LEAD GENERATION VIA REFERRALS AND TESTIMONIALS

Referrals and testimonials can be of huge benefit to your online business if you know their value, and how to use it.

For small and local businesses, referred business is gold. When existing clients are sending new clients your way, not only does it confirm that you’re offering good value, but those new clients come to you with a level of trust already established.

The job of making a sale has already been made easier.

And if you can keep your old clients happy, satisfy your new ones, and then have them refer other new clients, you have built a sustainable, growing business, totally organically.

Unfortunately it’s rare for things to be that easy.

The good news is that leveraging the great service you provide your clients has never been easier. Social Media and now Google My Business in particular, reward you in new and different ways for the referrals and testimonials you earn. Your opportunity is to make use of them to generate new business.

ADDING VALUE TO REFERRALS

There are a couple of simple ways to get your clients to help your business grow:

GET THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS!

Your mailing list is an invaluable business-building tool. Free access to people who’ve already bought from you before? Seriously, it’s almost impossible to get better marketing value. The only real cost is the time spent writing the emails.

Setting up an e-newsletter is an easy way to send clients news on products, upgrades, new services, seasonal specials, or timely reminders. Any of which can generate repeat business, at a very low cost.

And even if they aren’t personally interested at the time, they may be willing to share it with their email list (with some gentle prompting) to help generate new leads. Again, at very low cost.

Many people these days aren’t all that keen on giving their email out, because they’re sick of being bombarded by unwanted sales emails. But you can win them over.

Offer them free stuff, and promise not to be a pain in the …!

Or contact yours truly and find out more.

The other way is to ask for and to use their

TESTIMONIALS

If you do most of your trading or invoicing by email, include links to your Testimonials page (and set up a comments section there so it’s easy to use) and your Google My Business page.

Tell them how important their business is to you. Ask if they’re happy with you. Ask them to say so online. Ask them to tell their friends.

If you’re a front counter type of business, put a journal there, ask them to write in it while they’re waiting. Tell them you may want to use their testimonial, and ask permission to quote them. Then use it!

Put them on your social media posts.

Put them on your Testimonials page on your website.

Spread the word of how awesome you are!

It’s not just patting yourself on the back (you can if you want, you’ve earned it!), testimonials will help grow your business because they give you

THE TRUST FACTOR

People who find you for the first time via the internet, or social media, or Google Maps, know little about you.

They learn what they need, to decide on whether to choose you or not, based largely on customer ratings or testimonials.

Which is why they’re so important. And why it’s a good idea to give them some attention in your business.

*Written testimonials are great. Video testimonials are better.

RESPONDING TO NEGATIVE TESTIMONIALS

It’s difficult to please everybody all the time. You may sometimes get feedback that you didn’t expect. It happens.

No problem.

The people reading your testimonials also understand that.

So when you get a bad one, you have an opportunity to respond.

To demonstrate, not only to the complainant, but to all your other readers, how hard you try to satisfy your customers. To prove that you’re willing to go the extra yard to make sure they walk away happy. Use it.

To turn a negative into a positive.

FREE SEO IS A BONUS!

Google offers you a freebie for your testimonials. Their Google My Business (GMB) platform props up the Google map that comes up on most search results pages. It rewards businesses that have the best customer ratings and the highest ratings volume by pushing them up the listings.

Simply by having your customers give you reviews on GMB, you can get to the top of page one for local search results. It’s a very useful little tool, and it’s free! Simply register and get those reviews in!

WRITE YOUR OWN SCRIPT

I’ve got another tactic I like to use, to get testimonials that have real power for prospects that read them, and that are written to speak specifically about how your business solves the problems of your customers. It makes it easier for people to write them, which makes them less likely not to. It works very well for video testimonials too. If you want to know how to do it, hit me up.