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Testimonials and Reviews Increase Your
Real Sales Potential
by Bill Platt
It does not matter whether you are trying to find new subscribers
for your ezine, new visitors to your website, sales of products
and services from your website, or even promoting your newest
book. We all lack one essential ingredient when we are starting
out.
THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT TO GENERATING SALES
The one essential ingredient for online success in any endeavor
is gaining your prospect's trust.
Slick sales copy can only succeed in piquing interest and closing
the sale with those who easily trust others. Maybe your name and
reputation have preceded you and that is why your prospect is so
quick to trust your spiel. Maybe your prospect trusts everyone
all the time. Who knows?
The deal is that not everyone is going to trust your pitch on
face value. Some of us just live life a bit more cautiously.
When your prospect is not handing out their trust easily, then
you will need to provide them the ability to believe in what you
are offering.
BELIEF AND TRUST ARE EASIER TO ACQUIRE THAN YOU MIGHT THINK
The easiest way to gain someone's trust is to let them read the
words of other people --- real people who have tried what you
are offering.
Your happy customers will spontaneously let you know when they
are happy with what you have done for them. When your happy
clients have made the effort to praise your work, make sure
that you share that with your future potential customers.
A great testimonial page will help you to close more sales than
any other page you put on your website.
Be sure that you tell your happy customers that you have used
their testimonial; they will be delighted to hear about it. Be
sure to include their first name (last name also, but only with
permission) and city if they are general consumers.
If you are in the business of providing products and services to
others in the business community, use their full name with their
permission and link to their website.
When you link to their website, they will be thrilled for the
extra free advertising. You will have cemented your client's
praise for your products and services.
Real people, with real names and real locations are the trust
builders in testimonials.
Real people, with real names and real websites can develop
unbreakable trust, since the statements in the testimonial
can be verified easily.
TESTIMONIALS ARE SPONTANEOUS AND REVIEWS ARE WELL THOUGHT OUT
Typically, we think of reviews in regards to books, music and
movies. But, reviews can also work for newsletters, websites,
products, services, and membership sites.
Reviews are more formal in their style and design. Reviews look
beyond what the person, who is sharing his or her comments, has
gained from the product or service being commented upon.
Instead, reviews are intended to show people what can be expected
from a product or service. It is like a checklist of features,
with commentary provided concerning how useful the features will
be to the reader.
TESTIMONIALS WILL COME, BUT REVIEWS MUST BE TRADED FOR
By their nature, testimonials are spontaneous. For the purposes
of sharing the value of a product or service, testimonials NEED
to be spontaneous.
But, reviews are a different kind of beast.
In some cases, people will review your product or service without
your input into the process. But, this is extremely rare.
In most cases, you will need to seek out someone to do a review
of your product or service. It is not enough to wait for someone
to do a review --- you might be waiting forever. You must
proactively seek out people to do reviews on whatever it is that
you are selling.
In rare cases, you might be able to find someone to do a review
for you out of the kindness of their heart.
In many cases, you can find people who will do a professional
review of your product for a small or not-so-small fee.
In today's internet community, there are still others who might
be willing to review your book, product or service in exchange
for you listing their name and website along with their review,
on your website or on your book jacket. Savvy internet marketers
understand the value of getting their URL in circulation through
multiple channels. You might just be surprised who might step up
and volunteer to review your product, service or book in exchange
for some free advertising!
SOME FINAL SUGGESTIONS
Generally, you will only want to offer an opportunity to review
your product, service or book to a very select few people. If you
make your offer open-ended, you might find your best potential
customers getting what you are offering for free. Always limit
your offer to a limited number of participants.
You should expect a review to be of a certain length ---
generally two to three paragraphs. You will often want to develop
a long version and a short version of a review, to be used in
different promotional formats.
If you are selling a book, then the review will be the lifeblood
of your sales potential.
If you are selling a product or service, the review can add a
substantial upside to your sales potential.
Take the time to seek out a limited number of people who would be
willing to review your product, service or book. And, don't be
afraid to barter for the review. For your best benefit, just be
sure to offer something of real value to the reviewer, so that
you can gain something that will be of real value to you.
And one final note on the subject of reviews. I know it is easy
to want everyone to say what you want to hear. But, it is often
better to insist upon complete honesty from your reviewer.
Complete honesty from your reviewer will allow them to be more
believable in the eyes of your prospects. And sometimes, your
reviewers honesty might help you improve upon your offerings,
which could allow you to make even more money down the road.
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Bill Platt owns Book Reviews Trade Forum
http://www.reviewstrade.com/forum/index.php
We invite publishers, plus book and ebook writers to
list their offers to have their manuscripts reviewed
by others. And, we encourage individuals interested in
doing book reviews for pay or barter to visit regularly
to see what new offers might be available.
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