Marketing Daily TipsNo, customers aren’t bloodsuckers (well, maybe a few are!) and they don’t come out only at night. According to legend, vampires don’t come in until they are invited. And that’s true of customers, too.
On a copywriting board I frequent, someone expressed
bafflement that several respected marketers criticized the
tone of a sales page he wrote. “Why did they apologize to
their subscribers while linking to my pitch? This approach
sells,” he said.
Several years ago, “networking” was the hot buzzword. Everyone was talking about building their network, because this was the secret to becoming incredibly successful. Well, yes, networking is a great way to build a business, but not necessarily the way a lot of people went about it.
When you attend networking functions, what kind of name tag do you wear? One of those sticky things you scrawled your name on, or something a bit more sophisticated? For just a few cents to a few dollars, you can have a classy, customized name tag that will draw attention and comments and help you make the most of every networking opportunity.
Half my immediate family trained in Judo and excelled in competition. I was always fascinated by the way in which my younger brother and sister (who were small for their age) were able to throw much bigger opponents with seemingly little effort.
Offering free and exclusive content to ezine publishers and webmasters is one of the best ways you can increase exposure for your products and services. There are several effective methods you can use to employ this marketing tactic and subsequently boost your sales.
What is enthusiasm?
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It is easy to focus on what remains outstanding and not see what you have accomplished or how you have grown over the past year. Even marketing experts have difficulty nailing down time to market. I too fritter away time at trivial tasks like organizing paper clips, shuffling paper from one stack to another, updating my computer and watering plants. On worse days, I prefer doing laundry and making my kitchen even cleaner.
Here are three alternatives to increase your testimonial numbers or their quality. Create an online diary or blog, use an auto responder method, set up a form on your web site or set up a survey.
1 — Set up an Online Diary
Usually an online diary is a fun way to keep friends and family up to date on what is going on in your life. Online diaries can also be used for testimonial submission with conversational style recommendations about your product/service. Online diaries are offered on many web sites, even famous persons like Oprah, Dr. Phil, or Tony Robbins.
You set it up on their site and paste the page link into your “thank you for purchase” auto responder, on your web site or into other marketing materials. Include a 1-2-3 learning experience on what is included in a good testimonial with various examples. People will appreciate the learning opportunity by taking the time to complete the process. In addition, their quality will increase.
Online diaries are updated frequently, thus giving a higher perceived value. They also have a warmer conversational style that increases reader connection. Because a diary is considered “private”, it increases curiosity and they will read longer.
Two additional blessings are that you will save transfer time and others will read the other comments.
The offside is that you will want to monitor the entries to avoid some kids having fun.
You can also enter regularly updated customer comments received through other means on the product/service improved their life.
You can increase credibility by including the customer’s profile. Include their picture or audio testimonial or a video segment of them using the product. You can also scan in and include handwritten letters or notes you receive.
A blog is an upgrade of the online diary with additional controls.
There was online diary software available to help you set up your own online diary, however, blog software replaced it.
Resources:
Set up your own diary at: http://www.diaryland.com/. They provide a personalized URL: your-name.diaryland.com. I recommend this resource because I like the personalization capability.
Here is a course on how to set up an online diary at: http://personalweb.about.com/cs/htmltutorials/a/310emailcourse.htm
Here is some great startup information on blogs: http://www.creativity-portal.com/howto/writing/blogging.html
2 — Auto responder Method
After they make a purchase or receive a freebie set up an automatic auto responder requesting a testimonial. You can include a link to the online diary as the only choice or as part of multiple submission options.
If you offer an ecourse, forward them a progress report request. This can easily be set up in the auto responder system for easier production. Ask them no more than 3-5 questions that don’t encourage yes/ no answers. Ask them to rate their learning experience or make suggestions too.
Resources: