Easy Way to Get Quotes and Testimonials
Everyone loves seeing quotes and testimonials – they are a great way to get prospects more comfortable with your business. But a lot of people have trouble coming up with a good quote, so they put off giving you one. Here’s how to make it easier for them…
The easiest way to get good quotes and testimonials is to ask customers to spend 10 minutes on the phone with you, talking about the product or service.
Record the call (with their permission) or take notes.
Then you draft a quote based on what they said and send it to them for them to edit.
That’s all!
The trick, of course, is that you do the work for them. The bonus is that you will get a better quote, since you can work in the points you want most to make.
Here are some other tips for crafting the quote:
- Make sure you include the company or product name.
- Use the customer’s phrasing, not yours. This can actually give you some great keywords.
- Keep it short! Most people won’t read a long quote. If they gave you a long list of wonderful compliments and you want to use them all, create several quotes.
Here is a sample email asking for permission to have that call:
[Name] suggested that I contact you to see if you would be willing to give us a quote about your experiences with [product/company].
Would you be willing to give us a quote we can use on our website?
The way we usually do it is that we schedule a call and spend about 10 minutes on the phone. You just talk to me about your experiences and I’ll take notes. Then I’ll draft a quote or two and send it to you for you to edit.
If that would be OK with you, is there a good time for me to call?
Here are questions to ask during the call:
- How did you first hear about [product/company]?
- What problem were you having at that time?
- Did you look at other products or solutions too?
- What made you decide to go with [product/company]?
- How did things go?
- Was there anything that particularly impressed you about the company or the people you worked with?
- What kind of results did you get?
- Are you planning to do more with the [product/company] in the future?
Here is a sample email to send with the quotes you have drafted:
Thank you so much for spending the time on the phone with me today! I really appreciate it. You gave me some excellent information.
Here are the quotes I have drafted for your approval. Please let me know which you are comfortable having us use – feel free to edit them as much as you like.
Could you please confirm how you would like your name, title and company name to appear with the quote?
To get extra leverage from the quote, ask if they would be willing to post the quote as a recommendation on LinkedIn or share it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or another social site.
7 Essential Themes for Social Media Marketing
Wouldn’t it be great if all you had to do was send out a tweet saying “We’re selling the best widgets in the entire world, come buy some” – and that worked?
I wish it did.
But it doesn’t.
Businesses that are just getting started with social media often begin just like that. They talk all about their products and services – how wonderful they are, what’s new, what a great deal they are offering – but it doesn’t get the results they want.
Some give up at that point, deciding that social media just doesn’t work for them.
But others realize that you can’t only talk about your products – that’s missing the point of social media.
Social media is about letting people discover who you are.
Letting people see what kind of a business you run, who your customers are, who your employees and partners are, who refers business to you…
And allowing them to get comfortable enough with all of that to become a customer themselves.
We’ve been analyzing social media for some time now, and we’ve come up with 7 themes that you should address in your posts. Here are the 7:
- Demonstrate expertise
- Open a window into your business
- Care about quality and customer service
- Let people see who you are
- Prove that you’re connected
- Show a bandwagon
- Ask for help
In the next series of blog posts, we’ll talk about each of these in turn – what each means and how you can do that in different types of social media.
Stay tuned…
5 Ideas for Status Updates on Facebook or Twitter
Are you getting started with Twitter? Or thinking about starting a Facebook Fan page, but not sure what to post on it?
Here are 5 ideas for status updates that you can use in either place…
1. Tease upcoming product features
You’re probably working on an upgrade to your current product or developing a new service to offer customers. Talk about one of the cool features in that product or service.
For example… “Working on new training modules that we’re offering online. 10 videos, each 5 min long. First shows how to import data from Quickbooks.”
This is a great way to get people excited about what’s coming next.
2. Share customers’ results
Validate the enthusiasm of your fans by showing that other people are choosing your products and services and getting great results.
One way to do that is by talking about the results clients have achieved. You don’t need to name names – you can just talk about the improvements.
For example… “Just heard one of our clients saved $250,000 over the past 6 months using our software.”
3. Acknowledge achievements
Congratulate clients and business partners on winning awards.
For example… “One of our clients was just named to EContent’s 100 Companies that Matter Most in Digital Content. Congratulations to everyone at adenin!”
You can also congratulate employees on their achievements – best sales performance that month, achieving a development deadline, hitting a quality target, even something personal like completing a marathon.
4. Ask for feedback
Are you having internal debates about something? Post the question and ask for feedback.
For example… “Working on a logo for our new product and can’t decide which we like best. Want to vote? Both are posted at www.tinyurl.xxx”
5. Provide treats
The point of being a follower or fan is that you care about the person or the company. Show that you value their support by giving early information and making offers that are only available for fans.
For example… “We’re going into beta in two weeks. If you’d like to try out the new version, email Joe.”
Or “Just found 20 t-shirts from our last promotion. Really cool – black with our logo on back. Size L. Want one? Email me.”
It’s pretty easy once you get started.
So go ahead…
Get on Twitter or launch that fan page and start sharing your news.
3 Easy Ways to Start Web 2.0 Marketing
I talk to a lot of people who have heard that they need to do “Web 2.0 marketing” but have no idea what that involves or how they would begin doing it.
Here are 3 simple starting points:
1. Go find 3 blogs that are relevant to your target market and start reading them on a regular basis. Particularly look for blogs by thought leaders in your industry, competitors, business partners, and prospects.
You can use Technorati or Google Blog Search or just do a simple Google search – search on keywords that are important to your industry and add the word “blog”.
For those who are new to reading blogs… You don’t actually have to visit the blogsite regularly to check if there is a new post. Most blogs give you the ability to subscribe so new posts are sent to you automatically.
When there is a blog post that resonates with you, post a comment on the blog. If you see another comment on the blog that you think is particularly good, comment on the comment. Or rate the comment, if that is an option.
2. Find an online community that is relevant to your market. The best places to look are on the websites of the top publications for your industry or on an association’s website.
See how they let you participate. More likely than not, there will be discussion forums. If subscribing to their forums is an option, do that. (You might want to put a filter on your email client so these emails go into a folder you can check when you have time rather than cluttering your inbox.) Otherwise, check back every week or so (depending on the volume of traffic) to see what’s new.
Is there anything else you can do in the community? Upload an article? Comment on a blog? If there is anything that strikes your fancy, do it.
3. Get a Twitter account. Don’t worry about tweeting yet. Just search on keywords that are relevant for you, and choose a dozen people to follow. As with the blogs, good people to follow include industry thought leaders, editors, consultants, competitors, partners, prospects and customers. (Don’t be surprised if they follow you back.)
Then check back every day or two to see what’s going on. It’s fine to just lurk. But if there’s a discussion you have an opinion about, go ahead and contribute.
There you go – 3 easy ways to get your feet wet with Web 2.0 marketing.
And if, by chance, you are wondering why you would even want to do Web 2.0 marketing…
Web 2.0 is all about going out to your market and talking directly with your customers and prospects. It’s about building connections, collaborating, sharing information – being more transparent than you have been in the past – and getting prospects and customers more involved in your business and with each other than they have been before.
Here’s a recent article in the Wall Street Journal:
The Secrets of Marketing in a Web 2.0 World
Here’s a slightly older blog post from FutureLab that has some good insights too:
15 Golden Rules for Web 2.0
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