Thursday, March 5, 2009
He said, she said
What do trust more, sales copy from a brochure or the recommendation of someone you know? Having well-written marketing copy goes a long way to making the sale. If you want to increase the power of what you've written, add a testimonial from a real customer to back it up. I personally do a lot of shopping online. Since I can't inspect the product I'm buying, I rely heavily on those ratings left by other customers. Amazon.com innovated the use of customer ratings for e-commerce, but using testimonials for marketing has been around forever.
The most effective customer testimonials always follow a similar pattern. First, they are usually about two to three sentences long. Simply saying "great product" isn't going to be very useful. Those sentences should be specific in the real benefits your product or service gave the customer. 
The more focused on results, the more the reader will be inclined to use that information in their buying decision. Another way to make an endorsement more convincing is the use the full name and position of the person quoted. This is important regardless of the name recognition factor. You can get mileage out of a testimonial from someone who is prominent in the field, but people identify with those who have similar needs. Glowing praise from "Becky Nelson, mother of 3 in Jacksonville" will have a much more impact then 'B.N.".
If you don't have stacks of letters extolling the virtues of your company, you can build a great bank of testimonials by just asking. Sending customer surveys is a quick and easy way to start. When crafting a survey, be sure to guide your customers in writing useful endorsements. Ask them about how they've benefited from your product or service, and get permission to use their name. You may have a client that is a well-respected figure in the community. Certainly adding their recommendation would be a benefit. In may cases, these are busy people. You can offer to write a testimonial as a basis for them to edit and embellish.
Even if you do give someone a writing prompt, the best testimonials have an authenticity that makes them powerful. People are very marketing savvy today, and can sniff a bogus sales pitch from a mile away. Real words from real neighbors can make a real difference.
