THE POWER OF THIRD PARTY ENDORSEMENT

One of the most important, most effective ways of raising awareness of your business is through word of mouth. This is because people will trust a friend when he or she tells them that they have had a good experience with a product or a service, much more than if an TV advertisement blares it out at them.

Third party endorsement is one of the many factors that a good public relations programme will focus on.

There are two simple steps to encouraging this kind of communication.

1) Make sure you start with a product that is good quality, is different to other products in the marketplace and that you have the capacity to keep up with any demand you engender. You can talk about your business all you want, but if you don't fulfil the promises that you make to your customers, they will not be making a return visit. Also remember that word of mouth works both ways. Negative word of mouth can spread just as quickly as the positive kind. Ensure that your customer service is at the highest level and that if there are any complaints they are dealt with calmly and deferentially (if you screw up once, say sorry and do your utmost to remedy the situtation, most customers will forgive you. Do it more than once and you probably won't be so lucky!)

2) Tell people about it- communicate with journalists that you know are interested in your field of expertise, talk to your customers and past customers, make sure that all your friends and family (and their friends and family!) know what you are doing and are aware of any successes you have.

If you have happy clients already, ask if you can use them as testimonials to put on your website or send out to media (always with an appropriate, newsworthy story- testimonials won't stand up on their own)

Finally, don't be afraid to ask for referrals. This can range from including a note in your email signature to simply asking a current client whether they know of anyone else that might be interested in your services (those last two pieces of advice were given to me by well known keynote speaker and trainer of referral systems, Bill James)