How would you like celebrities to endorse your product?
Perhaps that sounds crazy. Well, here's the info...
But before anything else - let me stress that when I say "celebrities", I'm not talking about Tiger Woods or Tom Cruise!
Who I'm talking about is celebrities in YOUR market. People who
are very highly thought of and well known in the market you're selling
to. People who your target market look up to.
Take this real life example:
An online publisher named Alex was just about to launch an information product revealing psychological sales tactics.
However, even though his product was of the very highest quality, Alex
was looking for something "extra" that would increase sales of the
product even more.
What Alex wanted to achieve is to boost *credibility* in the sales
message presenting the product. So visitors to his site would
actually believe what they read, and therefore be a lot more likely to
buy.
Now, since the product Alex was selling was revealing sales and
marketing tactics, it would of course be purchased by people interested
in selling more online.
So who better to give Alex a testimonial than a world famous marketing expert?...
Alex managed to get a testimonial from none other than Joe Sugarman -
hugely successful direct marketer and famous for his BluBlocker sun
glasses infomercials.
So - how do YOU go about boosting your own sales with testimonials from celebrities?
Well, let me firstly stress that unless you already have a relationship
with the person (you know each other), there's a strong chance they
won't reply to you. They may, or they may not. So be
prepared for that.
Sending them an email is quick, but I get 200+ emails a day at the
moment (spam included), and that's on the low end compared to the
number of emails some people I know get.
So email may work if you're looking for a testimonial from a celebrity in your market, but don't hold your breath.
How about a phone call? It's worth a chance, but then again the
person you're trying to reach may have a secretary, and what are your
chances of getting past them with a testimonial request?
Or of course you could always send them a good ole fashioned "snail
mail" letter, preferably including a complimentary copy of your product.
Will this work? Well, it will definitely help get their
attention. You may want to contact them via email initially
asking them for their postal address so you can send them a review copy
of the product.
By doing that initially you're sure to get the right address, and it
helps put a mental note in the person's mind that they're going to
receive a package from you soon.
Or here's an almost fool proof way: why not buy time from them?
Especially if they offer consulting already. It doesn't guarantee
they'll offer a testimonial, but if your product's great, chances are
they will.
So let's say you've got the product in their hands, and they like it. Here's the last step:
Make it as easy as possible for them. The people you contact are very busy, since that's how they got to where they are.
So what you need to do is write the testimonial for them. And
once you've done that, send it over saying "I've included a potential
testimonial outline for you. If you would be happy to offer a
testimonial for the product, please feel free to change this draft
testimonial as you would like to."
Now I can't guarantee you'll get testimonials every time you try,
especially if you're not well known in the market or don't have a
relationship with the person already. But if you don't try,
you'll never know. And just one or two celebrity testimonials can
make a real positive impact on your sales for the long term.
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Louis Allport is the creator of over thirty (and counting) unique and
high quality information products selling very successfully
online. Louis is directly involved with every part of the product
creation and marketing process including finding the market, creating
the content, building the marketing process and materials, as well as
developing consistent and qualified traffic streams. One of
Louis' recent products reveals a proven four-step formula that can make
creating best-selling online products a lot more predictable:
http://www.createoffers.com/new/
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