"What should I do with my placements once I receive them?" + Example template text you can use on your own website!
"What should I do with my placements once I receive them?"
At some point, we get this question from every client. On it's face, it seems pretty obvious– just place them on your website. However, I've been doing this long enough to know that the real question is:
"How do I use my recent interviews to convert more clients and sales."
The industry standard is to just place the links of your recent coverage online. Maybe it's in your about page, the home page or a separate "newsroom" page. However, for most businesses and organizations, those pages are actually the least visited so most site visitors weren't even see the links. And while you should always post to social media as well, those posts are typically buried within just a few weeks.
So, what now?
After hours of research, reading several books and quite a few panels and workshops, the answer finally came to me. And it came while I was grabbing a burger at Five Guys– randomly reading the food reviews they post all around their walls.
This technique doesn't really bring in new people (the people who will see it are already there) but it does something to the people waiting in line. It gets them to trust the restaurant more and spend even more money. Sometimes the solution to a revenue goal, isn't more customers, it's just more money from the same customers.
"Put your articles in your product page," I told my client in a call and then we spent about an hour coming up with language for him to use and visualizing the product pages.
Here are some of the ways we reused the articles, instead of just posting links to social media:
We physically added the logos of the newsrooms where the brand was featured into actual image products. That way as people scrolled to see alternative angles of the product, they would inevitably end up on the coverage. Logos work best, but some clients have screenshot the entire article and posted it as a JPG in the product images. You can also just screenshot the headline and byline.
We used basic "as featured in GMA" language on some of the product descriptions and the store's front page itself. We also used it in all marketing and email language to get people to trust the product quickly.
We pulled quotes from our articles to replace"industry jargon" with more accessible language. For example, a quick sentence noting a t-shirt's soft fabric and the percentage of cotton was changed to also note how it was "deemed the softest shirt I'd ever tried" by a major blogger. Which would you be more likely to buy?
Within days, the client saw 25% more sales. Within a month, 72%
So, why does this work?
It's less work on you. Toss it into your product description once and never think about it again. This is different than posting on social media where it can be buried. When something results in passive growth, business owners tend to always support these solutions.
More people see it. Again, most visitors are coming from an ad and directly to the product so they won't see that press on your homepage or about us page. Putting it in the product or services page, makes it impossible to miss.
Another voice adds legitimacy during a critical decision-making time. Ads tell the client why you think you're great but press proves that you're great. By placing your recent coverage right into the product description you make people feel safer purchasing your product, which leads to more purchases and a bigger sense of urgency to purchase as well.
People spend more: As we mentioned, word-of-mouth not only increases sales and urgency, but also how much people spend individually with you. When you pull quotes from your articles or features, you're demonstrating a larger conversation around your product. This can make it easier to sell premium features, add-ons and other products, making each individual sale larger.
Ultimately, this is one of the easiest ways to reuse your press and it can make a larger impact than the traditional approach. It only takes just a few minutes and you never have to think about it again!
Unsure, how to get started? Just use the below template text and let us know how this works for you!
"[Product X] was even featured in [Outlet Y] for its [Factor 1] & [Factor 2]. Reporter [Name here] said: "[quote]." Try the #1 featured [Product X] right now and get [What does product do] immediately!"