6 Ways to Collect Awesome Testimonials for Your Fashion Business

It may sound obvious, but recommendations can be an absolute goldmine for your fashion business. There are very few things that can have as much impact on a sale as reading recommendations and approvals from peers. Think about it, Amazon built its empire with reviews and testimonials as a major factor.

As powerful as testimonials can be, they only work if you actually display them, right?  When someone says something great about your brand or collection, why are you not putting it on full display?

Collecting testimonials is easier than you might expect…

6 Ways to Collect Awesome Testimonials for Your Fashion Business

1. Um, ask for them. That’s right. It can be that easy.  Ask members of your family (those who don’t share your last name!) and your friends who wear your collection to share what they love most about it.  The key is to ask them to be as specific as possible. What exactly do they love about it and why.  Rather than than saying something like “Brand X is so beautiful!  I love to wear my Y dress on Saturday night’s out!”… “My Y dress from Brand X is the perfect silhouette for accentuating my curves.  It’s my ‘confidence’ dress every time I wear it!”  See how one is vague and not too exciting, while the other tells potential customers exactly why the dress rocks.   The great thing about tapping into friends and family is you can ask them to be specific.  You can’t really do that with strangers.
2. Twitter Screenshots. Set up a feed on twitter for your brand name and monitor it regularly.  Whenever someone says something awesome about your brand or collection, screenshot it!  What a perfect testimonial- there’s a picture, a name, and a statement all displayed in a neat little box.
3. Instagram Love. Set up a hashtag for you brand and search regularly to see if customer are snapping pictures of themselves in your pieces form your collection.  Again, take a screenshot. There’s nothing like someone loving your stuff so much that they feel the need to take pictures of how good they look and feel, right?!
4. Surveys. Consider sending out a survey to your customers every now and then (don’t overdo it!) Ask them if they mind sharing their thoughts on your pieces.  Maybe offer a discount on future purchases for doing so. Surveys are a great way to, not just collect testimonials but also collect valuable criticism and other feedback.
5. Follow up with Customers. Wait for a little while after a purchase is made and then follow up with the customer.  Ask her how she likes the new piece and if she’s been getting a lot of use out of it.
6. Blog Comments. Blogs are a great way to connect with your customers.  As you blog grows, you will notice that suddenly you readers start to come out of the woodwork, sharing opinions, ideas, feedback, and praise within the comments.  This is awesome! Don’t forget to to capture these comments, they are absolutely testimonials that should be shared.

A good tip is to create a folder on your desktop and store them, as they come along so you have easy access. Once you have a nice collection complied, consider adding a page to your site to show it all off.

Oh, another tip. Keep in mind that if any of your testimonials are item specific (not just about your brand in general), you want to slap that bit of praise right there on the product purchase page, not just the “testimonial” page.

Bonus: Consider adding a Reviews section to your product pages.  But if you do so, you’ll need to be proactive about getting customers to leave reviews.  Working it onto your email strategy will be important.