Luke Parker suggests a great way to drive website traffic through testimonials. If you're not only responsible for your company's customer reference program but also for website traffic, you will love this guerrilla marketing tactic.
The idea is not to use testimonials from your customers but testimonials you have written yourself, attributed to yourself, about other products and services in your industry that you don't compete with. By including your company name and website in the attribution of the quote, you can drive traffic back to your site. Watch Luke's video on the topic for the full story. Even though the video's music is very cheesy, I just love the way his marketing brain works.
Showing posts with label testimonials. Show all posts
Showing posts with label testimonials. Show all posts
Friday, August 31, 2007
An antidote to unhappy customers
It's a fact: Every company has happy and unhappy customers, and unhappy customers are more vocal than happy ones. It seems as if unhappiness is a real motivator for people to spread the word, potentially over the Internet to thousands of people. Think Dell Hell.
Customer reference programs are a great way to turn the tide by giving the happy customers more of a voice. I recently read of testimonials as "intermediated word-of-mouth marketing" (I can't remember the source), which is a great way to look at it. Although more authentic and convincing, pure word of mouth marketing is difficult for a company to influence and shape. Customer reference programs solve this problem by listening to happy customers and giving them a strong voice, counterbalancing the vocal dissatisfied customers.
So what's the main cause for customers to be dissatisfied? Product? Support services? You guessed wrong: Several surveys measured that employee attitude is the cause for 68% of lost business.
This raises an interesting question: Should the reference managers also look out for vocal, dissatisfied customers to turn them around? Or is this the responsibility of other departments, say sales (for enterprise customers) or the customer service department (for consumers)? Many companies don't seem to have a process for monitoring and satisfying disgruntled clients.
Next time someone flames your company on the Internet, pick up the phone or open your email client and reach out to the customer. Unhappy customers that have been taken seriously and have been satisfied have been found to be more loyal than customers who've never had a problem. After you have solved the problem, why not ask them to return the favor, rectify or delete their blog rant and to give you a testimonial. They'll probably be so glad you reached out to them that they'll do it. People are more forgiving than you may think.
Customer reference programs are a great way to turn the tide by giving the happy customers more of a voice. I recently read of testimonials as "intermediated word-of-mouth marketing" (I can't remember the source), which is a great way to look at it. Although more authentic and convincing, pure word of mouth marketing is difficult for a company to influence and shape. Customer reference programs solve this problem by listening to happy customers and giving them a strong voice, counterbalancing the vocal dissatisfied customers.
So what's the main cause for customers to be dissatisfied? Product? Support services? You guessed wrong: Several surveys measured that employee attitude is the cause for 68% of lost business.
This raises an interesting question: Should the reference managers also look out for vocal, dissatisfied customers to turn them around? Or is this the responsibility of other departments, say sales (for enterprise customers) or the customer service department (for consumers)? Many companies don't seem to have a process for monitoring and satisfying disgruntled clients.
Next time someone flames your company on the Internet, pick up the phone or open your email client and reach out to the customer. Unhappy customers that have been taken seriously and have been satisfied have been found to be more loyal than customers who've never had a problem. After you have solved the problem, why not ask them to return the favor, rectify or delete their blog rant and to give you a testimonial. They'll probably be so glad you reached out to them that they'll do it. People are more forgiving than you may think.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Say it through a testimonial
If you're advertising that you're the best hot dog stand in town, people will probably think you're just bragging. There are some things that simply backfire if you say them directly. You can solve this problem by having someone else say it for you, making it so much more believable, and it doesn't even matter that much who says it.
Granted, a testimonial from your local "eating out" magazine or from a renounced hot dog connoisseur may sound swanky, and everybody loves a great name (or "brand" for us marketing folks), but are these sources really relevant to the average customer? Your average customer, say a construction worker, may not really be able to relate to the testimonial by a TV chef. Think about whom you really need before asking for testimonials. Likely it will be a mixture of different customers - think of your market segments and find a testimonial for each of them (prioritize in order of market segment size).
Typically, a company's testimonials will be written by the same marketing person, based on a quick conversation with the customer. As a result, all testimonials will sound very similar in style and tone.
I've read the recommendation to keep typos and grammar mistakes in the testimonials so they don't lose their authenticity, but I would not recommend this approach for most companies because it both detriments the company's and the customer's professionalism. However, I agree that you should not over-polish your testimonials because they will otherwise lose all of their authenticity. Testimonials that are not perceived to be authentic lose all value, even worse, they can even backfire when readers feel manipulated.
If you want to read about how to craft a testimonial, I recommend the posting 5 Tips for Knockout Testimonials on Copyblogger for some additional tips on what to do and what best to avoid.
Granted, a testimonial from your local "eating out" magazine or from a renounced hot dog connoisseur may sound swanky, and everybody loves a great name (or "brand" for us marketing folks), but are these sources really relevant to the average customer? Your average customer, say a construction worker, may not really be able to relate to the testimonial by a TV chef. Think about whom you really need before asking for testimonials. Likely it will be a mixture of different customers - think of your market segments and find a testimonial for each of them (prioritize in order of market segment size).
Typically, a company's testimonials will be written by the same marketing person, based on a quick conversation with the customer. As a result, all testimonials will sound very similar in style and tone.
I've read the recommendation to keep typos and grammar mistakes in the testimonials so they don't lose their authenticity, but I would not recommend this approach for most companies because it both detriments the company's and the customer's professionalism. However, I agree that you should not over-polish your testimonials because they will otherwise lose all of their authenticity. Testimonials that are not perceived to be authentic lose all value, even worse, they can even backfire when readers feel manipulated.
If you want to read about how to craft a testimonial, I recommend the posting 5 Tips for Knockout Testimonials on Copyblogger for some additional tips on what to do and what best to avoid.
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