Page 187 - 100 Great Copywriting Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

87 GET YOUR CUSTOMERS
TO SPEAK ON YOUR
BEHALF

Not unreasonably, many of the people who read your copy are
going to be skeptical of the claims you make. “Marketing speak”
has become a pejorative phrase. It means, roughly, lies. So one of
the ways to overcome your reader’s skepticism is to present objective
opinions from your existing customers.

Even though I am what you might call a seasoned pro, testimonials
are still one of the first places I go to on an e-commerce website.
And just think how eBay relies so heavily on feedback to maintain
a sense of trust between buyers and sellers. Amazon, too, uses its
reviews section for the same purpose.

The idea

From most of my clients
Even though they’re an extremely effective and important part of
the sales message, it’s surprising how many organizations don’t use
testimonials. Maybe they don’t have any. Or maybe they have them
but just don’t realize it. Either way, they’re missing a trick. Not so
my clients, for whom the sound of me asking “Have you got any
testimonials” must get a little boring at times.

Why are testimonials effective? There are a number of reasons.
There’s something about the format of a testimonial that cries out
to be read. There are the speech marks (inverted commas, if you
prefer) for a start, which signal to the reader that here is a different

178 • 100 GREAT COPYWRITING IDEAS