Testimonials to build better Ad Copy

Anyone who knows me or has done business with me in the past know that one of my all time favourite marketing tools to have in your toolbox is the use of testimonials.

Testimonials build credibility, instil trust, remove an element of risk to your buyers as other people are happy and help you close more sales.

As a marketing consultant and copywriter testimonials are gold for me because each job needs happy clients to give us more business and once I had a few jobs under my belt and some solid testimonials things really took a different direction at D.Y.B Strategies.

However it does not matter whether you sell consulting services, shoes, food or have a physical product VS a digitally delivered product, everyone can benefit from them.

I have outlined below how you can make your testimonials even better and more believable-:
1. PICTURES Ask people if they would e-mail a picture with their testimonial. If they don't have one scanned you could have them send their picture by mail and you could scan it. This technique will give your testimonials more credibility.

2. PROFILES Ask people to include a profile of themselves with their testimonial. You could just have them answer some questions like business, occupation, hobbies, favourite quote etc… This will make your testimonials more entertaining to read and give a more humanside.

3. HAND WRITTEN LETTERS Ask for people to take the time to hand write a testimonial or thankyou to your business. This technique is far more impressive to people because it shows someone in the digital age has taken the time to actually write something. You can take photocopies of the hand written letter to include with your marketing material and also scan it then upload to a website.

4. E-MAIL MESSAGES When you get e-mail testimonials, publish the entire e-mail message instead of just the contents. It will be more believable because it will include the date, time, subject, who it's from and who it's to.

5. CONTACT INFORMATION When you get testimonials from people, ask them if you could includetheir contact information under the testimonial. This will allow potential customers to ask your current customers questions about your product or service before they buy. Usually, they will trust them more than you.

So next time you ask for a testimonial keep these tips in mind. Also some people will offer testimonials with out any prompting whilst others may not know you need or want them so a gentle reminder and ask is completely OK in business. If people have told you they are happy it is not that big a step to ask for something written down to use in your marketing efforts.

An interesting concept

I was reading an article a while back and the theory struck me as so simple but so overlooked.

Now I like to think I am up with things and I certainly spend a lot of time researching and broadly reading as much as I possibly can on business development, sales, marketing and copywriting side of things with small businesses and entrepeneurship thrown in for good measure.

The theory that I have only seen written about once was Yes or Yes.

The basis for the theory is that as marketers, slaes people and business owners we give people one of two options usually Yes I want what you are offering OR No I do not want what you are offering.

If you rebundle your products and services into creating a choice for your customers response rates are bound to increase as people are not closing their minds to your message because they have to think about which option they will say Yes to.

The article research showed that when faced with 2 options the more expensive of the options was taken up because people could compare the benefits and value of the 2. In this case your copy and presentations become ever more critical.

I have been testing this myself recently and the early results are tending to lean towards the initial research, and I love seeling the higher price option because it means more profit.

So I challenge you to think about what you are selling now and how that can be broken down into 2 Yes or Yes options.

If you would like a review of you marketing material or new copy written for your new offering please contact us laura@dybstrategies.com to arrange a quote.

By the way if you want to learn more about business development visit our Yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/drivingyourbusiness

Laura
Marketing Freak
D.Y.B Strategies
'Driving Your Business'
http://www.dybstrategies.com

Marketing Copy Mistakes (Part Two)

In a recent post I told you about 20 marketing copy mistakes people commonly make.

In Part Two I give you another 20 and also a bonus 2 for good measure.

Learn from them and use it as a checklist against your own marketing material.

1. No bullets
2. Ad copy in all CAPS
3. To few ordering options
4. No visual aids
5. No comparison to competition
6. No reminding and reinforcing of benefits or deadlines
7. No information about your business
8. No appealing adjectives
9. No appealing phrases
10. Text to large
11. Text to small
12. No emotional appeal
13. Paragraphs to large
14. No story telling
15. No underlining or bolding of keywords
16. Ad copy to short
17. Ad copy to long
18. No facts or case studies
19. Hard to understand jargon
20. No free bonuses
21. Price to low VS consumer expectations (They think if it is to good to be true it probably is)
22. Price to high VS consumer expectations (You have not sold the benefits well enough during your copy for them to believe it is worth the price)

Until next time keep marketing!

Laura
Marketing Freak
D.Y.B Strategies
'Driving Your Business'
http://www.dybstrategies.com/