Brent Hodgson, Copywriter

Everyone knows testimonials give your marketing a “social proof kick” which boosts sales.

That’s because if you say how good you are, it’s just bragging… But if someone else says it for you, it must be true!

The problem with getting good testimonials is how do you:

• Get other people to say how good you are in a way that sells well;
• With as little effort as possible?

So how do you attract really powerful testimonials, without investing a huge amount of effort?

Here are some techniques that I’ve use to get thousands of really powerful testimonials for my clients, with practically no effort.

Testimonial Tip #1 – Ask for Feedback, Not Testimonials

The easiest way to get testimonials is to ask for feedback.

(People feel more comfortable giving feedback than providing a testimonial - and they’re practically the same thing anyway.)

The two best times to ask people for their feedback is when they’re most committed to their decision - at the point of sale, and at the point of delivery.

Robert Cialdini speaks about this in his book Influence: The Power of Persuasion.

If you have the book, read the chapter on Commitment and Consistency. There’s a story there about a study conducted on people placing bets at the track.

People were interviewed about their chances or winning - both immediately before, and immediately after placing a bet. What the researches found was immediately after they committed to their decision (i.e. - placed their bet), people were more confident in their chances of winning - even though nothing about the race itself had changed.

Use this piece of psychological ju-jitsu to your advantage!

Ask customers for their feedback on their previous purchase (after they have made a repeat sale), or when they are taking delivery of their product.

This is when customers are most committed to their decision, and it’s the easiest way to “glowing” testimonials.

If you run seminars, the best time to ask customers for their feedback is at the end of the day, while they’re still “taking delivery” and buzzing full of new ideas.

By all means follow customers up days, weeks or months later for testimonials - but if you’re not striking while you’re at the forefront of the customer’s mind, chances are they will have moved on and forgotten about your product, or forgotten how good it felt when they purchased from you.

Testimonial Tip #2 - It’s Not Just WHAT You Ask, But HOW You Ask It…

If you’re soliciting testimonials (er, feedback), how you phrase your questions will affect what people tell you.

Asking for the person’s name and contact details are a given - you should always do that. And in some cases, having additional information about the customer’s background is testimonial gold (their occupation, what they were doing before they found your “magical” product, etc.)

But whenever I ask for feedback for testimonials, I ask three specific questions…

These questions “train” the customer to start thinking in a way which will give you great testimonials.

I always put them on my feedback forms because they’ve been so successful eliciting great testimonials in the past.

Brent’s 3 “Feedback” Questions For Getting Killer Testimonials:

• “How, specifically, did [the product] change the way you [achieve the benefit the product provides / do whatever the product does] previously?”
• “What would you say to a friend who was thinking of investing in [this product] - but wasn’t sure?”
• “If you feel it is warranted, feel free to leave us a testimonial in the box below:”

Each question asks essentially the same thing - but it does it from a different angle, and targets a different testimonial “style” - the Before and After story testimonial, the buying advice from a friend with no vested interest testimonial, and the glowing feedback testimonial.

This gives you three chances at hitting the killer testimonial jackpot.

In most cases, you’ll end up with something that you can work with (or rework - but I’ll go into this a little later).

When you’re reading through these feedback forms, look for testimonials which stand out.

The best testimonials are precise and exact and clearly relate the benefit that the customer received in purchasing your product or service. Or, they should read like a tabloid headline - full of intrigue, scandal or human triumph.

Remember John Carlton’s formula for a testimonial - it should be “specific, short, spicy”.

Testimonial Tip #3 - Ask Permission

This is one instance where I disagree with the saying: “ask forgiveness, not permission”. It’s so easy to do, it will save you so much trouble, and it will avoid “burning” an otherwise happy customer.

When you do receive good feedback or testimonials, make sure you have permission to use that feedback on marketing materials.

If you don’t, it’s only a matter of time until you get a phone call from a shocked customer, complaining that you’re leveraging on their good name to make money.

I’ve never had a customer say “no” when I’ve asked them if I could use their comments in marketing materials - but I’ve had several call and complain when I haven’t asked permission.

Fortunately, they were testimonials which were published online. If they had have been printed, we might have had to pay to reprint our marketing materials.

(I’ve included the email I used to use to ask for permission to use feedback from seminars as testimonials below. This email worked a treat!)

Testimonial Tip #4 - Don’t Be Afraid to Rewrite!

If you’re collecting testimonials offline (particularly with handwritten feedback forms), chances are your customers won’t remember exactly what they said on the feedback form they handed in.

So if you see an opportunity to add a bit of “spice” to the testimonial, rework the testimonial before asking the customer’s permission to attribute the reworked testimonial to them.

Hi {Name},

I was going through the feedback from last weekend’s event, and I came across your feedback form!

Your feedback was so great that I’d like to use what you said as a testimonial on our website - would you mind if I did this?

Here’s how I’d like to quote you:

—
{Place their testimonial here}
{Name}
{Town, State, Country / Website / Title of significance}
–

(Feel free to edit this if there’s something in there you don’t like)

Of course, at any stage if you wanted to “withdraw” this testimonial, just let us know and we’ll take it off all of our marketing materials, with the exception of printed materials (such as brochures - we’d need to wait until the next printing run to do this.)

Anyway, let me know if it’s OK to use this in our marketing materials.

Thanks again for your great feedback - I’m glad you got a lot out of the event!

Brent

Note: Make sure you keep the bit which says “Feel free to edit this..”. Fewer people will want to change their words if you say this. Go figure. I guess you’re putting them at ease.

Testimonial Tip #5 - Sow Back After You Harvest!

Finally… It’s handy to have a few “freebies”, little free giveaways, on hand to give away as thank-you’s for testimonials.

You don’t have to tell people they’re going to receive it when you ask them for their testimonial (usually they’ll say yes anyway) but it helps to feed goodwill back into some of your most valuable customers.

When I was a young (er, younger) marketer promoting real estate courses (often worth thousands of dollars), when someone gave me an unsolicited testimonial or some nice feedback, I’d post them a $20 audio CD on real estate investment.

They’d open up their letterbox a few days later, and be so surprised and euphoric that call me immediately, and give me yet another glowing review - this time even better than the first.

Invariably I’d see these people at seminars months later, and they’d introduce me to the friends that they’d brought along.

I can’t say with any certainty that one little $20 gift lead to two $500-$10,000 sales months later - but it did feed enough goodwill back into some of our most valuable customers that they wanted to come back again, and bring their friends too!

—

Of course, you’ll still need to do the “little 1%’ers” if you want to get positive testimonials from customers.

But if you’re delivering results, these tips will help to get the word out about your great work.

Brent

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