Marketing is all about making your organization stand out from the crowd. While you can tout your laurels on your own marketing materials, nothing is as powerful as getting other people to share their positive opinions about your company and services.
Testimonials are a proven way to market your organization and increase business. Think about it: When you’ve had to look for a new doctor or hospital for yourself or a loved one, what’s one of the first things you do? Ask your friends for local recommendations. You trust your peers – they’re credible sources of information. You know they don’t have any motivation not to tell you the truth.
Testimonials provide the level of credibility but on a much larger scale. If real people use your services and are so happy with them that they’re open to being a testimonial, that matters to your audience.
And not only do testimonials help bolster your company’s image, but these patient stories can be used for content ideas, either in custom communications or other parts of your marketing strategy.
But before you can start using testimonials, you actually need to get some testimonials. That by itself can be quite the task. Once that’s done, you also need to figure out HOW to use said stories.
Here are some tips to capture testimonials and maximize their potential:
- Use existing marketing to solicit testimonials and stories. Does your organization have an email newsletter, magazine or other regular external communications? Put out feelers for potential testimonials in these materials. Invite people to “share their story” and give them an easy way to do so.
- Set up Google Alerts to monitor your brand. Chances are that people are talking about your company, and you don’t even know about it. Google Alerts sends you emails whenever your organization is mentioned in a blog or other media outlet. That way, you can see what people are saying. If it’s bad, you can address it. And if it’s good, you can leverage that into your content marketing.
- Keep time in mind. As you receive testimonials, organize them in a way that makes sense to your marketing needs. Let’s say the maternity ward at your hospital is expanding in a few months. Keep any relevant testimonials on the back burner and time them to maximize their impact.
- Reuse and recycle. Don’t just use a testimonial once and then throw it away. Look at your overall marketing plan and see where you can get more mileage out of it. Maybe a testimonial you placed in an email newsletter could also go on your organization’s homepage. Or vice versa: a website testimonial could be the centerpiece for a direct mail campaign.
Need help leveraging testimonials to build brand trust? Contact Wax Custom Communications at 305-350-5700 or visit dev.waxcom.com today.