Photography Marketing Magic - Using Customer Testimonials to Get Sales

[Christie Bates]

We've all seen the clips a thousand times: young, brash Muhammad Ali
screaming at the adoring crowd: "I'm the greatest. I'm the greatest."
Now, you might be able to get away with this when you're the
heavyweight champion of the world and an idol to millions. But when
you're a photographer, this kind of bravado will usually fall on deaf
ears. Even worse, it could turn off many of the people you're trying
to sell to... which will cost you sales.
In other words, if you tell people you're the greatest photographer
living... people will simply not believe you.
But if you can get a large number of your customers to say the same
thing... well, that's a different story.
A customer testimonial can be a powerful selling tool. Because when a
client is considering buying your product or service, it is comforting
for them to know not only that other people have also bought that
product or service... but that they were satisfied with it.
Now, of course you're familiar with testimonials-after all, they're on
many of the websites you'll browse. They're on most of the "junk mail"
you receive. Entire half-hour commercials are filled with nothing but
testimonials.
So I'm not going to try and convince you that customer testimonials
work... they do. That being said, here are 4 ways that you can and
should use testimonials in your photography business:
1. Put a strong testimonial on the back of your business card. Using
both sides of your business card is a complete topic by itself... but
if you're in the habit of giving out thousands of business cards a
year (and you should be), there are few things stronger on the back of
your card than a knock-'em-dead testimonial saying how wonderful your
work is.
2. Put testimonials on your web site. This should be common sense, but
I am amazed at how many photographers don't put any customer
testimonials on their site. And many who do place them on a separate
page (which very few people will read) or in tiny, tiny print down at
the bottom. This is missing the point. A really great testimonial
should be front and center. A testimonial should be at least prominent
enough so that anybody who visits your site has no choice but to read
it. And where one great testimonial is good, two is better. And three
is even better than that.
3. Send out a postcard that contains primarily testimonials.
Particularly if you're introducing yourself to, say, a particular
city... a postcard full of glowing testimonials is a relatively cost-
effective way to announce, "Hey, I'm here... and people think I'm
pretty good."
4. Create a direct-mail booklet that consists entirely of
testimonials. Suppose you specialize in portraits of high school
seniors. Imagine a 20-page booklet where each page had an amazing
photograph of a senior along with a testimonial from that senior
saying how wonderful you were to work with. If you mail this out to
hundreds of seniors the next year... you're bound to get swamped with
work. (And then you can add the best of this bunch to your booklet.)
Now, there are many more things you can do with testimonials...
especially since we live in the generation of audio and video
testimonials, social networking, and fax machines.
But for now... simply gather up as many written customer testimonials
as you can and start using them to market your photography business.