminded of exactly what is and what isn’t important in life. Where we spend our money indicates its level of importance. Are your customers telling you that your product isn’t significant to them?

Put them where you want them to be with a dramatic word picture that evokes the emotions that drive purchases. Let me say it this way… If you’re trying to sell them a home business… let them feel the freedom of being their own boss, and setting their own schedule. Are you selling water skis? Get them on the water in the hot summer sun with the wind blowing their hair and water spraying around them. Let them FEEL the importance of the decision.

You CAN motivate buyers to put a high priority on your product!

3. Don’t Build Trust

Do your customers feel confident that your company will provide the services that it says it will? How many times have you raised an eyebrow at an offer that makes big promises? Yeah, if you don’t already know they are a reputable company, you’re likely to take claims with a grain of salt.

Unconditional guarantees give credence to your desire to please customers. Testimonials are evidence that you have a proven track record. Put some facts in front of your “almost customers.” Let them know a little bit about you and your staff. It’s always easier to trust a person, than a business.

Internet customers are at especially high risks for feeling a legitimate amount of distrust. After all, anyone can make grand claims, but who is responsible for upholding them? A personal photo, a little information, and a phone number where a contact can be reached go a long ways toward building trust on the Web.

How many “almost customers” have slipped through your fingers? You can effectively turn them into loyal customers who regularly frequent your place of business with the business savvy insights we’ve talked about in this article.

Ten Phenomenal Marketing Tactics

1. An Ounce of Prevention…

How often do fads come and go? Sometimes they’re here today and gone tomorrow…other times they’re here to stay. Yeah, the problem is that it’s pretty darned hard to predict exactly what will happen in the market place this year, much less for the next decade. Just look at the Internet…how much has it impacted marketing techniques in the last decade? Yep, you need to safeguard against unexpected whirlwinds that sweep the market when you are planning your marketing strategy. Don’t get stuck on any one product or marketing technique…be flexible. You never know what’s coming down the pike!

2. A Foot in the Door…

How about it…do you mentally check customers who walk through your doors off your list of prospects? You may be short-changing yourself at the end of every day. Hey, it’s a heck of a lot easier to sell to someone who’s already loyal to you than to a complete stranger! Keep in contact…let them know about your upcoming sales…sell more to them, and watch your profits add up.

3. Keep it Believable…

You don’t want customers looking over the tops of their glasses with raised eyebrows at you. No, you want them to believe what you say as the gospel truth. Now, I didn’t say not to be colorful and descriptive…just to keep it within believable bounds. No one trusts the exaggerated.

4. Convert Fractions to Decimals…

Yep, you thought you got out of that when you walked out the school doors for the last time, didn’t you? Let’s face it…18.6 percent has a ring to it that rounding up to 20 percent just lacks. Fractional numbers presented in decimal form just sound scientific…and believable. Get the calculator out and start converting your way to copy and advertisements that have an impact.

5. Stack Them Back to Back…

Blow out or steady stream? Rather than have an all out sale one weekend in the month, have one sale each weekend. Hey, what will happen when a customer comes into your store two extra times this month? Yeah, he’ll probably make a few impulse purchases that he wouldn’t have otherwise made…and add a few extra bucks to your monthly profit to boot!

6. Ready, Aim…

Are you shooting for the right target? Yeah, I’m talking about the audience you target with your ads. Here’s a quick check - can your customers afford your product? If you get a lot of window shoppers and no real increase in sales volume… it’s time to set your sights somewhere else.

7. One of a Kind…

It’s tough to stand out in a competitive crowd. Yeah, the key to being in the spotlight is to have something no one else does. Be creative…hunt for that little extra benefit that no one else offers.

8. Get Personal…

Everyone likes that special one-on-one attention. Think about it…does your advertising copy address the group, or does it speak to each and every individual who reads it? Yep, you’ll start seeing more response when you chuck formality, and let a little personal style show through!

9. Invest in a Filing Cabinet…

Let’s face it…you’re not likely to make the sale the first time with every customer who comes through your door. Unfortunately, all shoppers don’t buy on impulse. Let me ask you what happens to the customer who goes home to think about it? If you have no record of them kept on file…who knows? Did they buy from a competitor who contacted them in the meantime? Did they change their mind? Yeah, getting organized and keeping track of the smart shoppers may be your key to higher sales this month.

10. Be Irresistible…

Is the deal just too good to pass up? If not, try combining a set of valuable products with a special discount price. Packaging makes the difference between a sale and no sale in many cases. Wrap it with value and put a discount tag on it…they’ll think they’re getting a steal of a deal, and you’ll be raking in the profits.

Marketing Effectively to More Than One Audience

What’s a small business owner to do if they have more than one audience to market to? Perhaps they need to attract clients but they also need to recruit business partners or vendors. Do they need two marketing plans or can they use one plan that tries to address both aspects?

This is a great question that applies to many different types of businesses who find they need to market to more than one group of people. You only need one marketing plan. However, you will have two different target audiences within that plan and you’ll need to have a marketing strategy for EACH of these audiences.

The reason you’ll need separate strategies and marketing activities to go with those strategies is because you will be talking to two very different audiences. And it will be important for you to speak and market to them based on what is important to them.

A message that works with one group may not hit home with the other. This will in large part depend on how similar or different these groups of people are. Your first task is to learn as much as you possibly can about each group. What problems do they each have that you can solve?

Make sure you can answer the following 10 questions about both groups of people:

1. Who are they?

2. Where do they live … work … play?

3. What problem do they have that you can solve?

4. How does your product or service fit into their life?

5. What else do they buy in your product or service category?

6. Where do they get information regarding your product/service?

7. What is most important to them?

8. What are they most afraid of?

9. What is their emotional connection to your product/service?

10. How will they rationalize purchasing your product/service?

If you can answer these questions you’ll be ready to create marketing strategies to successfully win over each group.

(C) 2005 Debbie LaChusa

The Top Three Main Tactics Affiliate Marketers Must Do

Most all Affiliate Marketers are constantly looking for successful markets that give them the biggest and fattest paycheck, and the best ways to achieve that goal. Some think there is a magic formula that they can find if they look in just the right place. In truth, there is indeed a formula, but it’s not magic. It really just comes down to making good marketing decisions and following proven practices and tactics that have worked for others over the years. Methods that through hard work and dedication have shown to be the most effective in producing excellent results. Indeed, why re-invent the wheel when all of the “heavy lifting” has already been done for you?

Here are the top three affiliate marketing tips that have been proven and that you will be able to use to very effectively increase your sales and thrive in affiliate marketing online.

What are the three main tactics?

Tactic 1. You have to use a unique web page to promote each individual product you are marketing. You do not want to lump all of them together on one page just to save some web hosting costs. It really is better to have one page focusing on each and every product by themselves. This is a critical mistake many marketers make. If you have more than two items for sale on one page, the potential buyer can get overwhelmed and confused pretty quickly. By putting just one item per page, they have no choice but to focus on that item. This makes it much easier for them to make a decision. You can get away with having two items on one page if they are fairly similar in nature or content, but having just one works the best.

Along with the product description, you want to always include at least one product review on the website so your visitors will have a full understanding of what the product can do for them. It is also a great idea to include testimonials from actual customers who have already tried the product/service. You want to make sure that these customers are willing to let you use their names and photos on the page of each product you are marketing, so get permission from them first.

Be sure to make the pages attractive and compelling and include “calls to action” on the information/product. Every headline should attract the readers to read more of the page, or even to contact you for more information. Highlight the products “special points”. Give your readers as much information as possible to help them learn what the product is about, but leave some out so that they will want to find out more.

Tactic 2. A great way to help attract buyers is to offer free reports along with the product, or even for just their name and email address, and use great autoresponder messages. Whenever possible, try to position the “free report” option at the very top of the webpage at the left side, so that they cannot be missed. Studies show that people scan web pages from the top down and from left to right, so the upper left is usually the first thing they see. Always create a warm and welcoming autoresponder message that will be immediately emailed to whoever gives you their personal information through your opt-in box. According to very valid research, a sale is closed usually around the seventh contact with a new customer/prospect. The more personal you make each contact, the more likely the customer will purchase from you, even if the product is available from someone else. My personal experience is that I buy faster from people who reply to my emails and who genuinely want to help me. As for autoresponders, you can pay a monthly fee to one of the big name companies, or you can do what I did and get your own desktop autoresponder that you control every aspect of. I have a lot more peace of mind knowing that I have complete control over when and how my emails go out.

With the web page alone, there are only two things that can possibly happen: you will get a sale or the prospect will leave the page and possibly never return again. By giving them useful information in their inboxes at certain intervals, you are reminding them of the product they thought they might want later and it will keep you, your site and the product(s) fresh in their minds. You want to be sure that the content is directed toward the actual and specific reasons to buy the product. One thing you don’t want to do is make it sound like a sales pitch.

Instead, focus on the important points. For instance, show them how your product can make their life and working on-line easier and more enjoyable. Make sure to use compelling subject lines in each email. Try to avoid using the word “free” as much as possible, because there are plenty of spam filters out there that will dump that kind of content into the junk folder before anyone even reads them. Plus, using the typical disguises for these words, like “F*R_E_E” to avoid the spam filters just look terrible. I for one delete those immediately, as I know they are trying to “sell” me something. You want to use your autoresponder emails to convince those who have signed up for your newsletter/free reports that they will be missing out on something big if they don’t take advantage of your products and services, but do it without looking like your “selling” something to them. The more a person thinks it’s their decision to buy; the more likely they will buy right away.

Tactic 3. Now let’s talk about what is probably the most important item. Traffic. More to the point, traffic that brings in customers. And not just any customers; you want to get the kind of targeted traffic to your product that will be more than likely to buy what you are selling. Look at it like this, if the person who visits your website has zero interest whatsoever in what you are offering, they will be the first ones to hit the back button and move on, never to come back. How do you get this good, targeted traffic? Writing articles for e-zines, article sites and e-reports is a great method. This way you can find publications and article sites that are much more focused toward your target customers and what you have available might just grab their interest.

If you can write a minimum of 2 articles every week, with a minimum of 300-600 words in length, you will get a lot more attention and more focused traffic. By maintaining articles and writing continuously every week, these articles can generate as many as 100 targeted readers to your site in a day. One thing to remember is that generally only 1 out of 100 people who visit your site are likely to buy your product or services. Once you can generate as many as 1,000 targeted traffic hits to your website a day, you can comfortably guesstimate that you will make 10 sales from that traffic, based on average statistics.

Another method that I have found to work very nicely is to use “traffic exchanges”. There are many free and paid exchanges around and the principle with all of them is basically the same. You sign up, look at other members’ web pages/ads and they in turn look at your ads and web sites. I belong to a few of these and my favorite is TrafficSwarm. It’s got a very simple interface; you can put up a bunch of short ads with links to your products and web sites within minutes of joining, your ads are targeted to the traffic you want and it’s free. Since signing up with TrafficSwarm, my “unique visitors” stats have jumped up 250%, my page views have had a similar increase and sales are steadily improving each day. You can’t ask for more than that.

The strategies given above are not really very difficult to do at all, if you think about it. They do require a little bit of your time, effort and an action plan on your part to insure success. Use these tips for all of your affiliate marketing products, and you will end up with a good source of steady income and make your way easily in this business.

To your continued prosperity!

Ross the Pit Boss

Marketing Research: Know Your Customers

Having a competitive advantage over other businesses targeting the same market as yours is a basic, survival must: many choose to develop longterm relationships with their customers, in an attempt to create such competitive advantage. Knowing your customers is crucial, and it is quite a different thing from knowing their buying behavior. It is every marketer’s dream to have real, up-to-date information about consumers: their preferences, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, interests, education level, behavior are the base of understanding their needs.

Businesses often employ Marketing research to determine the consumers’ degree of acceptance of a new product, and the reason behind this is the fact that launching a new product without a real demand would involve much more costs than actual market research. Plus, a failed product launch is not only damaging for a business’ finances but also its image and reputation.

Any marketing research upon consumers’ profile should address at least the following questions:

Who makes the market of a product?

A company active on any given market must ask itself who its customers are. Are they mostly young people, or perhaps elderly? Women or men? What would their income levels be? This is the demographic information that can be a starting point in creating a customer profile.

What do people buy?

Is there a certain product consumers seem to prefer? Can we detect a trend of migrating to a given product? Will the market accept new products or changes in existing ones? These questions could offer a perspective on the mechanisms triggering buying decisions; the answers could indicate just how open to changes customers are.

Why do people buy?

Many businesses ignore the reasons why their customers choose one product or another. While we all know that impulse buying is a reality, most purchases are still made on reasons of benefits, value, satisfaction. Hence, we should ask ourselves “Why certain products are more popular among consumers and are perceived as being superior to others?”

Who takes the buying decision?

It is critical to know who is actively involved in the buying process, as the users of a product are not necessarily the ones to buy it. For example, food items destined to children are normally bought by a parent, which means the advertising messages should be aimed at parents and not at children. Identifying the real decision makers is an important part of any consumers research study.

How is the buying decision taken?

What are the reasons followed by consumers when making a buying decision? A marketer should remember that these reasons are likely to be influenced by a variety of social, cultural, economic factors.

When do people buy?

Some products are requested and are offered only in certain periods of a year, as demand can be driven by social or cultural factors (think of seasonal holidays, for example). Consumers’ lifestyle might also dictate the day or week when shopping is done.

Where do people buy?

Identifying the preferred location for people to buy is yet another important task in researching consumers’ behaviour. Where do they buy from? Supermarkets? The corner shop? New, creative venues can be employed, such as e-commerce web sites.

Marketing research relies on other sciences as well, such as psychology or sociology. Being able to develop the products consumers need, and then market them in accordance to the consumers’ behavior lay the basis for competitive advantages and shape the strategic decisions a business must make.