In IT marketing, testimonials can be a great selling point for your business. In this article, you'll learn how to use testimonials to your fullest advantage.

Testimonials Give You Credibility

If you want to have believable, credible testimonials, they have to be real: fully attributed with first name, last name, job title, company name, and at the absolute minimum, a city and state. It shows your prospective clients that you mean business-you're not messing around and these testimonies are real.

People are a lot more apt to believe your other clients than they are to believe the claims that you make. People believe third parties who don't have a vested interest in this much more than they're going to believe your own IT marketing and sales copy.

What Testimonials Should Include

You want strong benefits-focused testimonials written on your clients' letterhead discussing how your company has helped them over the years. You want specific examples that talk about the return on investment, how reliable and dependable your company has been, what kind of response time you generally show, that you'll always be there for emergencies, that you understand their business needs, and that you work within their budget and time constraints.

IT Marketing: Getting Testimonials

How do you get your clients to do this?

o Interview them and guide them with certain questions in whatever direction you want to take them.

o Draft suggested testimonials and e-mail it to them. You can ask them to review it, edit it, and approve it. And have your clients put it on their letterhead and sign off on it.

o Put together five or six suggested bullet points for them to address in their testimonial (like a survey).

o Take clients out to lunch or breakfast and interview them. Jot down some notes and go back to your office, type it up, email it to them and ask them if they could just review whether it accurately reflects your conversation. If they feel it does, ask them to put that on their letterhead and sign it so you can put it in your file and use it for marketing purposes as a testimonial.

Make it easy for them and they'll likely give you the IT marketing testimonials you need.

The Bottom Line on IT Marketing

Getting testimonials from your current clients can help greatly with your IT marketing. Make it easy for your clients to provide you with the testimonials you need to help your prospects gain trust in you.

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