Using Customer Stories to Sell

Testimonial marketing is a powerful tool for any business or entrepreneur. It is the most effective way to build credibility in the eyes of your prospective customer. There are two principal applications of this concept that every business should utilize:

1. Geographic target market
2. Customer category target market

Suppose ABC Real Estate Team has helped many people with their first home purchase. A good strategy for the ABC Team would be to target renters and recent college graduates in their market with a mailing telling them success stories from first-time home buyers who used their services.

They could include pictures of their clients, lists of the services provided them, and direct testimonials from those clients. The ABC Team can provide compelling evidence that they know how to handle the needs of first-time home buyers, so they should use it. This is customer category marketing. One first-time home buyer leads to another.

Now let’s also assume that ABC Real Estate Team has a number of loyal clients from the same neighborhood. Wouldn’t it make sense for ABC to contact the other residents in that neighborhood and show them what great work ABC done for their former neighbors? Often, prospective clients can best judge you by the customers you already have.

This doesn’t mean that telling a prospect that you have 200 or however many clients and that you do over a million dollars in business every year will be effective. Simple facts and figures will be forgotten quickly. What you need to do is give specifics. Tell your prospect the true success stories of your business. More importantly, tell them the true success stories of your clients.

So if ABC Real Estate Team sends mailers to their geographic target market detailing how they’ve helped their clients sell their homes 20 days faster than the competition, and they send mailers to all the residents of the neighborhood ABC specializes in, they should see some high-quality leads generated.

By utilizing testimonial marketing and specific stories of client success, ABC shows a real value in their service. And that’s what will bring in the new clients. Use this strategy in your marketing efforts and watch the business come in!

Gina