Just a few days ago, a friend of mine who is not familiar with direct marketing saw a website I was working on and asked me:
“Don’t you have too many testimonials? Won’t they annoy people and clutter up the site?”
In reply, I was about to start in on an explanation of how social proof works, how “expert” and “everyman” testimonials work, and why having “them” brag about you was infinitely more powerful than YOU bragging about you.
Then I remembered a story that Dan Kennedy tells in one of his marketing books, “The Ultimate Marketing Plan,” about the correct way to think about testimonials.
So here’s what I told her:
Dan was sitting in the plush office of one of his clients, a world famous criminal attorney.
The famous attorney had gathered his entire team in the conference room, reviewing evidence for a big case which took place the following morning.
The attorney was going around the conference table listening to everyone’s research and input.
As the last person wrapped up her presentation, a young male attorney dramatically tossed his yellow legal pad onto the table, leaned back with a smile, and told his boss, “I think you’ve got enough evidence to win this thing.”
The attorney suddenly strode over to where the young man was sitting, grabbed him by the lapels of his Brooks Brothers suit, and yanked him up from his chair until they were nose to nose.
“Don’t EVER give me ENOUGH evidence when I step into the courtroom,” he screamed at the terrified young man.
Then he dropped the quaking young attorney back into his seat, strode over to the white board and wrote out in capital letters, “PREPONDERANCE OF PROOF”.
In your sales messages, essentially you are stating your case to your prospects.
Think about what they’re experiencing. They don’t know you from Adam, and yet you want them to take out their credit cards and purchase your products and services.
Using testimonials, and using them correctly, can cut through a prospect’s sales resistance like a hot knife through butter.
Here are 3 examples of how great marketers have used testimonials with extraordinary results.
- If you go to John Carlton’s website at http://www.MarketingRebel.com, you’ll see that John throws the “usual” format of placing testimonials intermittently throughout the website, right out the window. Instead, he puts a long testimonial rider on the right side of the page, running almost all the way down to his PS.
- The late, great, Gary Halbert (Who passed this knowledge on to his students, and modern day writing wizards, like Scott Haines, Dan Galapoo, and Craig Garber) used to collect pages of testimonials, staple them together, and then mail them out as one of the steps in his direct mail sequences.
- A Level copywriters like Halbert would create an entire ad, salesletter, or website based on a testimonial! They would just have the happy client tell their story, and then slap on an offer and a call to action and mail it out. And it would work like gangbusters.
That’s the power of testimonials.
So the answer to my friend’s question is, “No, you can NEVER have enough. You need a preponderance of proof to make the best claim for your case.”
The direct marketing greats understood this principle and made millions upon millions from it.
And now, you understand it too.
If you can harness this power you will see breakthroughs in your sales page conversions and in your business in general.
-James D. Lee
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