Testimonials
Written by David Johnson, Self-Employment Assistance Consultant
Testimonials are your customers saying great things about you and/or your business.
They are one of the best promotion and advertising tools you can have.
This is one of the benefits of opening a feedback loop with your customers.
The difference between a testimonial and endorsement is that testimonials come from genuine paying customers, people who have used your product or service.
Endorsements can be paid for, and don't always come from proven customers or users of your product.
You can use endorsements as a marketing tool, but it's better in the long term to have genuine feedback.
Every time you perform a service or supply a product and you can see that a customer has had a positive experience, politely ask them for a testimonial.
Testimonials can come in many forms:
- Social media
- Google (send them a link to your reviews)
- Recorded or live video
- Verbal (at business networking meetings)
Not all people feel comfortable giving testimonials but if you can obtain them, use the testimonials to your advantage.
- Have a testimonials page on your website, or have them feature on your homepage.
- Set up a review section on your Facebook page.
- Post them on your social media pages.
Think about what you would want to see before you spent money with a business.
You would want to know if what existing users are saying about the product or service - this is called 'social proof'.
People looking for your service or product often want social proof before they will spend their time or money with you.
If you were a customer of your business, what would you want to know before purchasing or signing up?