Bill McRea

Testimonials written by satisfied customers about your products or services show prospective customers that other people like them have tried what you have to offer and were pleased with it. Having a good selection of the right kind of testimonials on your website can make the difference in your conversion rate.

Most of the people who visit your site for the first time are not going to buy a thing from you. In fact, most marketers don’t realize that it takes about seven or more encounters with your brand before customers will feel comfortable enough to buy from you. People are becoming increasingly comfortable buying goods and services online, but they still want to make sure that you, your products and services are a perfect fit for them before they pull out the plastic and place an order.

What is social proof?

Aileen Lee, in an article on TechCrunch, says, “Social proof is the new marketing,” and she defines it as, “the positive influence created when someone finds out that others are doing something.  It’s also known as informational social influence.” What we do and what we say has an influence on those around us. Social proof provides evidence that others consider us to be legit and worth buying from or working with. Testimonials are the best way to demonstrate the social proof that will help new visitors feel more at ease and willing to stick around and learn more about what you have to offer.

How do you get good testimonials?

The best testimonials come unsolicited, but there’s no reason you can’t ask for them. If you’ve got a few favorite clients that have already expressed their pleasure from having worked with you, or their satisfaction from a purchase they made from you, ask them if they would give you a testimonial that you can post on your website. Rather than just generic, glowing praise, the best testimonials are results-based. You want them to describe the tangible results they received from working with you or using your products.

Offer a testimonial for a favorite product or service

Sometimes if you go first, and offer a testimonial, then others may reciprocate and write one about you. Be genuine and accurate when you give a testimonial.

Get testimonials in several formats

Video testimonials can be the most powerful because you get to see their face, hear their voice and really get a feel for their reaction to your products. Written testimonials are also great when they are accompanied by a photo, a name and either a business name, or where the person lives.

When people are reading testimonials about a product or service that they are considering using, they are looking to hear from people who are more or less similar to themselves, so the closer the testimonials are to your target audience, the more effective they will be.

Ask for testimonials, create a place on your website where people can leave a testimonial, and post them throughout your site so that visitors can see them from whatever page they happen to land on.

For more information about online marketing, visit http://mcreasite.com/blog where you will discover lots of tips and strategies fro growing your business with Internet marketing today.

The holidays are traditionally when most businesses make a large portion of their annual profits for the year. Most small businesses take advantage of the fact that this is a high-volume buying time of year for their customers, but it’s also a time when those customers are bombarded by marketing messages from every direction. As you are executing your holiday marketing campaigns this year, try to think creatively and find ways to be seen and heard above all of the noise of the season.

Break from tradition

If you want to stand out from the crowd you have to zig when everyone else zags. When you are doing your holiday marketing, break away from tradition and do things differently. This will attract attention and make your customers sit up and take notice. Don’t hold the same holiday sale that you hold every year.

Reward customer loyalty

Surprise your loyal customers by sending them special, private discount coupons to reward their repeat business. Tell them how much you appreciate their patronage of your business.

Encourage your loyal customers to send you referrals by offering them a fun incentive to do so. You could offer gift certificates for your products and services, or gift cards that they can redeem anywhere as a reward.

Publicly announce the customers who have referred the most people to you on your website. People love to be recognized in this way, so it may inspire other customers to refer more friends.

Make them think of you first

Your goal with all of your marketing efforts throughout the year is to maintain top-of-mind awareness with your customer base. If your product or service is not the first thing your customers or clients think of when the need arises, then you are not doing your job well. You holiday promotions should serve to both generate those holiday sales, but to also remind your current customers that you exist, and inform new customers about what makes your products and services exceptional.

Tie promotions in to social media

Encourage your customers to ‘Like’ your company Facebook page for special savings, or re-tweet your offers for a special coupon.

Add mobile to the holiday mix

We’ve talked about creative uses for QR codes, so why not make a special QR code that will reward those who redeem it with special savings?

Use email marketing to spur additional sales

Create a holiday-inspired email auto-responder series with gift buying suggestions and reviews. Add in holiday stories, tips, and decorating ideas.

Don’t forget post-holiday shopping 

Do you always get everything you want for Christmas? No? Chances are your customers don’t either, so be sure to offer some post-holiday, year-end sales specials.

Remember to keep your promotions creative and unexpected so that they spark interest amid all of the other marketing messages that your customers are being bombarded with this season. Take the time to show your gratitude to your loyal customers, and those customers who refer you to their friends.

For more useful tips on building and growing your online business, visit http://mcreasite.com/blog today to discover how fun and easy Internet marketing can be.

There are so many moving parts when you are running an online business. Sometimes, when you are a solo entrepreneur, marketing tasks can begin to slip when things get busy. Having an indispensible tool such as a marketing calendar can help to keep you on track with the consistent tasks that you must do each day, week, month and quarter to keep your marketing campaigns on track and keep customers coming in the door.

Let’s take a look at how easy it is to create and use a marketing calendar that will be customized for your specific online business.

Do a big ‘brain dump’ to gather marketing ideas

you get started actually creating your marketing calendar, get out a piece of paper and pencil and start brainstorming about the various activities, events and programs that you participate in each year for your business. Think about what role the major holidays play in your business, and how some advance planning can help boost your returns.

After doing a big, ‘brain dump’ on paper, organize those events by month. Then in a sort of backwards-engineering way, add in the tasks that lead up to each event. Is there a particular conference, seminar or festival that you want to get involved with next year for the first time? Now is the time to add it to your list. Think about all of the preparatory steps involved with making it happen and build those into your list.

Create or customize a marketing calendar template

Armed with your list, you can download a blank template of a marketing calendar on the Internet, or you can take the time to create one yourself using a basic calendar template within your spreadsheet software. Add the major events and then add the activities leading up to them in afterwards. Then fill in the regular daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly marketing activities that are not tied to a specific event.

To find these activities do the same backwards-engineering exercise that you did for the major events. You will come up with a list of tasks that will need to be performed on a consistent basis in order to keep your pipeline full. This might be the time when you begin to consider out-sourcing. If you can find an intern, or hire a low-cost virtual assistant to handle some of these tasks and free you up to focus on building and growing your business.

Create the habit of consulting your marketing calendar daily or at least weekly

It will do you no good to go through the motions of creating a calendar only to have it gather dust in a folder on your desktop. Check in daily or weekly to see what tasks or projects you should be working on, how close you are to upcoming deadlines, what progress you can make towards some big goals that are coming up in the future. Allow yourself to be accountable to your marketing calendar so that you can measure your progress. Imagine how satisfying it will feel after about six months to open it up and see all that you have accomplished. Then at the end of the year you will have a snapshot of how you did, and how you can improve for next year.

If you like these ideas for online marketing, visit http://mcreasite.com/blog to discover lots of ways to make Internet marketing fun.