Testimonials Will Boost Your Sales - If You Can Get 'Em

Testimonials Will Boost Your Sales - If You Can Get 'Em
Copyright 2002 lessworkmoremoney.com
By Armand Melanson


It's a proven fact that testimonials radically improve sales.
That's why every single infomercial & marketing website is
peppered with them. They build the essential CREDIBILITY that is
required for the buy response. Are all these testimonials real?
Definitely not. And that's because testimonials are not easy to
get.

Think about it. You buy a product from someone. At that point,
the seller has already made their money from you. Even if what
they deliver is far beyond your expectations, you are not likely
to go out of your way to let them know about it. You have your
own agenda & your own set of goals to achieve. Who's got time to
go around slapping everyone on the back for a job well done?

So the notion of "unsolicited testimonials" is a rare one
indeed. In fact, 95% of unsolicited testimonials are highly
solicited. And we'd all do well to copy the method the big boys
use to get their testimonials.

Let's take, for example, Marlon Sanders. This guy is one of the
e-marketing giants. I bought one of his products & he put me on
his autoresponder newsletter. I also signed up to resell his products.
Here's what I got within 1 month of signing up:

> > Dear Arm,
> >
> > I need your opinion

yadayadayada with a bunch of questions & then this:

> > 11. May I have permission to quote your comments in
> > marketing and promotion? I will NOT quote your address
> > or phone. Only name, city and state.
> > yes[ ] no[ ]


Did you get that? This is how the big players get their
testimonials...

Here are some techniques you can use to get testimonials:

===> Always offer an incentive for participating in a product
survey.

If you don't offer something in return, most people won't even
think about doing your survey. The better the incentive, the
more motivated your prospect will be.

Marlon offered a free version of a new product. I bet that
product will get test marketed to all the people who took the
survey & then they'll be asked to take another survey. With that
data, they'll tweak the product to correct the problems
encountered in the test group. The they'll really launch to the
public. Brilliant!

But not everybody has a family of related products to offer. So
here's what I recommend:

===> Use free eBooks as an incentive to participate.

Free eBooks are all over the net & some of them are really
valuable. If you are selling a digital product, embed the
survey offer in the product. If selling hardgoods, provide
written instructions in the packaging on what the incentive is &
how to access the survey. The offer can be like so: "To get X
benefit for free, go to Y URL & take our product survey". Make
it simple & easy to do.

As well, whenever you make a sale, you should be putting the
buyer on an autoresponder series. 2 or 3 weeks into the series,
have the AR fire off the same survey offer.

There are several ways to do the survey. Marlon chose email. I
prefer a webform. Here's how the webform works:

Every webhost offers FORM/CGI mail in order to have forms send
email to a designated email box. Set up your survey form using
your HTML editor & have the form submit the data to whatever
email box you want to receive the survey data. If you want to
see a sample, go to
http://www.lessworkmoremoney.com/survey_example.htm.

You want to capture some basic feedback about your product &
more importantly, give the user a chance to tell you what they
like about the product. FORM/CGI Mail offer some cool features.
The most important ones are:

===> a redirect to a thank you page

This is where you put the link for downloading the eBook incentive.

===> a required field option

Use this to make sure that your key fields have data. Many people
will try to zip through the form without entering real data just so they
can get the download. So make email address & the general
comments required. You can use JavaScript to do this as well -
whatever works best for you.

When the form gets submitted, here's what you would get:

Below is the result of your feedback form. It was
submitted by (----@msn.com) on Monday, August 6, 2001 at
16:42:30
-----------------------------------------------------------
Q1: rating of this product

A1: excellent

Q2: comments

A2: This is the absolute best ebook I have ever purchased. I
am very impressed with all the additional information in this
ebook. A must own for anyone serious about an online
business!

Regards,
Joe W, Cofounder - JJmerchandise


Q3: other products

A3: better

Q4: sections rating

A4: dropshipping business plan and e-product guide

Q5: GUI

A5: excellent

Q6: SE

A6: I found lessworkmoremoney.com thru a newsletter.

Q7: recommendations

A7: none
-----------------------------------------------------------

If you are not comfortable with setting up a web form, then use
email. Setup an autoresponder which will kick off an automatic
email with a link to the download when people submit. Here is a
sample form:

To complete the survey, follow these instructions:
1) Click the "REPLY" button in your email program.
2) Type your responses between the brackets.
3) When finished, click the "SEND" button.

Once we receive your comments, the free gift will be on
it's way!

To answer, type an X between the two brackets like this [X]

1.What is your overall rating of this product on a scale
from 1 to 5 ( 5 being the best)?
[ ]1 - poor
[ ]2
[ ]3
[ ]4
[ ]5 - excellent

and so on...

Whether via email or webform, make sure you automate the
process so that it all happens without human intervention. You
don't have time to be manually emailing people & with
autoresponder software, you don't need to.

You may be asking yourself how to sell any products in the 1st
place if you need testimonials to sell your product & you need
to sell your product to get testimonials (makes me dizzy just
thinking about it)? You make 'em up of course ==> NOT!!!

You setup your website to sell, but you test market your
product initially. Offer it at a reduced price or even for free.
Offer powerful incentives to get people to try the product. If
you have an opt-in email list ( YOU HAVE TO HAVE ONE)
& it is pulling in some subscribers, offer them (via email) an
incentive for participating in a product survey. If your survey
feedback tells you that your product stinks, then improve it &
re-start the cycle.

This should happen throughout the life of the product. Once you
have a few testimonials under your belt, pop them onto your
website & set your price to what you really want. But keep
prompting for testimonials as long as you sell the product.

==>MARKETING TIP<==
DON'T BURY THE TESTIMONIALS ON A LINKED PAGE!!!

Make sure you embed short excerpts from your testimonials in
the main page. Use them to add credibility & punch to your
overall marketing copy. You should also have a link to the full
text of testimonials if they are not displayed in full on the
main page. Ken Evoy has a great method for displaying
testimonials using a drop down form. Check it out at
http://myss.sitesell.com/nomore_9to5.html


----------------------------------------------------
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Armand Melanson is an emarketing
consultant & author. For free marketing tips & articles you
can re-use, visit him at http://lessworkmoremoney.com
----------------------------------------------------