You have a great business. Your products are state of the art and your services are unmatched. So how do you make sure that people know about your business and come to you when they need your products and services?
Advertising is one way to get people familiar with your products. Some people, after all, may not even know your company exists, and advertising can get them to your door. Once they’re there, though, how do you prove to them how great your products are?
Customer testimonials.
Why? Because:
People trust people before they trust businesses.
If you see a commercial for a new soap that claims to make you look younger, you would probably dismiss it as another gimmick. But if your mother mentions that she tried that soap and she really feels like she looks younger, you’re more likely to take a look at that soap next time you go to the store.
People are learning to tune out advertising.
Advertising is everywhere, all the time. There are TV commercials interrupting your favorite shows, there are printed ads in your magazines and newspapers, and the internet has banner ads and featured ads and sponsored ads on every site. There are billboards to look at as you drive down the interstate. There are flyers and pamphlets stapled to telephone poles and pinned to bulletins boards in the grocery store, the library, your child’s daycare, etc. – there are even ads hanging from the back of the door in public restrooms!
Advertising is so commonplace that people are becoming more adept at tuning it out. If your friend gets a new smart phone, though, and is super excited about it, you’ll have a lot harder time tuning him/her out.
People want it to be easy.
People are often afraid to be the first to do or use or try something – they want to believe that what they’re doing is already accepted and mainstream. They want to know that the new product or service is going to work as advertised, and they want to know that they’re receiving something that is of good quality. And they want to know all these things with as little as effort as possible.
People are uncomfortable with too many choices.
Let’s say you sell cases for portable gadgets like tablets, cell phones, mp3 players, etc. There are literally thousands of choices for these items. People don’t like thousands of choices, though – there’s too much pressure to choose the “right one.” Looking through thousands of choices is overwhelming; studies have shown that the more choices people had before making a purchase, the more likely they were to be unhappy with their decision because they felt that there wasn’t enough time or resources to adequately explore all the options.
Customer testimonials make these non-issues because they’re people speaking to other people. Consumers expect *you* to believe that your business is great, but since they know that you’re hardly an impartial judge, reading a satisfied customer’s review of your business proves that other consumers agree that your products and/or services are valuable and worthwhile. A customer testimonial is also not an advertisement. It’s not something that someone on your website is going to tune out – they’re going to read them because they want to know what others are saying about you.
Customer testimonials also make it easy for customers – a review from a satisfied customer shows, in one fell swoop, that other people are using your products/services, that they work as advertised, and that they’re a good value. If other people are willing to use a product and then take the time to write about it, other consumers are going to believe that your products are worth their time too.
Finally, customer testimonials can narrow the playing field. For the person looking through thousands of options for their cell phone case, a website that has customer testimonials will excel over a website that doesn’t have customer testimonials because it lowers the number of possible choices and eases the consumer’s anxiety at possibly choosing the wrong product – all while keeping your product in the running.
So go ahead, let your customers do the talking.
