Read closely. Fake testimonials are legal. False testimonials are illegal.

Did you know there are professional testimonial writers? They take the company’s or product’s most desirable attributes and expertly weave them into a lovely story about how Company XYZ’s product changed their (er, someone’s) life. Chances are the testimonial writer has never used the product or service. Just take a peek on any freelance writing job board and you will see job postings for testimonial and review writers for all types of online businesses. Is this the modern day shill?

In the court cases I found on the FTC site (in PDFs so large you would be mad if I linked you to them) the end decision regarding the legality of a fake testimonial was based on whether or not the fake testimonial accurately depicted the experience of the average customer. That is, they basically asked if the content of the testimonial was false.

Of course this practice is controversial. Is it ethical? Is it even legal? Are there varying degrees of its rightness, or is that just justifying lying to the public?

What are testimonials for, anyway?

Probably one of the oldest sales tools in the book, testimonials are supposed to be first hand accounts of fellow customers that tried the product or service and can vouch for its quality and value.

The ethics of writing fake testimonials or reviews are hazy. Here is a look at both sides of the issue.

For: Why using fake testimonials is OKAY

Of course, a business that uses fake testimonials is using them as marketing content. Fake testimonials are used in different ways. Here are some key points regarding the justification of fake testimonials:

• By editing or supplementing a testimonial, you are making it easier to read.
• You are combining a sampling of common customer comments, succinctly writing the testimonial in a tight quote. Nothing wrong with creatively editing comments, right?
• You are writing a testimonial, and then running it by the customer to save the customer time.
• The reality is, businesses do not publish the bad feedback. So using real positive comments to use as testimonials in advertising is not a realistic look at the overall business anyway.
• Many businesses use fake testimonials as a mean to an end. Using fake personal recommendations when a business is first starting out will hopefully draw in more clients that will then provide real comments, thus eliminating the need for fake testimonials.
• Using testimonials is helpful to a site’s conversion rate. They are confidence builders.

Against: Why using fake testimonials is WRONG

Here are a few alternative viewpoints about why using false testimonials is unethical.

• Potential customers like to see that other people just like them enjoyed a product they are considering purchasing. The problem is that there are so many fakes out there that it takes away from the real ones.
• If your product or service is not good, you cannot fake it for long without the word getting out on the street.
• People are smart. Because there is so much garbage, unless you can prove a reputable speaker is providing the comment, it is likely that the comment will be ignored.
• Many people see fake testimonials as false advertising. If you are found out, your business might be deemed untrustworthy.
• Using made up customer recommendations carries across mediums. We all know about fake testimonials on TV infomercials. Many of us carry that same disdain for fake testimonials into cyberspace.

Tips for successfully using testimonials to sell

1. If you can, give the person’s name and business contact information when publishing a testimonial. Many business owners claim that when they do this, the customer is often contacted by potential customers prior to making a purchase.
2. Don’t be afraid to ask your existing customers for testimonials you can use. You will be surprised to find that your satisfied customers can provide more diversely written testimonials than you could! You can use them to help gain buyer confidence without feeling like you are being less than truthful.
3. Always ask for permission from your customers when soliciting real testimonial comments.
4. The best value in a testimonial comes from one with credibility, from someone with authority and some type of expertise in the industry. Your credibility and conversion rates will most likely go through the roof.
5. Buyers tend to prefer the “product review”, like that used on Amazon and other huge e-commerce sites. There is a feeling of being uncensored, which people want to read over the formulated, staged comments.
6. If you feel strongly against using fake testimonials, consider having a Marketing Code of Ethics within your site that details your commitment to only providing factual information through your marketing efforts.

The Saga Continues…

In conclusion, I’m forgainst it.

There is little-to-no-point to sum this one up. This is one of those debates where the truth will not set you free because you’re going to make up that truth anyway and then you’ll probably write a little blurb from little “Johnny Doe of Wichita” saying how your point of view set him free.

If you want to read on…An ongoing dialogue on this topic is going on right now at Grow Your Own Writing Business. Lillie Ammann’s blog, “A Writer’s Words, An Editor’s Eye” has a lively discussion regarding writing ethics.

Additionally, some interesting academic text on business ethics for the online world.

What is Relationship Marketing?

Relationship marketing is the idea of creating and nurturing a relationship with your customers that keep them coming back to you again and again. By providing a great product and excellent customer service and by getting to know your customers and allowing them to know you, customers will be loyal to you and keep coming back for more - in theory and, actually, in practice.

Return Customers = Less Work, More Money

Laura Lake, Marketing Guide on About.com, cites the following statistics in her article entitled, “Customer Relationships are Key to Your Marketing Strategy.” For starters, return customers typically spend 1/3 more than new ones. Amazingly, you will also get 107% more referrals from returning customers than from people that have not done business with you in the past. And finally, it costs at least 6 times more to catch new customers than to generate repeat sales with an existing customer.

When thinking about the overall business development and marketing strategy of your company, focus first on the relationship you have with existing customers. When you have a large percentage of repeat customers, you will be more attractive to new customers, which will soon become part of your customer base. This could spark a debate that includes, at some point, references to chickens and eggs but the point is that if you are spending most of your time and money caring for your existing customers, it will help your business grow in other aspects as well.

There are many ways to work the customer-business relationship to ensure that you customer is happy. Here are five points to consider when thinking about how you can best utilize relationship marketing in your business.

Customer Relationship Tip #1: Provide Top-Notch Customer Service

The main reason why customers do not come back to reuse your business is because they feel your business does not care. And when they leave your business, they typically go to your competitor that has a good offer, and wants their business. Show your customers that you care by effectively handling complaints, anticipating their needs and wants, and providing quick and effective service.

Customer RelationshipTip #2: Treat Your Customers as if You Want a Referral. Then, Ask for a Referral.

If you goof, do your best to resolve customer complaints because upset people say bad things about you. When everyone is happy, referrals are easy to get.

Customer RelationshipTip #3: Shower the People You Love With Love

When you get comfortable with your customers they may begin feel under-valued. Stay on your toes. Generously offer new products and services and be damn appreciative of every second they give to you. They have options of where to buy stuff - no matter how protected you think your niche is.

Customer Relationship Tip #4: Listen, Learn, Give

Do not assume that you know what they want – ask them with surveys and questionnaires. Then move through your business as a customer to see what it is like and where you would make improvements. You could even conduct focus groups of a random sampling of customers, using an unbiased facilitator to gather information. Consider hiring “ghost customers” who will go through your sales process as a mock customer and give feedback on everything from how friendly and knowledgeable your salespeople are to the delivery experience and product quality.

Customer Relationship Tip #5: Use Your Company Business Blog to Communicate

Use your company’s business blog to communicate with customers until they are ready to make a purchase. It is often said that customers will hear a message at least seven times before taking action and making a purchase. By utilizing a business blog, you can easily, and cost-effectively, create a two-way communication with your existing and new customer pool. Wayne Hurlbert’s article on webpronews.com, called “Relationship Marketing: Business Blogs Are The Key” provides insight into how to optimize your blog for relationship management with your customers.

As you write your daily blog entries, your readers get to know you and your business on a more personal level. Your blog begins that all important relationship with your prospects and current customers. You have started a blogging conversation.

As they read about your daily business activities, your problem solving ideas, your business advice, and your various products, they begin to think of themselves as a part of the company.

In fact, they are!

Wanna Go Outside? The Dirty Part

Don’t run around shaking your customers’ hands with a fake smile. Customer relationship management is not something you can just try half-heartedly. It requires a dedicated effort from you and all (yes, ALL) of your employees. Your CRM goals also need to be aligned with the goals of your other marketing, sales, and operational efforts. Relationship marketing should not replace the never-ending need for new customers that will help your business grow. A comprehensive approach is the best way to make sure you are taking care of all of your existing, and potential, customers.

This is a fantastic short (and funny) video about common errors people make with Powerpoint. If you ever use Powerpoint for presentations, you should take a look at it.

Generating sales leads online is a process. I have written about closing tactics a few times before and should probably highlight it more often but I don’t want to kill the horse, so to speak.

This post is spurred (I am sticking with the horse metaphor) by a short series of articles from Geoffrey James at BNET about closing rules in which he discusses the process of selling and the various points at which a great salesperson “closes” another component of the sale.

Myth: Every sale has a single, all-important point where the deal closes. Truth: Some extremely simple sales processes have a defined close point, but complex sales processes (i.e. almost all B2B sales) have a series of points where the prospect makes a decision, even if it’s just the decision to let you pitch, rather than pitch you out. According to closing guru Linda Richardson all sales go through four phases, each with its own type of close:

1. Initial. The “close” is moving from a cold-call into the sale cycle.
2. Developmental. The “close” is gathering information to define a solution.
3. Culmination. The “close” is the asking for the next step or for the business.
4. Follow-up. The “close” is ensuring that the relationship goes forward.

Your job is to make certain that all those “closes” take place in a timely manner.

Geoffrey’s discussion is centered around the off line parts of a sale - once the sales lead had been generated - but getting the sales lead online has similar steps. There is not one point at which the lead is “closed.” A website needs to be designed with various “closes” in mind. Sites I design using the Lead Optimize process begin by looking at how people arrive at a particular site or page, how they are engaged in the content, and why they would make the decision to contact you for your service or product.

Removing Barriers

Going further, just like in off line sales, to generate leads you have to remove barriers. For instance, imagine you are on a site with an excellent offer and you are ready to fill out the contact form when your momentum is broken by the offensive length of the form. Or, even worse, let’s say it has a “clear form” button exactly where most sites put their “submit form” button. Will you fill it out again? It better be a good offer.

Generating sales leads online requires a smooth transition from one close to the next. With each close, you should be building positive momentum - drawing the customer further into your process and closer to working with you. Failure to close any part of the process will probably result in the loss of that sales lead. Know your process, know your customers, keep the momentum, and remove all the barriers. Let me know if I can help.

Online newsletters are a highly effective tools that businesses use to communicate with their customers about current news, resources, and other valuable information. They are excellent for promoting new products, selling new ideas, distributing information about changes, and for generating excellent sales leads from the targeted group of readers who signed up for the newsletter.

Ways to Promote Your Newsletter

How can you effectively promote your newsletter to get people to subscribe? Here are 11 newsletter promotion ideas to help you develop a wide readership for your newsletter.

1. First and foremost; write quality content on your site and/or blog and carry that quality into your newsletter. A newsletter should be useful and contain information that your reader will find valuable. Spend time writing good content, and you will have a better chance at maintaining longtime subscribers. Here is a great site that offers tips on how to write a killer newsletter. Brian Konradt of LousyWriter.com wrote an information-packed article called “How to Write a Better Business Newsletter.”
2. If your website offers a free e-book, manual or other type of freebie, use the download opportunity to offer visitors a chance to sign up for your free newsletter. If they are interested in the content of your giveaway, they will most likely be interested your newsletter too, since the material is probably similar.
3. Get the word out! People will not sign up for your newsletter if they do not know about it. Make the link to your newsletter – and the sign up – obvious throughout your site.
4. Add a link and sign up message to your email signature and business cards.
5. Market your newsletter by submitting it to eZine and newsletter directories. List it on as many directories as possible for maximum exposure.
6. Participate in forums and message boards. Use the signature box to promote your newsletter, by linking to your capture page. Every post you make will be drawing people into your newsletter sign-up.
7. Write content for other newsletters in exchange for a byline and link to your own. Do this with publications that your target market reads.
8. Ask for newsletter sign-ups. When you are out promoting your services or otherwise conducting business, tell people about your newsletter and its features, and ask them to subscribe.
9. Ask for referrals in your newsletter or marketing communications. Existing newsletter readers might know of someone who could benefit from the material published in your newsletter.
10. Swap ads with other newsletters. Look for publications with an audience similar to your own and ask the publisher if they are interested in swapping ads.
11. Write reviews and testimonials about other products and services. When you do this on most sites you are given the opportunity to include a link under your signature. Use the byline to advertise your newsletter.

Why Your Newsletter is Important

Newsletters are a fabulous way to…

• Create a buzz about your industry and business. People like newsletters because they read up on something of interest without having to make a financial commitment.
• Share relevant information about your business without making a hard sales pitch.
• Generate more, qualified, sales leads.
• Spark brand recognition.
• Introduce yourself and your staff to potential customers.

Rob Willmann has written a handy article about how to grow your subscriber list called “How to Create Viral Marketing Tools to Promote Your Newsletter”.

Conclusion

Your newsletter can be a low-cost instrument that you can use to generate more customer leads and sales. Businesses only reap the rewards of a newsletter when it is well-managed. By strategically planning the promotion of your newsletter, you will take advantage of this highly effective tool. There are many more newsletter promotion ideas out there so get creative and do some searching.

Have you considered using tutorial websites as a platform for marketing your business? You should. There are two main benefits. First, they are a great way to generate traffic to your site. Second, tutorials are a great free way to distribute your ideas and build your brand as an expert on your topic.

Writing tutorials is simple enough. You are already an expert on your topic so the amount of research you need to put into your article is minimal. Write a how-to article that pertains to a specific topic within your area of expertise. That is, instead of writing a general “How to Do Your Taxes” write a focused article about “How to Use Deductions to Save on Taxes.” Choose a respectable tutorial website and submit your article. Most tutorials sites have a submission and review process so make sure your articles are well-written and offer real value for the readers. While your article should not be too “salesy”, you should always include a reference and link to your business at the end of the article. That is the point of this, right? By taking advantage of the tutorial arena to market your business, you can build credibility and quickly develop some steady targeted traffic for free.

Here are 10 tutorial websites where you can post articles, blogs, or tutorials:

1. www.tutorialized.com This comprehensive site focuses on technological tutorials. Contribute to this site through the SUBMIT tab for an official tutorial or create something for the forum. Sign up to become a member and actively post, and then you can apply to become a moderator.
2. http://www.tutorialguide.net This site features a collection of tutorials in a wide variety of topics; everything from cooking to computer software. They claim to have over 40,000 visitors and 250,000 pages views each month. You can create and submit “how-to” tutorials links on any subject. There is no charge for submitting a link to a tutorial.
3. http://www.fstutorials.com Another teckkie site, you can submit here on content related to technology.
4. http://www.ehow.com A huge site filled with “How To” articles. Free to use, you can actually make money through their Writer Compensation Program by writing articles that are popular. Simply create a profile and move through their publishing process.
5. http://www.howtodothings.com Sign up to be a contributor, apply for the category of your choice, and once you are approved, you can write articles that are published on this site. All articles are in the “How To” format. To build your credibility you can create a detailed profile about yourself, which includes a bio and a professional photograph. It’s free to post, and they use Google AdSense to share revenues with contributors.
6. http://www.wikihow.com/Main-Page An information-filled tutorial site with a mission to develop the world’s biggest high-quality “How To” manual. They are looking for experts to write on topics that have not yet been covered on the site. Log in, create an account, and select “Create a Page”. There is no charge for posting articles.
7. http://beginnersguide.com A site that introduces readers to almost anything from e-commerce to insurance and beyond. You can post articles on this site, and actually get paid to do it, but you must qualify and be accepted by their editors to do so.
8. http://reviews.ebay.com The “Reviews & Guides” section of eBay allows users to post comments, ratings, or how-to guides on anything. The first 200 characters you write will appear to people that search the topic in eBay. You can add photographs or links to any other eBay page. Material can only be submitted by eBay members, but joining is free. Important to note: Links to web pages outside of eBay are not allowed in guides.
9. http://products.howstuffworks.com/buying-guides.htm This authoritarian site covers almost everything. You can “make a suggestion” through their comment/contact us page to ask someone to write about your topic, or you can request that someone contact you about writing for HowStuffWorks.
10. http://www.ezine.com A large newsletter/eZine directory in many genres, where you can publish. It is free to post here.

Try posting one article per week to a tutorial site and keep on eye on the amount of traffic you get from them. I still get daily traffic from articles I submitted months ago. Often the articles you submit can be articles you have already posted on your own blog.

Sales lead generation should be an ongoing process and vigilance is required to keep “the pipe” full. This is especially true for companies with long sales cycles where it is easy to forget that those sales during good times came from sales leads that were generated seven months before.

The Lead Optimize blog tends to focus on online sales lead generation but when working with clients and generating leads for my own businesses I always bring up the importance of generating sales leads off line as well. The list below covers 7 of the basics. Any of them might be a solution for your particular current or future needs.

7 Ways to Generate Sales Leads Off Line

Connect with your potential customers through various methods. Be proactive and consider these proven methods:

1. Direct mail: Mail is third largest form of advertising, only after TV and newspapers. Use a targeted mailing of letters or postcards to generate qualified leads. Alan Sharpe has written a comprehensive article on how to write powerful sales letters and brochures for direct mailing, called “Brochures that Generate Sales Leads (and How to Write Them).”

2. Telemarketing: Contact potential customers by phone to scout for leads. A recently-published report called “What’s Working in Lead Generation Today” by Mike Shultz of www.raintoday.com compiles the results of a survey conducted with over 700 professional services leaders. Click here for the complementary summary of data. “Is Cold Calling Really Dead?” by Karen E. Klein was published in BusinessWeek, and gives excerpts from an interview between Klein and Shultz, where he describes one of his most impressive findings - that sales leaders find cold calling to be #2, after referrals, as the most effective ways to generate quality leads. I personally have not found this to be true but it is an interesting read.

3. Radio, newspaper, print newsletters: Carefully watch how much you pour into this method of offline sales lead generation, because you will be hitting a lot of people that are not potential customers. Survey your clients before shelling out the bucks. What publications do they read? What radio stations to they listen to? Advertise in magazines, trade publications, newspapers, radio and the printed phone directories.
4. White papers, case studies analyst reports & product literature: Best for B2B, these generate quality sales leads by providing the reader with an information packed document that focuses not on selling your business, but providing a solution to the reader’s problems or needs. A well-composed white paper or case study won’t mention your business until at least half way through it. Michael Stelzner has written a great article on “How White Papers Can Turbo-Boost Your Lead-Generation Campaign.” This one works fantastically online as well, of course.
5. Public speaking on your topic/business: Use your expertise in your industry to conduct a free 45 minute seminar. By gathering the names and contact information of the attendees, you will have a highly qualified pool of leads. For example, if you are CPA, offer a session on “How to Stop the Financial Leaks in Your Business”. Offer tips and suggestions that business owners can implement through their bookkeeping. Avoid pushing too hard with a sales pitch, but consider offering a free incentive at the end of your session. They‘ll be interested when you follow up with a targeted mailing asking for their business, especially if it is personalized.
6. Publish articles: Magazine and periodical publishers are always looking for high quality free content relevant to their subject matter. Write articles about your area of expertise, and you will mark your place as an industry expert, which will draw potential sales to you and maybe even a speaking engagement.
7. Referrals: Referrals are the most effective way to get qualified sales leads. Ask for referrals from your clients, partners, and customers.

Total Lead Generation Strategy

To optimize your lead generation process, take a comprehensive approach. Include both online and off line leads. Depending on the business and industry, some enjoy more qualified lead generation off line. When talking about sales leads, quality is more important than quantity, so incorporate a mix of online and off line sales leads for the best chances of a complete lead bank.

Keep in mind that not everyone is online, and some businesses and customers prefer to make contact, and be contacted, in person. Think about all the other interactions and potential opportunities for contact during the rest of the day. This will never go away. This is why off line leads will always be important and will always need to be cultivated.

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