Let Your Customers Do The Talking

Remember the old Yellow Pages ads that said, “Let your fingers do the walking?” (Yes, I just aged myself.) The phrase was clever slogan meant to encourage consumers to shop by browsing the yellow phone book page listings for a product or service. In other words, let's allow your customers to do the talking so client and customers do the walking to your website or business to give you the business. So in this blog I'm going to talk about how customers testimonials are very effective to your marketing plan so read on and enjoy!

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Preach What You Practice

In the modern era of marketing, I encourage you to embrace a similar-sounding phrase, “Let your customers do the talking.”

The success of your marketing plan can depends less on what you say and more on what other people say. Sure, words matter in marketing, but not necessarily your words. Instead, the words from happy customers carry a lot more weight.

When potential customers listen to you or read your marketing copy, they tend to view you as a salesman just trying to push product. In contrast, testimonials and endorsements from happy customers come across as peers giving advice that can be trusted.

If you’re skeptical and don’t think testimonials are important, then why is TripAdvisor, Yelp, Angie’s List, and Amazon customer reviews so popular? You’ve probably used at least one of these websites in the past month when deciding to buy a product or service. Millions of people visit these sites every day to read customer testimonials before making a purchase. If testimonials weren’t important to marketing, no one would visit these websites. The huge audiences these sites attract are proof that testimonials can positively sway a consumer’s mind.

Yet, most businesses, coaches, and non-profits view testimonials as unnecessary or a waste of time. Otherwise, you’d see them a lot more. Usually, you find a few customer comments or endorsements buried on an irrelevant web page or back of a brochure. Why do so many people and companies seem adverse to gathering testimonials?

Working with my consulting clients on this subject, I’ve heard all kinds of excuses, such as:

• We’re too busy to ask our customers for feedback.
• No one responds when we ask for an endorsement.
• We don’t know anyone famous to ask for testimonials.
• Why bother? Nobody seems to read them or he or she'd be knocking down our door.

I’ve found these excuses to be smokescreens for the real reasons people don’t ask or display testimonials. In reality, the underlying problem is driven by one of the following misconceptions:

• We’re afraid to ask because we fear hearing “no” more than possibly getting a yes.
• We're afraid of getting a bad testimonial.
• If people decline to give a testimonial, it means our product is lame and we’re losers.
• A testimonial is only legitimate if it comes from someone famous or well known.
• We tried asking for testimonials, but we stunk at getting them so we stopped.
• Testimonials pale in comparison to fancy social media tricks or a big ad budget.

Testimonials from happy customers cost you nothing but a little bit of time, and they’re easy to acquire. All you have to do is politely ask for them. Then, display the ones you get on all of your marketing materials, such as your website homepage, newsletters, social media pages, brochures, etc.

Ask at least one happy customer for a testimonial. Make it a priority this week. What are you afraid of? The worst thing that can happen is a hearing “no” or getting no response at all. The best thing that can happen is to hear energizing words from someone who loves your product. Testimonials not only help invigorate your marketing confidence, they act like a magnet to capture the interest of potential clients. The more your happy customers do the talking, the more potential clients will do the walking – to buy your product or service.

Do I practice what I preach? Every time.  Check out my list of client testimonials. 

Your turn...

What are you doing to get more testimonials for your business? Are you taking the time to ask for the testimonial as frequently as you ask for the business? When you take time to ask for the testimonial and make it part of your closeout session with your client or customer, you'll receive testimonials that will help you grow or change develop a sound marketing strategy that speaks to your potential customer and the end result they would receive from your product or service will get you business - every time. If you would like a complimentary business assessment of how you can start marketing for testimonials from past customers connect with me.  

Remember...someone can talk highly of your business and services better than you ever can because it is coming from a customer experience. Thanks for reading, apply this strategy to your business and I look forward to hearing your results.  Thanks again and I look forward to connecting with you soon.