When did you last ask for a testimonial?

Testimonials are powerful and most of your customers and clients would be happy to provide one – but they need to be asked or it just doesn’t cross their minds.

Testimonials are third party validation.  They’re great marketing tools – providing they have the right information in them.  And there lies the challenge – if you leave people with a blank piece of paper (or screen) to write on, what you get may not be what you need.

For instance, how would you feel about receiving this testimonial?

Acme Business Services are a pleasure to work with, always friendly and approachable and come into our workplace with a smile.

On the surface that seems like positive feedback, but what does it say about your services?

Does that mean that the person who wrote this doesn’t value your services?  Of course it doesn’t, it’s just that the first thing that popped into their mind when asked to write a testimonial was how friendly you (or your team) are.  If you leave people with no guidance, you’ll get a lot of this as people remember how you made them feel.

That’s lovely feedback to get, but it’s more therapy for you, than useful business information to help potential clients make a decision.

The three questions approach

To best way to get a comprehensive and focused testimonial is to ask your client to answer three questions.

1. What did we do for you?  (The project, services, product supplied)
2. What was it like working with us? (This is the bit they want to tell you)
3. What were the outcomes you got from what we did?  (The measurables, results, changes that happened, impact made).

There are two advantages to asking questions.  

One, you get specific outcomes that will tell potential clients the value of your work.  

Two, when someone has a question to answer it’s much easier for them to write the testimonial, so you will probably get more responses than if you just ask for ‘a testimonial’ or ‘recommendation’.  That blank page is too easy to ‘do later’!

Better still, if you know someone is busy and it’s going to slip down their to do list, you could always give them a call and ask the questions verbally.  Some people find this much easier.

Question 4

When someone has just said positive things about you, it’s a great time to ask them that extra question.

“Thank you, I’m glad you got so much value from what we did.  Who else do you know who might value that kind of result?”

Ask for the introduction and you have a very warm opening to another client.

Does the headline grab your attention?

When you pick up a newspaper or magazine (or visit that publication online), you choose which articles you want to read by the headlines.  Some of the more nefarious publications use misleading headlines just to try and get your eyes on their article.  

You’ve probably seen some of those ads with headlines like ‘The terrible tragedy that ended [celebrity name]’.  These articles usually turn out to be nothing like the headline teases.  However, there is a lesson to be learned if you are writing a newsletter.

Your headline needs to grab attention.

It has to be something that your reader is interested in – not what you happen to be excited about in your business.

And there lies the 64 million dollar question – what are they interested in?

If you know your clients well this should be reasonably easy to work out.  If you’re still unsure think about the questions that people ask you in your professional capacity.  What are the big issues they don’t understand or are concerned about?  How could you help them in relation to these?  That should give you some ideas for your lead item.

We use our blogs as they are always focused on helping people like our ideal clients with various aspects of their marketing.  It also offers an opportunity to take people to the website with a ‘read more’ button.

There’s usually a promotion or offer that will also appeal to our ideal client base – and then more value!

So, when you’re putting together your next newsletter these are your key things to think about:

1. Will this deliver value to the reader?  And how?
2. Will my subject line for this email get their attention and enough interest or curiosity to open the email?
3. What do I want them to think/feel/do when they’ve read it?

If you’re tempted to add a bit about what’s going on in your business, then try and position it in terms that demonstrate the value of it to your customers, rather than just an exciting ‘We’re moving!’ or ‘We’ve got a new team member!’  You need to answer the question that your reader will almost certainly be thinking – ‘So what?’

But always lead with value!

Is your social strategy working?

Making social media work well is like walking on ice.  The social platforms are forever changing their algorithms.

Gone are the days where 15% of your page followers on Facebook saw your posts.  Today almost zero see them, unless they actively visit your page – unless you invest in Facebook ads.

On LinkedIn you get rewarded for posting, engaging and other things, by your posts being shown to more people.  Of course, your reach is limited, unless you subscribe to a Premium account.

The writing is on the wall – to make social media really work as a lead generator, you need to have a robust system AND be ready to invest a little in advertising if you really want to reach more people.

Pick your platform

I’m not suggesting you start advertising on all your social platforms, but it is important to raise your profile on the one where your ideal client is most active.

How do you work out which platform is the right one?

That should be part of your ideal client avatar.  If you have a detailed description of your ideal client, you should already have a clear idea about that so, if you haven’t done that yet, maybe create that first.  You might find this template useful to do that.  

If you’re still not sure a bit of research will help.  Look at your existing clients social media.  Where are they most active – not just broadcasting, but actively engaging with other people?  How long is it since their last post, their last reply to a comment, etc?

I’m not suggesting that you totally ignore all the other platforms, you should maintain a presence, but your focus needs to be on the one where you’re most likely to get results.

Create a plan

As Hannibal Smith (the A Team – you have to be a certain age to get it) said “I love it when a plan comes together!”  However, a good plan doesn’t depend on chance, it should be based on strategy and a clear follow through set of tactics.

Your plan should include:

• The subjects you will post about
• The style of your posts – e.g. image, text, infographic, video, etc.
• The frequency of your posts
• Your follow up and monitoring strategy

And, on your number one platform, what your paid advertising strategy will be:

• Your budget
• Your offer
• The headlines for your ads
• A clear call to action for each one – what do you want people to do?
• A testing process to see what works best (try different headlines, images, calls to action, etc.

You might also need to create a lead magnet and an automated funnel to capture interested people and enable you to nurture them.  Remember, that unless you have a means of capturing their data, every penny you spend on their click is wasted.

A print ad costs money and the wider the circulation of the publication the more expensive it is – online ads are comparatively cheap.  Most platforms allow you to set a daily cap, so you don’t suddenly find you’ve gone through hundreds of pounds.  This can be as low as £5 a day.  

Facebook, Instagram and TikTok all have this kind of advertising.

LinkedIn does offer ads, but a more effective way for most people is to use the Premium account and invest some time in reaching out and building relationships with your ideal clients.  This is something worth exploring.

Monitor and measure your results daily – you should aim for a ROI of 1:4 (for every £1 you spend you make sales worth £4).  That may seem low – but when you spend £100 and get £400 back it starts to look really healthy!