Blog Testimonials And Success Stories

I like to quote the wise man who noted that everybody’s favorite radio station is WIIFM (What’s in it for me?).  When online searchers arrive at your blog, you know they got there because they were looking for information about something you sell, something you do, or something you know a lot about. If the information those searchers find in your blog matches what they are looking for, their perception is they’ve “tuned in” to the right station!

Of course, your goal is to convert those searchers into “shoppers” who move the process forward by clicking onto your website, where you hope to convert them into customers of your business or clients of your professional practice. The blog which begins the process, though, needs to be about them, not about you, as I stressed in Blogging’s What’s-In-It-For-Them Rule.

In that earlier blog, I promised to get back to testimonials and success stories, and how those fit into your blogging-for-business strategy.  Your website can include customer testimonials to boost credibility. Webcopyplus.com explains that testimonials help your business in two ways. Customer success stories and client testimonials, needless to say, boost your credibility with new prospects, helping them decide to do business with you. But, as webcopyplus.com explains, website testimonials “also foster commitment from those providing the testimonials.”

Robert Cialdini, author of the social psychology book Influence: Science and Practice , explains why that happens. “…when people take a stand that is visible to others, there arises a drive to maintain that stand in order to look like a consistent person.”

To make maximum use of the two-way link you’ve created between your website and your blog, you can build a blog post or two around a customer success story. Say you’re a realtor, and today you’re blogging about how important “curb appeal” can be when you’re marketing a client’s home to potential buyers. To illustrate that point in your blog (while earning “Brownie points” with the search engines, to boot), you can briefly allude in your blog to Sam and Susie.  These successful sellers improved the curb appeal of their residence by planting colorful flowers and painting their front door an attractive red. As a final touch for your blog, you link back to the full version of Sam and Susie’s testimonial and success story which are already part of your website.

In this way, your clients’ testimonials and success stories can be turned into a success story for your blog! Keep up that back-and-forth linking in your blogging , and before you know it, your blog-website combination strategy will turn into one big marketing success story for your business! And, just as in the Hokey Pokey, folks, “that’s what it’s all about.”