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| AFGHAN & CORGI PORTRAITS Copyright 2012. Anne M. Hier All Rights Reserved |
When potential clients visit your
website or blog they are not just looking at your portfolio. They need to
know they can depend on you to deliver quality work that accurately
portrays their pets. As you build your website or blog, be sure to
include a few testimonials from satisfied customers. I never solicit
these but certainly love to receive them. You should consider testimonials an
important marketing tool. Satisfied customers mean a lot, especially
to others who are making the decision to hire you. You may think
your clientele is interested in your work - they are. But they also
want to know they can trust you. Testimonials help build that trust.
Practically all of your customers are
hopefully going to acknowledge that they received the portraits and
that they are thrilled with your work. Some will send you follow-up
pictures of the work framed and in their home. These types of images
can provide a real personal touch to your site.
There are two schools of thought on
adding testimonials. The first is to go for quantity – listing
numerous short quotes to indicate that the artist has completed a
significant amount of work. The second method, which I
prefer, is to list longer quotes that are quite descriptive and go
beyond “Thank you so much for the beautiful portrait of Shep.”
Actually, you can probably incorporate a mixture of both on your
site. Periodically update these statements to ensure that the majority of your
testimonials are current and not all several years old.
One more thing – unless you
specifically ask permission, do not list the client's last name,
email address, or other identifying information. I usually list the
first name and an initial for the last name. If you have done
portrait work for a celebrity you may publicly disclose this part of
your client list, “Portrait Commissioned by (celebrity's name)."
However, do not publish quotes about your work from the celebrity
unless you first ask and get written permission to do so. This is
because celebrities have a right of publicity to present themselves
to the public in a specific manner that they control.
If you would like to read the
testimonial for the commissioned portraits pictured above please go
my Anne Hier Studio blog.
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