nsidla

Customer testimonials are quite possibly your most valuable resource in terms of what people see when they find your business. They could be reviews through Google, Yelp, or any of the like. A positive customer review (or better yet several or more) can make the difference between a new customer booking a job with you or turning them away to give their business elsewhere. The only problem with testimonials and reviews on these free websites is the fact that unless you know the person and can substantially validate that they posted the review, ANYONE could have written it. There are also many potential customers out that are well aware of this fact. You can't trust everything you read on the web and testimonials, even ones that appear completely legitimate on the surface CAN be illegitimate. This is why it is better if you post reviews that you yourself have reached out and attained on your website, and base them on your website rather than link them to the website of the review. In these reviews you should get the customer's full name, location, and even a date. These facts will help make them much more real and much more believable than a foreign linked testimonial. You could even add a customer picture...obviously all these facts rely on some customer disclosure but nothing a good evangelist customer shouldn't be willing to do. Not to mention it creates great and useful content for people to see on your webpage without having to rely on a link to get your customer to your review or get the review to your site. One good believable testimonial could boost your conversion rates by 100% or more, and it doesn't even have to be incredibly in-depth. Sometimes a more concise, modest review, can be more beneficial and believable to potential customers than an over-the-top one. The more honest it sounds the better. Know the difference between a good customer testimonial, and a GOOD, valid customer testimonial and why they are more advantageous than one from a third-party source. by Nick Sidla of ServiceTask.com

In a world full of digital marketing options there are a near overwhelmingly amount of options to market your service business. To make things more interesting every service business on the planet is making use of these marketing techniques, cluttering the internet and all it's accessors with a plethora of ads on every web page. It's becoming increasingly more difficult to make your ads to stand out. Here are five easy and practical tips to help make sure your service business rises above the rest. 1) Get Press Releases: getting a press release on a credible website about your service business can attract attention to your business and also help your website rankings. 2) Email Marketing: believe it or not email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to reach out to your customers and get new ones. Maintaining a newsletter to send to people who visit your website or have used your service can be a great to keep in touch and keep your name out there. 3) Use Digital Coupons: using time structured digital coupons that offer discounts to your services can be a great way to get new customers. The same way major department stores use sale ads to get people in can be utilized for your service business. 4) Integrating Social Media to work Effectively: Find a way to easily and productively manage all your social media platforms. Social media IS hot, and it IS a great platform for marketing your business, but only if you use it in a well-crafted manner. 5) Don't be Digital: that is, don't be afraid to pick up the phone and physically talk to your customers. Don't be apprehensive to get out there to the public, your customers and potential customers. Use these 5 easy tips to help get your service business out there efficiently on the internet and get ahead of the pack !

Hello All, My name is Nick Sidla, I have been active in this forum for a bit and really enjoy this community. For those of you that don't know me, I work with ServiceTask.com. We offer entirely web-based job scheduling software for all sorts of small service businesses, primarily those in the cleaning industry. In addition to providing field service software and route optimization software we also tweet a helpful small business article daily from a variety of credible sources. We post some of these same articles and same content on our facebook page as well. Topics can range from tips on saving your business money, using social media marketing, the latest and greatest technology to make your job easier, or just about anything we think is useful for a small business owner. We already have many service businesses and cleaners enjoying our tweets/posts and I hope that some of you also choose to follow us or like us and join in the conversation ! Follow us @servicetask or like us here on FB ! thanks, Nick