Turning Customer Praise Into Great Sales & Marketing Material

Here's a quick question for you: When a customer sends you a glowing piece of feedback, do you accept the compliment and let it make your day… or turn it into a valuable marketing piece that can help you improve your bottom line again and attract new customers?

The smart answer, of course, is both. However, the point I'm trying to make is that too many business owners let high praise from customers get away when they could get so much more mileage from it. Here are just a few ways to take a positive testimonial and turn it into something even more valuable:

Post the quote on your website.

You'll want to get your customer’s permission, of course, but these references can help your credibility with new potential buyers. Candid reviews are honest and often times touch on real challenges that your customers and prospects face every day.

Turn the experience into a case study.

If you solve a problem for your customer that other customers might have, show exactly how you did it and how satisfied they were with the result. If they’re willing, capture their testimonial on video. According to Visual.ly, viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to only 10% when they read it in text. Videos are more often shared than other types of content.

Profile the customer & create buyer personas.

In most businesses, your very best customers will tend to look alike. That is, they'll have a lot in common in terms of age, income, digital habits, education, etc. Creating buyer personas is an essential step. Detailed buyer personas help you create the right type of content for the right audience. So, if you have a very happy buyer, learn what you can about them so you can find others who will love your products, too.

Encourage third-party reviews.

If the customer was particularly impressed, see if they might be willing to leave a review somewhere else (like on Google or Yelp) where it might be more valuable than it would be on your own website. Not only do people read reviews, they believe & trust them.

Getting the most from positive customer feedback is largely about setting good habits. Make a point of getting the most mileage from every happy quote you receive from now on.