Jill Kurtz, Owner,Kurtz Digital Strategy

Testimonials and reviews are a great way to showcase your great work. They are more powerful than anything you say about yourself because they come from clients. Most people say they rely on recommendations from people they know to make purchasing decisions, so your testimonials and reviews have tremendous marketing value.

Ask for Reviews

Have a plan to ask for reviews from every customer. Good reviews are great for your marketing. All reviews help you to be better at what you do.

No matter when you ask, provide clients with easy step-by-step instructions for providing a review. Be clear about where the review may be used.

Consider these approaches:

• Ask for a review when you issue the final invoice.

• Once a week/month/quarter follow-up with a past client to check in and ask for a review.

• Use your email marketing program to maintain a list of clients who have not done reviews and send periodic reminders.

Make Reviews Visible

Once you have reviews, make them visible in several places.On your website:A testimonials page is good, but it is even better to feed reviews into every page. Better yet, provide reviews that are relevant to the particular service covered on the page.

Email signature: Link to your reviews in your email signature.

Marketing collateral: Tout your average rating in your offline and online marketing.

Social media: Make note of new reviews on your social media. Thank the person providing the review and highlight a feature of the project or service provided. Use a related image along with the review