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Are Your
Online Testimonials Believable?
If you operate an on-line business then you more than likely have used
testimonials in your sales page or at least given the idea some
thought. Depending on just what type of product or service you are
offering the use of testimonials could very well be the key to
increased sales. Though this would most likely depend on whether or not
your testimonials are believable or not. As an on-line entrepreneur the
face to face sales factor is lost, so establishing our credibility and
honesty and believability, more often than not has to come alive within
our sales page and the home page of our website. Without any doubt you
have seen the many different uses of testimonials throughout the net.
Think about those that you have seen for a moment or two and then ask
yourself, “did I really believe the
testimonials?”. Regardless what your answer was ask
yourself, “why?”. What can we do to make our
testimonials as believable as possible?
The unsolicited testimonial is the best by far, and most credible. When
we do get testimonials, we can contact these customers and now we ask
them for certain favors. These favors will be the different ways that
we choose to establish believability, credibly, and honesty.
One of the more difficult requests is always, would you give your
permission to me to print your contact information with your
testimonial. So often most people just do not want their information
given out so freely. They may agree to partial contact information,
which is better than none at all. This request would be the same if the
testimonial came to us via e-mail. It’s best if you can
reprint the entire e-mail which includes the date, time, subject, who
it’s from, and who it’s to. Again always get the
senders permission before you reprint it in your sales page or website.
If you really want to portray a feel of realism then you will want to
ask the sender of your testimonials if they would mind sending it in
their own hand writing. Once you get these then just scan the entire
hand written letter and upload it to your site. An electronic signature
can be just as effective, as opposed to just the standard text
signature. By using an electronic signature you could still have typed
text and just upload the signature. Either way that you choose both
will seem more official and real.
What ever form of testimonial that you are fortunate enough to receive
if the sender would be generous enough to include a short profile about
themselves then the testimonial could become more entertaining to read.
They may choose to include things such as; their occupation, hobbies,
age, and favorite quote, etc. Just another way of establishing the
realism factor, hence, believability.
Quickly rising in popularity, is the hand written postcard type of
testimonial. You will immediately establish credibility and
believability simply by showing the post mark. Now your customers know
for certain that this testimonial came to you in the mail, and is in
fact real.
To add even more believability to any type of testimonial, you could
request that the sender include a picture which can be uploaded with
the entire testimonial. This establishes the real person status. You
know that old saying, pictures speak a thousand words.
Another testimonial form which is growing in popularity is the audio
form. Capture a short interview type testimonial on tape, whether you
use a mini tape recorder over the phone, have them leave it in your
voicemail, or on your answering machine. Once you have it captured you
can upload it to your website. Another way to make use of the recorded
testimonial would be to simply type a short snip-it on your website
with a toll free number that your customers could call to hear the
entire testimonial.
It has become only a natural order of events that along with the audio
testimonials we are starting to see more and more of the video recorded
testimonials. This method cuts right to the chase and all your visitors
can see and listen to just what your happy customers have to say about
your products and or services. Most likely the most
“believable” type of testimonial in
today’s market, in my opinion.
In closing I am sure whether you are just starting out in your own
business or you have been an entrepreneur for some years now you can
see the ever increasing importance of testimonials and more importantly
the believability of those testimonials that you use. Since businesses
started to do business it has always been that “word of
mouth” form of advertising/promotion that has produced the
biggest and strongest form of growth and sales. Therefore when ever you
can be sure to use those testimonials and always be sure to make them
totally believable and real. The fake ones are so easily detected.
Copyright © 2006 and Beyond Roy J. Keller (All Rights Reserved)
About the author:
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For the best Work
From Home Online business ideas and
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visit RoyJKeller.com
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