Power of Testimonials:

If I were to send you to 20-30 random sales letters on the internet today you would find that the testimonials section is there 100% of the time.  You will also notice that 99% look and sound identical.  If you can switch gears from an entrepreneur to a consumer and read through these testimonials you will feel very un-easy about the authenticity about any one of them.

Testimonials are so important in the sales process.  For the 95% of us who do not run multi-national corporations, we need to constantly work at building trust quickly and more importantly fully.  Trust is the one key ingredient to a sale being made.  If you do not build a certain level of trust in your marketing efforts you will never sell a product.

So, now that I have successfully freaked everyone out about their own testimonial efforts, let me direct you on some ways to build trust through your testimonials, while avoiding the negative condemnation that the generic testimonials convey.

The goal of the testimonial section is to show your prospect that you have served people like them before, and that they have been satisfied with whichever areas you are promoting.  If the prospect believes that the testimonial was fabricated, they immediately devise a negative image of your business, and certainly don’t buy anything.

One of the most effective ways I’ve been able to convey that my testimonials are authentic has been through an audio testimonials campaign.

To begin, I promoted the testimonials by phone throughout the web site.  The banners and text links I used basically all said something like, “Had A Great Experience?  How About A Terrible One?  Phone The Testimonial Line Right Now And Record Your Experience For Other Consumers.  ALL TESTIMONIALS GET PUBLISHED.

Now, if you promote at all testimonials get published, you should be ready to step up to the plate during customer problems or you will be getting negative testimonials sent.  If you don’t list them the person who left the negative testimonial may go viral about exposing your “Fake Testimonials” and the business can expect to die shortly after.

On your sales letters, offer the MP3 audio file of the testimonial calls you have gotten, as well as the written highlights from your testimonials.  By doing this you are showing people that your testimonials are authentic, and that you are proud of your reputation with your customers.

If you do not have the means to get audio testimonials you can also do the same with video (although this has been done, and still has the “fake” feel to it), or handwritten letters.  Handwritten letters about your business have a certain level of authenticity to them; however, if the handwriting looks the same, or the “voice” of each person sounds the same, people may feel like they’re reading fake testimonials.

A Two-Step Campaign That Will Make You Money:

Newspaper advertising is a robust little monster.  If you’ve ever been “privileged” enough to sit through a newspaper advertisers sales pitch, you will have noticed that there are more choices available for advertising than there are articles in each issue.

The area of the newspaper I am going to focus on is the most profitable for direct sales/leads efforts: the classifieds.

The thing that makes the classified section the most profitable for most businesses is the audience that you reach.  Anyone who goes through the classifieds is either browsing, whether it is looking for deals, better jobs or a new place to live OR they are specifically looking to buy something.  Both of these audiences are very profitable.

Now there are some best practices to keep in mind when creating classified ads.  Although each deserves their own post, I am just quickly breaking them down so you know what they are.

1) The Headline Rules – Make sure your headline reels everyone in to read the ad.  If your ad is getting overlooked, your marketing dollar is going to get absorbed quickly.
2) You Must Have A Clear Call To Action – Your CTA should be clear, concise & easy/fast to do.
3) White On Black Almost Always Out-Pulls Black On White – If you are able to make your classified black with white text you will usually make more money from your campaign.
4) Make Sure You Are In The Right Section(s) – If you need to put the same ad in the classifieds twice to ensure you reach your entire prospect base over multiple categories you should (but talk to your rep about giving you a min. 25% discount).

The classified section should generally be used to serve 2 purposes.  The first purpose is to generate leads.  The second purpose is to sell a product or service.  What’s really great is you don’t even need to have a product or service.  You could approach countless service businesses and offer to generate leads for them through the classifieds.  You can generate leads, sales or even potential employees on the companies behalf and set it up on a “per sign-up” fee.  To maintain control of you leads you simply need to direct them to your own phone numbers or landing pages.

Once you test a business ad a few times you will have a general idea of the conversion rates and will be able to ensure you always make the best profit margins available when selling leads.

Of course, if you can find a product that is deliverable, you can duplicate your successful ads nationwide.  This is certainly the most profitable means, however, there’s no reason why you couldn’t duplicate your successful joint ventures in the service sector nationwide as well.

If you look around at service business, you will notice that there are many who are more than willing to pay anybody $50, $75, even $500 for leads that convert.  When you compare this to the costs of $20-$200 to run an ad for an entire month which could generate as many as 20 leads for you to sell, you see that the classifieds truly are the most profitable pages in the newspaper.