Among my many pet peeves in the world of business is the use of “testimonials” to reinforce an advertisers message. I can only assume that there have been studies that show that the use of such referrals as “Dave P.: I love this product” actually increases the likelihood that someone will buy, though I find it difficult to believe.
Or, “Ed from Rapid City, SD says, I was about to die and then I took the little green pills. Now, I’m a marathon runner”. Oh come on; really? “Ed from Rapid City”? I can make up names, places and wonderful things to say about products, too. Why would anyone even post such things?
Do you really believe that “David P.” or “Jim from Des Moines” is real? Does that really reinforce a message? Maybe because they drop that stuff at the end of the infomercial or print ad, they figure that there’s momentum. That you’ve already read everything else about the product and are steadily moving forward, so you’ll see the testimonials and not even stop to question their validity.
A friend approached me recently and asked me to critique his web site. I looked over the grammar, made some suggestions regarding what he was trying to say, and then got to the testimonials. Again, first name, last initial. Where is the validity in that? What are you trying to say?
What I suggested, as an alternative, was to simply post scenarios of the situations of the people that he’d helped. Rather than, “Sandra M. from Florissant says…”, say, “we had a female client (I use the gender to appeal to that gender) in Florissant who had gone through a divorce, etc, and and that caused this to happen, and here is what we were able to do for her.”
I can’t relate to people I’ve never heard of extolling the virtues of a product. Are they saying that it’s okay to call them on the phone and ask them to verify their endorsement? I’ve never cared enough to try, but one day I might just call the advertiser and ask for an actual phone number of the endorser. I don’t want their email address, because you never really know who’s emailing, but a phone number I may be able to look up for verification.
If they won’t allow me to verify, what’s the point of even saying it? There is absolutely no validity to something like that. I could add the very same things to my web site. “Jonathan L. from St. Charles says, Dan’s been like a Godsend to my business. He’s helped every aspect of my company to perform better.” Would anybody be impressed by that? I don’t know; maybe. Perhaps I should try it and see. What if someone wants to speak to Jonathan L. and verify his claims?
“Well, due to the nature of what I do, all of my client names are confidential (I really do consider that to be the case), but I guess I could take your name and contact information and have Jonathan contact you.” Then I’d have to find someone to be Jonathan, and call from non-displaying number, etc. Seems like a lot of effort, and for what?
I think it’s better to put scenarios on the ad. Here was the problem and here’s how we solved it. Low income; raised prices and increased profits. Needed to expand but no time; built a new location, stocked it and implemented a marketing campaign.
Hey, that sounds like a great idea. I think I’ll try it myself!
