It makes a prospect comfortable to see that previous people to read the book were not burned and were pretty impressed with the product they are considering.

Think about it. You may have been in this situation before but if you are considering buying a product but still not 100% sure wouldn’t it make you feel better to know that other people felt good about the same product. I can think of a few times when I have bought something because of the great reviews and positive testimonials that were offered.

But if your book is new and nobody has bought it before how do you get testimonials? You could just wait for a few sales and hope the customers give you testimonials, but even than you can only hope. Here are two ways to get testimonials early on.

1) Give your book away

I’m serious. It might sound ridiculous at first but it is a great way to get a few solicited testimonials. Find a group of people – online or off – that might be interested in your product (two or three is plenty). Tell them that you will give them your book for free in return for a testimonial of the product.

If you do this, give them a time limit to get back to you with the testimonial – just a few days. You want these as soon as possible so you can add them to your sales letter.

2) Solicit them from customers

Another easy way to get testimonials is to send a follow-up email to people who bought your book already. Do this about one week after they buy.

Simply send them an email and ask them if they would be kind enough to give you a testimonial. Many people will be willing to. Make sure your email is personalized and not a stock email you send to everyone. As you gain testimonials you can add them to your sales letter.

No matter how you do it, do it honestly. Don’t just make something up because if you are found out you will never be trusted. Besides, it is illegal in most places.

Add the testimonials in various places throughout the sales letter. Make sure the spots are appropriate but at the same time don’t clutter the page with them. If you have a lot of testimonials you may want to leave a link to a separate testimonial page along with the regular testimonials on your sales letter.

These signs are all over and they always stay around because they work. They don’t just work because they are there though, there are two main reasons they bring in customers.

1) They are posted in high car traffic areas – I have seen them on bridges, on street corners and light posts. Wherever they are, they are where a lot of cars and traffic jams happen. This is not the most targeted way to get customers, but it is free and you reach tens of thousands of people who drive by in their cars day after day and read the sign.

2) They are posted in high foot traffic areas – This should be more targeted. You can find areas where you think your market might be.

If there is a billboard area you can post a small flyer for them to see. By high foot traffic I mean a shopping area, restaurant etc. Just make sure you have permission to post.

But unlike their online counterparts, offline classifieds work much better. Where online you might get a few prospects but hundreds of SPAM messages, offline classified ads will consistently bring in prospects which you can turn into customers on your site.

Follow the same rules we have already been over for writing ads. Follow the same rules for your market and carefully target who you are going after. Take the same list you may have of publications you could write articles for and place classified ads in them.

The cost is much higher for traditional classifieds, but as I said before the return on investment is much better than the poor online variety.