Promoting Your Product - Using Proof of Performance to Sell Online
Think about it in political or corporate terms. When a politician or corporate executive extol their own virtues and beliefs do you instantly believe what they say? Oftentimes not, not only because it's them bragging about themselves but also because it has been proven time and again that these people are often untrustworthy. Because of these issues other avenues of promoting your product become necessary when selling something online.
Proof of performance is precisely what you are looking for. Proof of performance is more than just customer testimonials, it is any virtuous proclamation of your product from an outside source. There are several versions of this concept that you can take advantage of on your website.
Customer Testimonials
Customer testimonials are the tried and true method of promoting your product. Serious and true statements from customers who use your product or service can provide miles of promotion for your product. Unsolicited testimony regarding your product may be hard to come by but you should ensure that you take complete advantage of every one that you get. Posting testimonials or using them in your sales copy should be standard practice. It provides the sort of promotion you are looking for without seeming like a car salesman.
Case Studies and Consumer Reports
If your product is included in a product line case study or covered in a consumer report you should use that to your advantage. You want to take any client or consumer quotes and reproduce them (if legally able to do so) to help drive your sales. Consumers like to read reviews from other consumers not from someone who is paid to sell specifically what they are promoting. They want to hear from someone who has tried and approved of what they are looking to purchase.
The keys to using this type of promotion is to ensure that it is true. You don't want to get caught up in providing false testimonials or reports as this will ruin your credibility faster than anything else. Each of your testimonials or case studies should be very specific and on point for what fact you are trying to drive home. Your customers quotes should be in regard to specific aspects of your product that you are pushing on that web page. General quotes can be used as general advertising but to get the full value from this type of advertising you want to get as many focused quotes as you can.
Published by Jason Hargreaves
Jason runs several websites including www.stretchyourdollar.net, a website devoted to saving money for the huddled masses. He spends the majority of his time writing and managing various websites. View profile