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Powerful Conversion Tool… When Used Properly

[This is an excerpt from the 2 1/2 hour Teleseminar Todd conducted a couple of weeks ago titled "Tipping Points Within An Internet Marketing Business]

Most internet marketers know the value of testimonials from satisfied customers.  Unfortunately, most marketers don't truly understand how to properly gather quality testimonials and use them strategically in their sales funnel to reap maximum conversions.

The first step in the process of leveraging testimonials in your marketing funnel is to actually have a dedicated funnel for the acquisition of quality testimonials. Quality testimonials. Actually, quality and quantity.

As you increase the quantity of testimonials on your sales page, and you increase the quality, which I’ll explain in a second, your conversions will go up. Period.  I’ve personally seen it time and time again. The reason why we’ve been able to go into several niches... niche after niche after niche and conquer it and basically own the category that we’ve created... is because of the huge amount of quality testimonials that we acquire and how we use them.

Frankly, I’m not passive about testimonial acquisition.

In other words, we don't wait for them to come to us. We methodically go about generating specific types of testimonials. And, we have a dedicated marketing campaign just for that purpose.  And that campaign is similar in intensity to the types of campaigns we use to generate leads and customers.  In other words, we take it seriously as should you.

Point being; you need to be proactive. You need to be aggressive with your testimonial acquisition. I put out a video—I think I called it, “The Magic Funnel" that's on the blog here. Watch it. It explains one of the savviest systems I’ve ever seen used online. It’s a system that I use in our companies to do several things. To make the sale stick. To get somebody beyond the refund period. To exceed their expectations, and to generate a huge amount of testimonials. And that’s the thing...

You want a system that generates quality testimonials for you every single week, that you can then add to your various dimensions or marketing channels... so that you can add more testimonials to your sales letter... add more testimonials to your email follow-up... have more testimonials that you can use during teleseminars and Webinars and even voice broadcasts.

In fact, talking about voice broadcast and the different ways you can use quality testimonials... I actually got a customer to record an audio clip for me, like a two minute audio clip that I then voice broadcasted out. I took a testimonial from a customer and I took that audio and plugged it into a voice broadcast that goes out automatically as part of one of our marketing funnels.

See how again, I’ve got that testimonial. I’ve got that guy’s audio testimonial on the website. I took the audio testimonial and transcribed it, and it’s there in print, in our email follow-up. Took the recording and voice broadcasted, again, repurposing content. This illustrates no only the value of repurposing your content, but also the value of leveraging testimonials out the wazoo.

Next, let's talk about what makes for a good testimonial.

Number one, outcome specific.

You want testimonials that talk about the specific benefits that people have reaped from your product or service and hopefully the benefits that they got or the benefits that your market wants, that you’re promising you can deliver. And again, I explain how to get that type of testimonial in that “Magic Funnel” video on the blog here.

The more information about the person who submitted the testimonial, the better. Don’t just have JD or Joe D.

If you can have the person’s first name, last name, age, and depending on the marketplace you’re in, their profession, their state, their city. The more information the better, because it makes the testimonial more believable and more credible.

You also want diverse demographics.

Again, this depends a little bit on the marketplace that you’re in, but if you’re selling to a diverse demographic of ages and genders, then you want testimonials from men, women, young, old and so on and so forth.

You also want testimonials from credible people, like experts in your particular marketplace. If you need to give them a free copy of the product to get a testimonial from them, do it. Testimonials from credible people will give you, on top of average, every day people and customers will give you tremendous, tremendous credibility.

Also, you want your testimonials to overcome the objections.

This is also really, really savvy, so please pay attention to these next two points of quality testimonials.

You want your testimonials to overcome objections, which means if there are five different objections that the average, prospective customer has when it comes to buying your product or service, you want to generate testimonials that overcome those objections.

For example, if one of the objections that you get all the time is, “It’s too hard,” or “I’m not technical enough,” let’s just say. I don’t know, you’re selling a computer or something. And one of the objections that you get all the time is, “I’m not technically savvy.” Well, you would want testimonials that say, “This is so easy. I’m not even technically savvy and I found it easy,” or “I was scared being somebody that’s not technically savvy, but I found this computer so easy to use.”

See, you want your testimonials to overcome objections.

Again, testimonials are some of the most powerful marketing tools at your disposal when used correctly.

Today, in a lot of different niches, because they’re not used correctly, they’re not quality testimonials. It just becomes noise on the sales page.

This last point is not so much about a quality testimonial, but it’s about how to use these testimonials. And you want to place testimonials strategically within your sales letter.

That means you should methodically place appropriate testimonials at appropriate places in your sales letter. So if in the sales letter, it’s after somebody reads a certain paragraph, you know that they’re thinking, "Oh, it’s too difficult, I can’t do it", you want to have the testimonials right there that overcome that objection. And same for the rest of the sales letter.

Put the testimonials in the appropriate places to overcome the objections that people will have at that particular time in your sales letter. Strategically placed testimonials are key. Quality, quantity, overcoming objections, diverse and strategically placed.

Again, when collected and used correctly, testimonials are one of the most powerful conversion tools you have at your disposal. When collected and used incorrectly, in some cases testimonials can actually detract from your sales message and take away credibility.

So, don't just throw some testimonials up on your sales page or in your email follow-up.  Collect them strategically and use them strategically. And be proactive about the whole process.