As you ambitiously devise and implement leadgen campaigns and branding strategies designed to keep your sales pipeline filled with prospects that you hope to convert into a few sales, it is easy to lose sight of a basic fact of marketing—your clients are the best promotional resource you’ll ever have. Satisfied clients can become your cheerleading squad and they have more credibility with prospects than any marketing tactic you could ever devise.

Today, there is so much sensory overload noise in the marketplace that Freelancers and other business owners are often best served by peer-2-peer testimonials to persuade prospects that doing business with your company is a safe bet. Unless you can afford to buy an ad during the Super Bowl, nothing has more credibility than from the trenches client testimonials, referrals, or case studies.

So how can you recruit a client to publicly recommend your products or services without seeming to overstep a boundary? Basically, you ask the right clients, you make it easy to say yes, you make the ask at the right time and you make sure that the end result makes the client and his/her organization look good.

Ask the right client

Obviously, your first job is to know which of your clients would make a good recruit for a testimonial ask. Recall clients with whom you worked over the past 2-3 years and for whom you’ve done an exceptional job in terms of beginning to end customer experience, delivering the solution and meeting, if not exceeding, all expectations. Most of all, the client has to recognize and value what you did on his/her behalf. In other words, ask clients who have plenty of good things to say about your company and the work you do or the products you sell.

Timing

Timing takes more than one form. One factor is, how far into the past can you reach to make an ask? Will it be awkward to ask a client with whom you worked, say, four years ago? The answer, I think, is that it depends. If you maintain contact with past clients, e.g., sending December holiday cards and perhaps also sending announcements about your appearances on webinars or podcasts, it will be easier to reach out and ask for a testimonial.

Another timing issue is to avoid the client’s busy season, or the end of the fiscal year, when the client may have deadlines to meet. To the best of your ability, avoid making the ask when your client faces time-sensitive, pressing work responsibilities.

The ask

The window between your last interaction with the client and when you plan to ask for a testimonial will impact your choice of communication. If it seems right to approach a client soon after the work is completed or the product purchased, including your testimonial ask in a post-sale client satisfaction survey will be perceived as a natural progression. Email the survey and encourage your client to share feelings about working with your organization, the products that were purchased, or the services provided.

Invite the client to provide more specific, detailed comments in the Testimonial Template that you embed in the survey. Note that comments may appear on your company website and social media sites.

To approach a client with whom you worked a year or more ago, it may be more appropriate to first call and discuss the testimonial ask and then follow-up with an email to confirm, with your Testimonial Template attached.

If your client prefers to make a video testimonial and you have the skills to record and edit the video, which should probably be no longer than 6-8 minutes, arrange to meet for the shoot. Alternatively, you might set up a videoconference call and record an interview with the client as s/he discusses the positive experience and great results obtained from working with you. Audio-only testimonials can also be recorded and they are likewise compelling. When using the audio or video options, send the Testimonial Template a week in advance and send it again 48 hours ahead of the recording session.

Questions and quotes

Help clients to endorse your products and services by including a few open-ended questions in your Testimonial Template to get the ball rolling. Devise simple, direct questions that put the client in story-telling mode and will yield good quotes.

Ask the client to briefly detail the goal that had to be achieved or problem solved and why there was a need for the products or services that were purchased. Also ask the client to divulge if s/he previously used another company to obtain similar products or services and to provide insight into what motivated him/her to explore your company. Remember to ask the client to share reasons why your organization was chosen and not another. Finally, urge the client to discuss the experience of working with your organization, with an emphasis on expectations and benefits derived.

Client benefit

Your testimonial will be posted on your company website and on one or more social media channels—-remember to link the text, audio, or video back to your client’s website. Let the client know that you’ve provided these valuable back links by sending links to all platforms on which the testimonial appears. Informing clients whom you approach for a testimonial that you’ll provide this sort of publicity may yield a “yes” for your ask and put your venture on the road to obtaining the best endorsements available.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Cheerleaders in 1920s America