Your Customers Can Be Your Best Sales People

Gerard Tollefsen - April 29, 2010

With the explosion of social media, it has become essential for companies to leverage the marketing strength inherent with social media participation.  Even if you are hesitant to jump head first into social media marketing, there are a few aspects you can control as a business that doesn’t require heavy investment in time or resources.  Customer testimonials are an excellent way to help promote your business and increase your chance for more conversions with minimal time and resource allocation.

If you already have a Facebook or Twitter account, you can use those channels to encourage your customers to talk about their positive experiences dealing with your company.  One idea is to give an incentive to customers to “tell their story” and those who decide to provide a testimonial are entered into a drawing for a gift or special discount.  The only caveat here is that you will have to manage the interaction and quickly respond to and diffuse any negative feedback.  However, if this does happen, quickly move to resolve or respond to the negative feedback.  Your quick and decisive action can go a long way in building a positive reputation as a business that cares about their customer’s concerns.  Turn the negative into a positive and you gain a loyal customer who may in turn, provide a positive testimonial in the future.

Another way to leverage positive customer feedback is to create a customer testimonials section on your website.  This could be placed in a prominent section on your homepage, or it can be a unique page within the site structure itself.   There are many companies who use this strategy, but I am still surprised when I visit a website and can not find any content related to their customer endorsements.  Another idea is to create a blog on your site and allow your customers an opportunity to post articles talking about their customer experience.  Choose one blog a week as the “Customer Blog of the Week”, reward the winning “blog post” with some nice discount or special incentive and watch your blog entries grow over time; all customer generated and touting their approval of your company.

Today, more than ever, social media and social interaction are driving buying decisions.  It’s no different than your classic word of mouth advertising; it’s just on a much larger (and digital) scale.  You would be hard pressed to find a business owner who didn’t value the power of the referral.  Your customers can be your best sales people.  Use them, and reward them, for their positive testimonials to help grow your business and attract new customers.