How Customer Testimonials Can Help You Get More Clients

No matter how long you’ve been in business, positive feedback from a happy client can lift your spirits, but if you use those glowing testimonials right, they can also help you get even more clients. You can talk up your own services all you want, but your own words will pale in comparison to comments from impartial third parties. The simple reason is that people love to see what other users think of products & services before they shell out their hard-earned cash.

Think about your last online shopping experience. If you stumbled across a product or service that you’d never heard of before, did you click the ‘Buy now’ button right away, or did you do some research first? You might have looked around the web site for more information, stumbled across some testimonials, and, based on the rave reviews, decided to make your purchase.

But just having a few testimonials from people who love the product/service isn’t enough; there are guidelines to creating testimonials that sell.

So, what makes a good testimonial?

A great testimonial will be specific as to benefits that the client received from working with you or buying your products. Posting a quote that is all fluff won’t convince anyone; it’ll just waste their time and might even make them think that your products/services don’t produce any real benefits.

Example of an ineffective testimonial:

“Jim’s great! I loved working with him!”

Jane Doe
ABC Company
abccompanywebsite.com

Example of an effective testimonial:

“Thank you so much for the teleseminar & included resources; I know they will be a great help to my new VA business. Before receiving these materials, I knew very little about internet marketing, and after listening to your recording, now I feel that I have the information I need to save a lot of time each month and stay better organized with my marketing. I also have ideas to help me catch web visitors’ attention and to better use networking in my business. Keep up the good work!”

Jane Doe
ABC Company
abccompanywebsite.com

If your inbox isn’t overflowing with testimonials…

Your clients are busy people, and just because they haven’t found the time to reach out to you doesn’t mean that you don’t do great work…it just means that you have to be a little proactive. In other words, ask them for testimonials! You might want to save this tactic for the clients who already show an appreciation for your services. If they love what you do, they’ll be happy to share a glowing testimonial. You can sweeten the deal by providing a link back to their site, which gives them free publicity. A win-win for both of you!

Just be sure to ask specific questions that will guide your clients into providing effective testimonials. An example might be, “How has your business/life/financial situation improved as a direct result of working with me?” For information products you’ve sold, you might send a questionnaire asking buyers questions such as “What do you know now that you didn’t know before receiving this product?”

Now, get out there and start collecting testimonials that will help you attract more clients!

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Client-attracting Web Copywriter Tammi Metzler of The Write Associate is on a mission to help service professionals worldwide create client-attracting web copy and marketing materials. Get her FREE report, “7 Simple Techniques to Turn Your Website into a Client-Attracting Machine,” by visiting www.ClientAttractingWebCopy.com.