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Using Customer Quotes to Improve Your Marketing
Show me, don't tell me. You've read that here before. Good marketing material doesn't
just make assertions about your products or services, it finds ways to demonstrate the
credibility of your message.
One way to do that is to use quotes from your customers or clients. Quotes can be
used effectively in most types of marketing material, from websites to social media.
Include them on web page sidebars or in email marketing. Use them on sell
sheets/one-pagers. Be cautious about using them in brochures, however. You'll have
the brochure around for two or three years, and business relationships can change in
that time.
Keep it Short
A quote is not a testimonial. Too often, a testimonial is a seven-line paragraph (or
even a full-page letter!) with more about the writer's organization than about the
company the testimonial is for. If you're not writing a grant application, don't use
wordy testimonials.
Quotes should be short, so the point (what you did for the person being quoted)
doesn't get lost.
Include Results
The best kinds of quotes support your message by including results you achieved for
the person quoted (or their organization). Nothing "shows" your message like a
reference to the savings your product helped an organization achieve, or the beauty of
a renovation you did, or how sales went up when the website you created went live.
Provide Guidance
People are usually delighted to give quotes, particularly when you make it easy for
them. To get the best results, provide some guidance. Tell them you want one or two
sentences (you'll get three, anyway). If you or your product helped them achieve
something significant, ask them to mention it in the quote.
If you have a pretty good idea of what someone would want to say, but doubt that
they will fit in the time to write it down, give them your words. Draft the quote and
ask their permission to use it. Usually the people quoted are very glad that you saved
them the effort.
You can edit for length and smooth out rough spots, as long as the person quoted
reviews and approves the end result.
Name Names
If you are a B2B business, you should always include the name, title and company of
the person being quoted (with their permission, of course!). There are skeptics who
assume all quotes are fabricated from whole cloth. The more specifics you can provide,
the more credible the quote is.
When your quotes comes from consumers, do what's appropriate to your product or
services. Many product customers are quite happy having their name, city and state
used. Depending on the product, it may be appropriate to indicate the kind of work
they do.
Where customer/client privacy is a sensitive issue, you may use initials or first name
and last initial. In this case, you may not want to polish the quote very much. Let the
authenticity of the "speaker's" language add to the credibility of the quote.