How To Use The Og In All Of Us To Make More Money
5000 B.C. -- somewhere near a cave in Montana
Og the Deer Catcher and Flam the Wild walk up to a cave. They have never seen this cave before. Flam turns to Og and says "maybe there are some tasty rabbits inside, let's go inside and take a look. Og disagrees. He says, "nobody from our tribe mentioned this cave before, I don't think we should go in!".
Flam is not swayed. He barrels into the cave, mouth watering, ready for the tasty treat inside. Two hours later...Flam is slowly being digested inside a rather large saber-tooth tiger who relaxes comfortably in his cave with quite a full belly and enough Flam to last another week...
Testimonials are powerful.
Why?
Because they give potential customers a reason to believe in you. There may not be a greater influence on human behavior than seeing someone else do something, or hearing about them doing it.
Nobody wants to be the guinea pig. Most people, no matter how insignificant the risk, do not want to be the first to try something. Most people want the other guy to test the waters before jumping in. This has a basis in our DNA through evolution. We humans are hardwired this way because this is what has kept us from being eaten by our early predators.
So since this built in need for prior example exists in all people, what steps can you take in your business, right now to take advantage of this fact?
Get testimonies!
If you already have, great, but I think there are still a few things you can do to make them more powerful. I'll discuss that later.
But first, I'll show you an example that you can modify for use in your own business and you'll be surprised at how easy you'll be able to collect testimonies.
Sue's Facial Salon
Sue owns a facial salon. She wants to take advantage of the power of testimonies.
How does she go about doing this?
Here is one way.
Offer a Prize Drawing
The easiest and most straightforward way for Sue is to offer all of her customers, after they are finished with their facials, a chance to win a reasonably expensive item related to her business. The item should be expensive enough to be seen as a nice gift. It can't be too cheap, but she doesn't need to go overboard. For example, a bottle of face cream would be too cheap, but a basket of facial products (perhaps a 50 to 100 dollar value) would suffice.
So right before each customer leaves the store, Sue could mention..
"I'm running a giveaway of this $100 facial gift basket. If you want to enter, please complete this card and place it in the entry box".
Collect Testimonies On Cards
The card should have a welcome note restating how the customer benefits by going to the facial store. Then it should ask for feedback -- both good feedback and bad feedback. The card should also ask for the address and more importantly the telephone number.
The telephone number is required so the customers can be reached if they win...and if you are thinking two steps ahead....so they can be contacted to come in even if they didn't win.
Since she already has established trust with her customers, this method should help her quickly get a card full of comments.
What To Do With All Those Cards
Sue should then sort the card into a few piles. For each positive comment, she should place each card in a stack that addresses each unique selling point of her business. So in this case, let's say one of Sue's unique selling position (or USP) is that she provides the most luxurious atmosphere, then all comments regarding that should go onto a stack. Let's say she provides a free 15 minute shoulder massage as an added bonus at the end of a facial...another stack should be created for those comments.
Now she has many testimonies, each of which talk to each of her unique selling points.
So what does she do with these testimonials? Well, she needs permission to publicly use those testimonials so she goes ahead and puts all the entries in a hat and picks the winner. Sue then calls the winner to tell her she has won and to come pick up the prize.
When the winner arrives and picks her prize up, Sue tells the customer how much she values her and asks if she can use the comments written on the card in a testimonial. If the customer agrees, Sue then can ask the customer to sign and date a simple form giving her permission.
Now, for the rest of the testimonials Sue wants to use, she can call up each non-winner and let them know they didn't win the prize, but since Sue is so grateful the customer gave feedback, she will then offer each of them a 20% discount on their next visit. When they come in for the discount...you guessed it..Sue can ask if she can use their testimony. Pretty easy huh?
What To Notice
You notice in each case Sue:
1) Gave an incentive to take action
2) Never "bribed" them for a testimony. She asked for positive
and negativefeedback.
3) Got permission to use a testimony easily since her customer
is already happy to get such a great discount.
Lead Them A Bit
Another small tip to add is this: If Sue was having trouble getting specific testimonies, she could (ethically) lead the customer to the category she needed more comment on.
Using the same example about a luxurious atmosphere USP, her card could solicit the proper feedback.
She can ask questions like :
"What did you like about the atmosphere?" _____________________
"What did you not like about the atmosphere?" _________________
This technique will help her narrow testimonies down towards her USP even further.
Can You Use This Too?
Can you see how you can learn from this story and apply the use of testimonies to your business? There are multiple variations to this I will discuss in future articles.
I urge you to examine your own business and see if you can think of different ways to get and use powerful testimonials that speak to your strong selling points.
© Copyright 2004-2005 Jay McKee Marketing, All Rights Reserved
Jay McKee is a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant located in San Jose, CA. Jay specializes in all forms of direct response marketing. He also provides marketing advice to small businesses located in San Jose. To improve your direct response ads or to learn more about how you can use direct marketing to get more customers, sell more product, and boost profits without spending more on advertising go to: http://www.jaymckeemarketing.com
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