Gather Client Testimonials
Getting testimonials is not a groundbreaking marketing suggestion. However, many trainers, consultants, and professional coaches don’t consistently generate testimonials from their satisfied customers. Here are several ways to make gathering testimonials part of business as usual.
Use Client Emails
One of our best clients at generating testimonials has at least two every month. How does he consistently generate so many testimonials? Simple, if his client sends him an email thanking him, he’ll cut an excerpt out and ask if it’s OK to use that as a testimonial. The answer from his client is almost always yes because the work of writing the testimonial is already done.
Write Testimonials for clients
If you have a client with particularly good results or a great story to tell as a testimonial, try writing it for them. Then send them the testimonial asking for edits or approval. This has the added benefit of reaffirming that the client perceives as much value as you do in the working relationship.
Video Testimonial Recording
If you have regular consulting or training sessions with a client, ask if they’d be willing to shoot a video of their experience. Make it casual and have some prepared questions to prevent the client from rambling. Record more than you think you’ll need and then spend some time editing the most powerful or well shot sections.
Ask for the Testimonial
It’s simple but many consultant, trainers, or professional coaches simply don’t get testimonials because they don’t ask for them. If you want to make testimonials even simpler set up a form on your website where people can input their response. You can even standardize the form in many cases with checkboxes for common benefits clients receive or rankings of what services have been most beneficial.
Make gathering testimonials part of your day-to-day activities and make sure to gather them in a variety of media. Often times people default to the technology or style they are comfortable with and neglect other avenues. If you’ve struggled with producing videos in the past, work out a system to create them, seeing and hearing an actual testimonial is a powerful presentation. Just because you can shoot video doesn’t mean that you always should. Make sure to have written testimonials or transcripts for times when text is required or more appropriate
Testimonials can be a powerful marketing tool especially when done consistently. The same testimonial popping up over and over again can make it seem like a trainer, consultant, or professional coach only has a handful of satisfied clients. Gathering testimonials consistently will truly reflect the wide array of people and companies that you count as satisfied clients.