What’s the worst testimonial I ever got? The one I forgot to ask for!
Asking for testimonials – and getting great ones – makes a lot of people nervous, especially new business owners. And so they avoid it altogether. That’s a problem, because testimonials are one of the best ways to build trust in your brand, particularly online.
Here’s four tips so that you never miss an opportunity or get a vague, lukewarm testimonial again.
1. Don’t be afraid to ask. All they can do is say no! No matter what, the more you ask, the more you’ll get. And if over time you have trouble finding people their name behind a positive experience of your brand, you may need to take a hard look at your product or service delivery.
2. Build a personal relationship. Some clients may have built-in resistance to using their name in any kind of marketing context. But the more they care about you and your success, the more likely they will be to get over that initial inhibition – especially if you make it clear that their testimonial will truly make a difference. Be transparent about where you are with your business and ask for their support.
3. Build feedback into your process. If you build regular requests for feedback into your process with clients, you’ll build confidence and build the relationship at the same time. Make asking for a testimonial at the end of an engagement a regularly scheduled practice, so that you won’t forget.
4. Guide them. Even if your customer had a great experience, that doesn’t mean she or he knows how to communicate it to someone else. Help her out by giving her some sample quotes to work with – but make very clear that you want her to be honest. You might say something like, “I know you’re busy, so to make it easy, I’d be glad to give you some sample testimonials – the stuff I dream of my clients saying. Then you can adapt it as you see fit. Please be absolutely candid.”
5. Know your value props. If you’re shaky about how to craft those brilliant sample testimonials, make a list of the key value props of your product. You want testimonials to speak to concrete, compelling results fulfilling each of those value props.
Go ahead – ask someone for a testimonial today!
And tell me: What's the best testimonial you ever got and why?
“I’m not just the president of the Hair Club for Men, I’m also a member.”
That’s got to be one of history’s most famous – and successful – slogans. OK, also one of its most mocked slogans, but mocked or not, it’s sold a lot of hair.
So why is it so effective?
Clearly, using your own product is the strongest endorsement you can give it. But I think it’s more than that. It’s a winning slogan because it’s also a brave act of vulnerability. It’s Sy saying, “I’m here and I’m bald!”
Here are three specific benefits of vulnerability that you can see at work in the Hair Club slogan:
1. Safety: By showing your cards, you create trust. Trust means safety, and safety is a place where you’ll get the best from others – their best ideas, their best (ie most honest) feedback, their fullest expression of themselves.
2. Empowerment: When you put it all out there, you’ve got the power of having nothing to hide.
3. Commonality: People see that you’ve walked the walk – and your willingness to share confidently also shows them that you’ve faced challenges and won.
So remember: Vulnerability isn’t a weakness. It’s the most profound kind of courage there is: The courage to be who you are.
One of my favorites: Rule #22, Learn to see the world through the eyes of your customer.
Alan writes about learning that lesson when he was looking for a backer to launch Fast Company.He and his partner pitched everywhere, passionately telling everyone how cool, how hip, how evolved their new business magazine would be. No one was buying. Finally they gave the same pitch to Fred Drasner and Mort Zuckerman, the owners of The Atlantic Monthly and US News & World Report. The gentlemen stopped them short:
"Fred and Mort weren't interested in our idea. They had a problem and we were a potential solution. Their problem was excess capacity: They had built a big pipe -- ad sales staff, paper and printing contracts, relationships with advertisers, distribution contracts -- and they needed another magazine to use up that excess capacity. It could be Fast Company, it could be Senior Golfer, it could be any publication that interested them and had a decent chance of succeeding.
"That's when I realized that, like many entrepreneurs, I'd been looking at the situation through the wrong end of the telescope. Absorbed as I was in the brilliance of my own idea, I'd overlooked the other end of the telescope: I'd neglected to consider how the world looked to the people I was trying to sell on my idea....I realized that the other magazine companies had passed on Fast Company not because it was or wasn't a good idea but because we weren't a solution for a problem they had. Now it I wanted to sell Fred and Mort on my magazine, I first had to buy into my responsibility to help them solve their own problem."
How to get better at "flipping the telescope"? Alan's great advice:
1. Talk less, listen more.
2. Make few claims; ask more questions.
3. Focus less on output, more on feedback.
4. Buy fewer ads; collect more data.
“Brand presence is just kind of creating a connection...We want to be a presence in that community, and in order to be a presence you can’t always be hawking product.”-- Virtue client Michael Tatelman of Dell
From today's NYT article about Vice magazine, inseperable from its in-house advertising agency, Virtue. Virtue pays the bills to keep the definitely "irreverent," arguably "risk-taking" Vice content coming.
Thanks with all the help through Twitter and FB with my prep yesterday. Ready for the result? Watch the clip!
For those who don't feel like watching, the basic point:
"Free works as a promotion...all marketing is generosity. You are trying to build a relationship with the consumer. If you lead with free, you get permission to actually have a conversation to follow it up.
We have got to get reconnected with the consumer."
I'm appearing on CNBC tonight (actually not sure yet whether it's airing or just taping tonight, will update). Possible topic: Does FREE work as a marketing tool? I posed the question on Facebook and the thread caught fire immediately - thought I'd continue the convo over here. A HUGE thanks to all who responded - so much cool insight, so fast. I'll post some of my thoughts later.
For now, some of the responses:
I think it depends on what it is you are selling. Free helps to build relationships with customers for a small business person. I am not sure I am convinced that it is so effective with a mass product like M &M's but then, that's not my area of expertise
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In any interaction, there is always an exchange of value. You teach that it's important to help everyone out, and to ask people for favors. Even in that interaction, there is an exchange of value e.g., I feel great when I help someone else. So even if you're giving something away for free (e.g. my time), the exchange of value creates an ROI.
With... Read More a product, it is the same. For example, if I give away an ebook, I might ask for the person to register. The name is the value I receive. If I just give it away with no registration, I'm hoping that it is forwarded and my brand and reputation expands.
In the M&Ms example, if I think my product has an inherent differentiation versus competition, I might give it away because people will try it once for free, and if they like it, they will buy in the future. Of course that is only true if the product is better than the competition. If it is not better, then there is low or no ROI.
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Keith, it depends what is actually being given away. For instance, if I am in consulting I might offer a bit of free advice to help grow the relationship. But, if I have a hard physical product - I'd have to be pretty darn certain that what I was giving away gave some measurable ROI.
We utilize free drawings in our live fishing bait business - ... Read Moreand it helps build targeted mailing lists. This works for us. But I know the industry - and understand that fishermen will almost always sign up for a raffle. So, I think understanding your audience/market is supremely important!
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To boil these answers down: Yes, as a free sample, like businesses have done forever.
As a permanent state, some kind of open source barn raising that also generates wealth? No.
As we say of so many sectors these days, What were they thinking?
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Free works to stimulate interest in a product or service. But there must be real and/or perceived value for the provider to make money. The only "free" distribution model that works is supported by advertising, which just means the value of the product or service is elsewhere, i.e., a forum for influencing an audience's buying habits as opposed to a forum for providing information.
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Nope - "free" I've found doesn't work as a marketing tool as a small biz owner. Folks want to know they are investing in something valuable - if you are giving it away for free - then they thing well how valuable is that product? Energy must always be exchanged for energy - in nature and in biz
I think the concept works in the sense that you have to demonstrate value before you ask for money. Call it "free" or "a sales sample" or "a demonstration". With some products and services the value is clear and "free" is not necessary.
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Must be real value, targeted to a specific buyer persona. Watching TV last night I realized I am beyond jaded when it comes to mass advertising. I will do the opposite of what an advertiser is pushing at me. And I am not alone!
