Close Sales with Testimonials and Reference Letters

Never underestimate the value of a customer testimonial or reference letter. Whether you sell a product or service on the Internet or by direct sales force (or both), these are gold!

Prospective customers feel more comfortable making a "buy" decision if your business has glowing endorsements from existing customers. In their eyes, this reduces the risk of selecting your company as their vendor. So, always ask for a reference letter or testimonial upon completing projects or transactions.

If your business has performed as agreed, there will be no problem getting this endorsement. You can actually ensure this by writing it yourself and then emailing the "draft" to the customer to get their blessing, asking them "if they want to make any changes."

Place one-to-two paragraph testimonials in conspicuous places on your Website. If you have a direct sales force, make sure customer reference letters are printed on the customer's letterhead and signed. Often, a prospect will even forego calling references if your sales people give them high-caliber endorsement letters at an appropriate stage in the sales cycle. These are great closing tools!

The Fastest Way for a New Company to get Sales

When you finally launch that new business, you probably start your marketing campaign with a Website. But it takes a long, long time for your Website to bubble up in organic search engine ranking. So until it does, you're still invisible on the Internet. Meanwhile, you need sales and money to pay bills. Right?

Want to know how you can quickly begin to generate sales leads from the Internet? It's simple - implement a local pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign. That way, your PPC ad will be visible to Internet searchers at the exact moment they are looking for what you're selling. This overcomes the weaknesses of your Website being nowhere in sight in organic search returns. And you are only charged when someone actually clicks on your ad. Otherwise, it's highly-visible free advertising.

Done right, local PPC advertising can be VERY effective...and very economical. But setting up PPC advertising is not for amateurs. Believe me, you can run through a lot of money real fast with little or no results. Google and Yahoo have their own algorithms for managing PPC advertising and they are not obvious, nor do they necessarily work to your favor.

It pays to engage an experienced PPC advertising manager to set-up, optimize and manage your online advertising campaign. Someone who knows how to create winning landing pages that capture leads or gain online sales after a rpospective customer clicks on your ad. You will save money and start generating sales sooner by turning to someone who knows what they are doing. Just ask anyone who rushed into PPC advertising - I'm sure they'll echo these sentiments.

Need help launching your PPC advertising? Contact us at info@smallbizsmartmarketing.com or at (866) 284-4955. ;~)