Using customer testimonials in all of your marketing materials (sales letters, brochures, website, advertisements, etc.), is one of the most powerful marketing tools available.

The reason why testimonials are so important and valuable in marketing is that prospects are much more likely to believe a customer testimonial that praises your product or service then they are to believe slick sales text written by the company that is advertising.

Another reason why testimonials are such a powerful marketing and sales tools is that they are very similar to a referral. A testimonial is a person telling other people that they can trust your business and that you offer a quality product/service.

Now that you know how valuable customer testimonials are, you are probably wondering how you get testimonials from your customers. Here are four very easy yet highly effective strategies you can use to get customer testimonials immediately:

1. If you are a new business and you have not made any sales, let several of your friends try your product or service for free. If they honestly like it, ask them if they will write a testimonial that you can use in your marketing. This is very easy to do and should instantly get you several testimonials.

2. If you are an established b

usiness and you have made sales, call your customers and ask them what they like most about the product or service they purchased from you. As they tell you, make sure that you are writing down what they are saying. After they are finished praising your product/service, tell them, “wow, that was great! Can I use what you just said as a testimonial?” Almost always the customer will give you their permission.

3. Email your customers and say that you are developing new marketing materials and you would love to include a client testimonial from them. Then ask if they would be generous enough to help you by emailing you a brief testimonial. If you have a list of at least 100 customers, you should get at least a couple of good testimonials by doing this.

4. Mail your customers a thank you card for doing business with you. In the card say you would be very thankful if they would be generous enough to give you a testimonial by either emailing it to you, faxing it to you, or simply calling you on the phone.

By executing the above strategies, you should easily get 10+ strong customer testimonials. Then, make sure to take advantage of these testimonials and use them in ALL of your marketing. By doing this, you will instantly see an increase in response rate and sales from your marketing.