Offering testimonials can pay publicity dividends for years

Testimonials are one of the least-used yet most powerful publicity tools.

I was reminded of that just now while reviewing the Third Edition of Marcia Yudkin’s excellent book “6 Steps to Free Publicity,” one of my favorite publicity books of all time. She mentioned me twice in the book, first on Pages 77-78 where I offer several tips for creating publicity photos, and again on Pages 230-231 where I recommend that Publicity Hounds use testimonials.

Here are five tips for offering testimonials:

1. Comment on the success of your paid ads.

If you buy newspaper or magazine ads and you’re pleased with the results, let your advertising sales rep know and offer a testimonial on what results you have seen from the ad. You might mention, for example, how much additional traffic or sales the ad brought to your website. That almost guarantees that if the publication uses your testimonial, it will include your URL. Newspapers love these testimonials and will often use them as “filler ads” if an advertiser pulls an ad at the last minute.

2. Be specific.

The best testimonials explain the exact value of a product or service. Example: “Your handy calorie calculator saves me about 30 minutes each day trying to figure out how many calories I’ve consumed.”

3. Always offer a photo.

You want your photo to appear everywhere so always offer it along with your testimonial.

4. Comment on websites you love.

Other than sales, nothing pleases a website owner more than a flattering comment about how helpful someone found the site. Smart Publicity Hounds include testimonials throughout their entire site. If yours is one of them, your testimonial might live on forever.

5. Don’t forget about books.

Send testimonials to authors. If they publish another book, or another edition of the same book, they might use your blurb on the book jacket, or give you the galley proof to read and review. Also post reviews at Amazon.com. Randy Gilbert and Don Mitchell, who were my guest experts during a teleseminar on “How to Turn Amazon.com into a River of Gold,” recommend reviewing your competitors’ books. Why? Because you can promote your expertise and you’ll also get a link back to your own website. In the review, you can certainly mention the fact that you have written a similar book. People who are looking for all the resources they can find on a certain topic just might buy it. (Also see “Special Report #31: Sell More Products and Services by Getting and Giving Powerful Testimonials.”)

How about creating one testimonial right now and it sending it to someone? Don’t forget to send your photo.