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Additional Article Information: =============================== 1014 Words; formatted to 65 Characters per Line Distribution Date and Time: Fri Feb 10 08:22:57 EST 2006 Written By: Bill Platt Copyright: 2006 Contact Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Article URL: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/d/p/testimonials-reviews-built-trust.shtml Bill Platt's Picture URL: http://thephantomwriters.com/x-images/bill_platt_80x105b.jpg For more free-reprint articles by this Author, please visit: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/d/index.shtml#Bill_Platt --------------------------------------------------------------------- Testimonials and Reviews Increase Your Real Sales Potential Copyright © 2006 Bill Platt Book Reviews Trade Forum http://www.reviewstrade.com/forum/index.php It does not matter whether you are trying to find new subscribers for your ezine, new visitors to your website, sales of products and services from your website, or even promoting your newest book. We all lack one essential ingredient when we are starting out. THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT TO GENERATING SALES The one essential ingredient for online success in any endeavor is gaining your prospect's trust. Slick sales copy can only succeed in piquing interest and closing the sale with those who easily trust others. Maybe your name and reputation have preceded you and that is why your prospect is so quick to trust your spiel. Maybe your prospect trusts everyone all the time. Who knows? The deal is that not everyone is going to trust your pitch on face value. Some of us just live life a bit more cautiously. When your prospect is not handing out their trust easily, then you will need to provide them the ability to believe in what you are offering. BELIEF AND TRUST ARE EASIER TO ACQUIRE THAN YOU MIGHT THINK The easiest way to gain someone's trust is to let them read the words of other people --- real people who have tried what you are offering. Your happy customers will spontaneously let you know when they are happy with what you have done for them. When your happy clients have made the effort to praise your work, make sure that you share that with your future potential customers. A great testimonial page will help you to close more sales than any other page you put on your website. Be sure that you tell your happy customers that you have used their testimonial; they will be delighted to hear about it. Be sure to include their first name (last name also, but only with permission) and city if they are general consumers. If you are in the business of providing products and services to others in the business community, use their full name with their permission and link to their website. When you link to their website, they will be thrilled for the extra free advertising. You will have cemented your client's praise for your products and services. Real people, with real names and real locations are the trust builders in testimonials. Real people, with real names and real websites can develop unbreakable trust, since the statements in the testimonial can be verified easily. TESTIMONIALS ARE SPONTANEOUS AND REVIEWS ARE WELL THOUGHT OUT Typically, we think of reviews in regards to books, music and movies. But, reviews can also work for newsletters, websites, products, services, and membership sites. Reviews are more formal in their style and design. Reviews look beyond what the person, who is sharing his or her comments, has gained from the product or service being commented upon. Instead, reviews are intended to show people what can be expected from a product or service. It is like a checklist of features, with commentary provided concerning how useful the features will be to the reader. TESTIMONIALS WILL COME, BUT REVIEWS MUST BE TRADED FOR By their nature, testimonials are spontaneous. For the purposes of sharing the value of a product or service, testimonials NEED to be spontaneous. But, reviews are a different kind of beast. In some cases, people will review your product or service without your input into the process. But, this is extremely rare. In most cases, you will need to seek out someone to do a review of your product or service. It is not enough to wait for someone to do a review --- you might be waiting forever. You must proactively seek out people to do reviews on whatever it is that you are selling. In rare cases, you might be able to find someone to do a review for you out of the kindness of their heart. In many cases, you can find people who will do a professional review of your product for a small or not-so-small fee. In today's internet community, there are still others who might be willing to review your book, product or service in exchange for you listing their name and website along with their review, on your website or on your book jacket. Savvy internet marketers understand the value of getting their URL in circulation through multiple channels. You might just be surprised who might step up and volunteer to review your product, service or book in exchange for some free advertising! SOME FINAL SUGGESTIONS Generally, you will only want to offer an opportunity to review your product, service or book to a very select few people. If you make your offer open-ended, you might find your best potential customers getting what you are offering for free. Always limit your offer to a limited number of participants. You should expect a review to be of a certain length --- generally two to three paragraphs. You will often want to develop a long version and a short version of a review, to be used in different promotional formats. If you are selling a book, then the review will be the lifeblood of your sales potential. If you are selling a product or service, the review can add a substantial upside to your sales potential. Take the time to seek out a limited number of people who would be willing to review your product, service or book. And, don't be afraid to barter for the review. For your best benefit, just be sure to offer something of real value to the reviewer, so that you can gain something that will be of real value to you. And one final note on the subject of reviews. I know it is easy to want everyone to say what you want to hear. But, it is often better to insist upon complete honesty from your reviewer. Complete honesty from your reviewer will allow them to be more believable in the eyes of your prospects. And sometimes, your reviewers honesty might help you improve upon your offerings, which could allow you to make even more money down the road. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Platt owns the <a href=http://www.reviewstrade.com/forum/index.php>Book Reviews Trade Forum</a> located at: http://www.reviewstrade.com/forum/index.php We invite publishers, plus book and ebook writers to list their offers to have their manuscripts reviewed by others. And, we encourage individuals interested in doing book reviews for pay or barter to visit regularly to see what new offers might be available. --- END ARTICLE --- ..................................... 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