Have you ever heard of the following phrase, “facts tell, stories sell?” Well this is certainly true when it comes down to marketing your products and services. While it’s important to identify what it is exactly your product or service does, if you want to make lots of sales, it’s just as important to include powerful testimonials in your sales process.

So what is a testimonial exactly? A testimonial is a story provided by a third party person or company saying good things about your product or service. For instance, if you have ever watched those infomercials for one of those exercise products, they always include a testimonial of someone showing their figure before and after using the product.

Why do testimonials work so well? They work because people tend to believe a 3rd party person more than they believe you. The reason why is because you have a financial incentive to tell me the product is good because if I buy it, you get paid. A 3rd party person has no financial incentive to say good things about the product. Therefore, the only reason why they would say good things about the product is if those good things were really true.

So how do you get testimonials for your products?

One of the best ways to get testimonials for your products is to provide a free copy of the product or service to some of your target prospects in exchange for a testimonial. While this might cost you in potential sales, this strategy will more than pay for itself for years to come in that it will allow you to launch the sales of your product with testimonials. This is a win-win for all parties involved. Your prospects get a great product for free and you get great testimonials that you can use for your marketing.

If you have a product that you have already made sales for in the past, one way that you can get testimonials is to contact some of your previous customers. Ask them what they liked best about your product and ask them if they would be wiling to give a testimonial. John Reese, the author of a home study course called Traffic Secrets (which is unfortunately no longer in print) implemented this strategy after he made some initial sales of his course. He sent an email to all of his customers asking them if they wouldn’t mind sharing a testimonial as to how this home study course helped them in their business.

As a result of this strategy, John Reese received HUNDREDS of testimonials about the quality of his home study course, as well as the positive results his students achieved as a result of applying what they learned from the course. He then turned around and displayed many of these testimonials of the sales letter of the web site he promoted the Traffic Secret course on. You can use this exact strategy regardless of what your product or service is.

By using testimonials in your marketing, you would be amazed when you see the results it gives you. Try it. Create one page with testimonials and one page without them and see which page converts more sales.

Interested in learning more about how to effectively market your business? You may be interested in my online business training program titled The Analyzed Marketing Business Area. You will have access to a wide assortment of high quality training materials to help make your business a success. Full support is included. Learn more by clicking the link below:

The Analyzed Marketing Business Area

In my previous blog post I talked about Article directories and how they can be an effective way to promote your website on offering. Today I want to help you optimize your articles in terms of effective resource box utilization. I trust you are aware of article directories by now; what they are, and the power that they provide you with both as traffic and profit building sources.

If you don’t know about them, here is a quick recap. They are essentially databases of articles, similar to what you can find in a newspaper, which can provide you with information on a very wide variety of products, services, businesses, events; they can even inform you on people themselves.

This post is mainly for those individuals who are looking to utilize or already use articles as a means for promotion and those individuals who are generating an interest for article promotion.

So what exactly is a resource box? Well, it must be important since I have created this entire article around specifically that so; what they are is what you usually find at the end of an article that you read online. Most article directories have them at the bottom of the article, but some have them above, some even allow for a specific page designated primarily to the author’s information. The resource box usually informs the reader who has written and/or submitted the article and usually includes a link leading back to the author’s/submitter’s website.

Many people who write articles don’t realize the power that the resource box actually provides them with. They simply put their name, a website link, and possibly some copyright information to protect them and then believe they are finished with the resource box addition. But I urge you not to allow yourself to make this same mistake as it can have drastic effects on the amount of traffic you drive to your website!! Drastic Effects!

If a user reads your article and enjoys what they have read, they will be inclined to further research you the author to find products and services that you offer and see if you have any further articles that interest them. The resource box acts as the perfect place to meet their needs, now let me explain to you how you can optimize your resource box to meet the needs of your potential customers.

1. Make sure you utilize the resource box in all of your articles otherwise your readers may not be able to know that you have written the article and would be discouraged to find out that they cannot follow up on the highly interesting article they have just read.
2. Ensure that the link you provide in your resource box is in relation to what the article is about. You don’t want a highly effective article to lead your potential customers to your site that has nothing related to the content of the article, this just does not make sense. Think about this, if you read some interesting article on a specific model of car and you follow the resource box link only to find some website promoting acne care you would immediately close the website. But if that link directed you to a website that talked more about the model of car and where you can purchase such an item, then you would remain longer at the website, and possibly in the future come back to purchase.
3. The resource box must be eye-catching just like the article is itself, in order to catch the attention and interest of the person reading your article. Just because the resource box is relatively small, you can still utilize effective keywords and content that readers are searching for to pull in the reader and lead them to your website. Are you aware of search engine optimization techniques such as keyword and content optimization? Don’t think that the resource box is an exception to this, use your techniques and create highly effective and eye catching resource boxes.
4. Be creative in your content wording to make the most out of the small space you have available to you in your resource box.
5. Do not mislead your readers. This is important. Make sure your resource box content remains relevant to the articles content. The last thing you want to do is lose the interest of the reader in the section that ultimately makes them a potential customer of yours as they visit your website. This can help build your credibility as an author and as an expert in the field.

Ultimately, what we have learned here is to utilize the full power that is the resource box. Sure, it is just a small aspect of article marketing, but it can be a very effective way to build awareness for your website and/or your products which can lead to ongoing profits from the customers you refer.

Creativity as it is in many other cases is the key to successful resource box utilization.

To Your Success!

Mark Garland
AnalyzedMarketing.com