You’ve taken the jump. Your dream job/business is finally a reality. Your audience is starting to grow, and you have some real-life customers. So exciting!
Now it’s time to keep the revenue flowing. One of the best pieces of sales/marketing advice that I ever received was to elevate my clients with testimonials. The closer your prospects are to knowing what it’s actually like to be your customer (and how amazing it is), the nearer they are to actually committing to buy.
Make it easy for clients to visualize partnering with you via case studies, testimonials and quotes, and take the opportunity to use video wherever you can!
Here’s a few examples of how I’ve used customer advocacy at varying stages of the sales and marketing cycle:
It Was a Great Success!
Who doesn’t love a good story where everything works out in the end. One of my favorite ways to lift clients up and amplify their voice is to interview them and share their story.
When we picture a testimonial or a case study, I’m sure it’s easy to visualize a huge (and expensive) production. That doesn’t have to be the case if you’re on a tight budget. I’ve successfully interviewed, developed content, and distributed with minimal cost.
I use GoToMeeting to conduct remote interviews with clients all across the country. Then I transcribe the conversation and sculpt the desired narrative. Once the text is good, I will determine if there’s an opportunity to use video (my program of choice is ScreenFlow, but there are a ton of other tools out there).
Sometimes all you need is a quick 15-20 second attention grabber clip for social media to drive traffic to your website/blog or wherever you have the long-form testimonial living. Therefore, there’s really no need to have a long-form high production video of the entire dialogue if that’s not in your budget.
While people love video, and we’re in the middle of the swing to most content being in video format, there are still many times that I find myself bypassing the video to get to the text. Also, you don’t want to miss out on the SEO juice from having the long-form text version of the testimonial on your site.
I Heard It Through the Grapevine…
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it until I can’t say it anymore… Trust can be transferrable. If you can get a referral from a customer to a prospect who you don’t have a relationship with yet, then you’re 18 steps closer to gaining their trust than you would be on your own.
If you even have one happy customer, lift that customer up. Give them the power to speak on your behalf. Have a conversation with them about their professional network. Get creative!
In the events & meetings industry, you have the luxury of always having a captive audience who’s eager to network and help each other out. But it doesn’t have to be a lavish event in order for you to get plugged in to someone else’s network.
Some ways that I’ve facilitated low-key networking/referral making include:
- Customer appreciation dinners
- Special events (one on one fun at a baseball game, hockey, etc.)
- Complementary user group training
- Conference call just reconnecting on our collective vision
- Researching their network through social media and infusing prospects in conversation
The key to maintaining a low financial burden without diminishing value and ROI is to always plan ahead and think outside the box.
I hope this helped!
nichelle brooke 