How To Ask For A Testimonial

One thing that I always try and mention to people trying to market their business is to use testimonials. If you have any kind of marketing materials that you either hand out or email to customers it is always a great idea to include testimonials.

If you have not gathered any testimonials from any of your current customers then here are a few ways that you may want to try to ask for them.

You can go about asking for a testimonial in an email. Make a list of some of the people who you would like to ask for a testimonial and just send them an email. In the email you can start off by saying how great it has been serving them and that you were wondering if you could ask them for a testimonial to use in your marketing materials.

People, sometimes, are not sure where to start when they are asked for a testimonial so I would also include a few questions that you may want them to answer. Some examples you may want o use are: can you list a time when our services benefited you, what has your experience been using our company and what would you say to someone thinking about using our services. Think about some of the questions potential customers may have about using your services and put those in the email for your current customers to answer.

If you have customers visiting you rather than you going to the customers a great time to ask them for a testimonial is right after you have performed a service for them. When they are getting ready to leave simply hand them a card that they can fill out and ask them to fill it in before they leave. You can leave the card blank for them or you can have some questions pre-printed on the cards for them to answer.

Another great thing you can do is reward your customers for taking the time to help you out by giving a testimonial. It is up to you how you would like to reward them. You can offer a coupon, a special gift, or something else that can benefit them. The main thing is that you want to make sure your customer knows that you are thankful for them taking the time to give you a testimonial.

Once you have some testimonials from your current customers start putting them on flyers, on postcards, in emails and your website.

Minuteman Press Marietta is located at 646 Roswell St. Marietta, GA, 30060. If you have any questions or would like a quote for any of our services such as business cards, envelopes, or office forms please feel free to give us a call at 678-594-7900 or email us at customersupport@minutemanpress.com

How Direct Mail Can Help Grow Your Business.

Direct mail is better than ever! Why?

Five years ago you would go to your mailbox, open it up and there would be so many marketing pieces that they would almost spill out of your mailbox. You would take the entire stack and basically just dump it into the trash without looking at a single piece of mail. No one wins in this scenario. Fast forward to today. Now you go to your mailbox and there is hardly any direct mail in it. This is a great thing for you if you are thinking about using direct mail to market your business. Now everyone takes a second to examine every piece of mail that is in his or her mailbox. People no longer grab their pile of mail and just dump it into the trash. Since they receive fewer pieces of mail in general people go through and read almost everything in their mailbox before deciding what to do with it.

Use this to your advantage by having your company’s direct mail piece grab the viewer’s attention. If you are sending a postcard use an eye-catching image, have testimonials or use the postcard to tell a short story. If you really want to increase the odds of your direct mail piece turning a prospective customer into an actual customer try and include all 3 of those elements. On one side have an eye-catching image and then on the other have a headline and a short story that grabs the reader’s attention and lets them know why they should use you. Include quotes from current customers that can help with any objections or concerns that these potential customers may have.

One of the most important things that your direct mail piece should have, that most forget, is a reason to respond quickly. If you are offering a discount via your direct mail campaign be sure to include a deadline of when the offer ends. If you are promoting a new service offer a free gift if they respond by a certain date. You want to make sure they have a reason to respond and a reason to respond NOW.

How Email Marketing Can Help Grow Your Business Part 2

Now that you have tested out some subject lines for your email it’s time to figure out what the body of the email should be.

The email itself can contain anything from how you helped a customer with a certain situation, a sale or offer, or use it to promote a product or service. If you are promoting a product or service include some examples of how it can help the people you are emailing. Jeffery Gitomer says it best “People don’t like to be sold, but they love to buy”. Make sure you talk about how whatever it is that you are promoting can HELP them. If your product can help them free up their time talk about the things they will now be able to do with all the time you saved them. If you are saving them money let them know some things that they can now buy with the extra money they will now have.

Also, don’t ever underestimate the power of a story. You can turn anything into a story. If you are not the best storyteller them you may want to look into hiring a copywriting to help you. Stories are great because they allow people to feel like they are being informed about something rather than trying to be sold. Again, remember that the email is about how you can help the customer, not how the customer can help you. If you have some examples of actual customers that you can use to better describe how something can help potential customers then please include it in the email.

Having all of these things can help your chances of, not only, having your email be opened but also read and used to purchase something from you. Good luck and happy story telling!

How Email Marketing Can Help Grow Your Business

Email is great. It’s simple to use, easy to hit a large customer base, and it can be very affordable. In fact, for most people, sending out emails to customers is free. This can create a problem though. Email is so cost effective to use, most people now a days are bombarded with emails. Because of this most emails are over looked, deleted or just simply thought of as spam. How can you beat the clutter and come out on top?

There are a several things that you can do to help make sure that the emails you are sending out get opened and read. The first is to make sure that the name under the sender box is the name that you would like your customers to see. If you are using a program like Mailchimp or Constant Contact to send emails out they should offer you the option to change what name shows up in the sender box. Make sure it is something that your customers will recognize so they know not to avoid it.

Second, you want to make sure that you have an intriguing subject line. Some great ideas are to have a sentence that is not finished such as “I really shouldn’t say this but…..” or include their name in the subject line. You want to pique the interest of your customer enough so that they open the email and want to read what the email is about. The programs for email marketing listed above will also be able to give you some statistics like the open rate for your email. You can use this to test out subject lines and find out which ones were the most effective for you to use.

The email itself can contain anything from………..to be continued.

Different Kinds Of Leave Behind Material

Leave behind materials can come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. They can be something small like a business card or can be large and easy to find like a pocket folder or booklet. In fact they don’t even have to be paper. Leave behind materials can be pens, cups, bags or magnets. These are all examples of things that you can leave behind for customers. It’s just a matter of trying to figure out what is the best option for you to use.

If you are just interested in brand awareness and are mainly interested in just getting your name and phone number in front of people then pens, cups and magnets may be the best option for you. The great thing about these items is that most people hardly ever discard them. To give you an example, there is a magnet on my fridge from an insurance agent that I have never used that has a calendar on it for the year 2011. Why do I still have this magnet? Because I needed a magnet to hang things on my fridge and this agent provided me with this. It doesn’t matter that I have never used them, but their name and face is now on my fridge at all times.

If you are trying to promote a special that you have going on or a new product then a great option for you to use would be flyers, postcards and brochures. These products are great because they allow you to place descriptions and pictures in them. You can give a little more detail about a product or service, talk a little about your company and what you stand for or use it to promote a sale that you are currently offering. If there was something you wish you could say to all of your customers but don’t have the time or availability to do so then this is a great way to do that. In fact one of the best uses of leave behind materials is to just say thank you for using us.

For something that requires more detail explaining or something that may be a large investment for someone then we would recommend a booklet or a pocket folder with inserts inside. This way there is no limit, space wise, to the text and images that you would like to use in your leave behind materials. This also allows the customer to have something to look over as many times as they want. You also know exactly what they are seeing and at what quality they are seeing it at. Things like bad computer monitors won’t stop your customers from seeing your message the way you want them to.

Again, don’t let lifetime customers turn into one-time customers simply by having them be uniformed about all that you can provide for them.

What Makes A Good Leave Behind Item?

Last week I talked about how you can use leave behind items to help build and grow your business. Now lets look at what leave behind materials should contain.

Leave behind material can have a number of different uses but some of the top ones that you can use them for are promoting a new service, promoting a sale or special, or driving customers to your digital avenues.

If you are using leave behind materials to promote a new service make sure it offers a description of what the product or service is. People often forgot that just because you know something doesn’t mean everyone else does as well. Offer a general overview of what the service is and make sure that you say how this product or service can benefit a person or company. Even if it is not a physical product that you are trying to promote try and have some kind of picture used. Again, if you can’t show a picture of a physical product then have a picture of someone relaxing on a beach and say that now they are finally stress free because of your product. Don’t be afraid to have fun with all the ideas you can use.

When trying to promote a special offer with leave behind materials try and make them unique so that you know the leave behind material is the reason they are using you again. You can do this a number of ways. You can have the leave behind material contain a unique email address or 1-800 number so when they write or call you know if was due to what you left behind. Another great thing to do is have your leave behind material contain a special offer. This can be anything from discounts off of products or services, buy one get one, or a free gift.

Most companies these days are trying to build their web presence. Leave behind materials are a great way to do this. You can leave behind a flyer or postcard that directs them to your facebook, twitter or blog page and let them know if they like or follow you they will receive a special gift or offer. You can have the item contain a link to a website such as google or kudzu where they can write a review for you.

How Leave Behind Materials Can Help Grow Your Business.

With email being so popular and affordable these days I see companies forgetting the value of physically placing something in the hands of their customers. People enjoy being able to actually see and feel something that’s right in front of them rather than something they can only see on a computer screen.

One of the best times to place information in your customers hands is right after you have performed a service for them. Chances are your company offers more products and services than what someone purchased the first time they have used you. What better time and way to let them know about the other services you can provide them with than by placing a flyer, postcard, brochure or booklet in their hands as soon as they have purchased something from you? These items give your customer the chance to better see and understand the other ways that you can help them. You can use pictures, testimonials and product descriptions in these items to let people know you have so much more to offer.

These items are great even in the digital world that we live in today. You can use these leave behind materials to direct people to your website or encourage them to follow you on facebook and twitter.

Don’t let lifetime customers turn into one-time customers simply by having them be uniformed about all that you can provide for them.

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Things that can help grow your business