If the prospect doesn’t trust you it will be very hard to make sales; emphasis on VERY and HARD.

There are various ways to build trust, some of which we’ve talked about in the past, but one of the strongest ways to build credibility and trust are testimonials.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term testimonial, basically it is an independent 3^rd party verification that your solution does, in fact, do what you say it does.

Or, in other words, it is people raving about how great the product and you are.

When it comes to persuading prospects about how good your product is, testimonials are right at the top of the list.

Scattered throughout your sales copy, you continuously strengthen the various sales copy points you’re making, just make sure the testimonial supports the sales copy the prospect just read or is about to read.

We’re going to look at the various types of testimonials, how to create powerful testimonials and how to get testimonials even if you don’t have any customers yet!

Types of Testimonials

Testimonials can be so much more than the typical “your product is great” letters from customers.

Sure, those are great and you should use those that are believable and interesting; but enhance them by giving it an attention getting headline and be sure to include as much name, location and contact information as you can get; don’t forget that pictures really add to the believability.

But there are other testimonials, the ways are really limited by your own creativity but here are some ways that have proven highly effective to get you started:

• Write a “breaking news article” by interviewing some customers, about 4 to 6, about their experiences with your product.
• Get someone to interview your customer or do it yourself if you can’t find anyone. Ask tough questions about your product, play devil’s advocate and let the customer overcome your questions and objections; use the audio (or video) as the testimonial. This is a remarkably effective way of building trust with your prospects
• Create a case study about some of your customers, that is, a story about how a customer used and was helped by using your product.
• Ask your customer to create a video of them actually using your product or of results they’ve achieved (before and after work particularly good in video).

Creating Powerful Testimonials

You’ll find that many of the testimonials you get aren’t really that good. They might be poorly written, vague, sound insincere or just boring.

The obvious solutions it that if you don’t like them then don’t use them but, with a little work, you can get great ones or turn less than great into great!

Most people give the same type of testimonial, either one that says how great the product is or a sort of “before and after” testimonial; that is, they tell you their problem and how the product solved it, generally with some raving about greatness thrown in.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with those (get as many as you can but, to stand out and be more believable, you can’t stop there, go one step further.

What you want are much more powerful, more “get them where it counts” testimonials.

In particular, you want testimonials that talk about specific benefits and that tell a story about a real person who had a real problem and who is absolutely elated with the product that, finally, gave them a solution.

Now, you’re probably wondering how to get such a perfect, “dream”, testimonial.

Luckily, it’s easy. It’s just a matter asking for it. Here’s what to do:

• Contact your customers and interview them; don’t spend more than 15-30 minutes; use this to get that interesting, real-life story that your prospects will relate to.
• Then ask the customer if you can use the interview as a testimonial.
• Assuming they say yes, say that you’d be happy to create it for them but they will have final approval before it’s used; emphasize they will be able to say yes or no.
• Then take the interview and craft as compelling, heartfelt testimonial as you possibly can. If the interview was good you should have some great material to work with.

Here are some things you can do to help you:

• Figure out what you angle will be after you hear the story, comments and
• Decide what key benefits to you want to emphasize in this testimonial; don’t always emphasize the same thing unless it is the sole or wildly most important benefit. This could be about the product, the results or about the experience; all are important, necessary and can be powerful.
• Decide how you can best position this testimonial for maximum impact
• Decide what will make your ideal prospect say “I am just like that” or “hey, that’s my situation”

Getting several of these will allow you to judiciously use them throughout your sales copy since they are likely to focus on different things. Plus, you’ll probably get lots of little tidbits that you can weave into your sales copy!

Getting Testimonials When You Don’t Have Customers

If you have a new product that doesn’t have any customers you’re probably wondering how you’re going to get any testimonials.

Not a problem!

Here are a few ideas you can use to get testimonials if your have no customers yet:

• Provide free copies of the product to a select group of people with the understanding that that are expected to provide testimonials, good or bad.
• Send out review copies to people in the your niche and have them review it for their Web site, mailing list or an independent review site like e-opinions.com. Then quote those reviews giving proper attribution. This can be a good thing to do even if you do have testimonials.
• Do a small private launch at a drastically reduced price to get some customers and then get testimonials from them for the public launch.

Conclusion

We looked at how to use testimonials in a sales page to build trust and, ultimately, skyrocket your sales.

We saw some of types of powerful testimonials you can create, well beyond the standard “you’re great” letters.

We also looked at how to get testimonials when you don’t have customers yet.

Before I finish I want to show you how powerful testimonials can be I want to tell you a very short story I heard.

There is this star copywriter who put together a 24-page tabloid promotion that was about 80% testimonials; which is almost unheard of!

He really had to convince the company to try it because it wasn’t cheap to create and send out and there was great risk.

The copywriter felt that testimonials were so critical and powerful for this product because the main obstacle was trust in the product so he wanted lots of proof.

When I heard about it, it was about 15 months after and the client had mailed out over 10,000,000 copies and was still sending them out by the boatload.

Oh yeah, it had made them a substantial profit.

I wouldn’t suggest you try that except in very rare cases but it does point out the power that testimonials can have in making you lots of money you wouldn’t make otherwise.

Do you use testimonials?

If so, how and if not, why not.

It’s important enough to think about how and why/why not so leave a comment explaining it to help you understand your thinking better or to ask questions that will help you understand.

Talk soon,

The Shameless (Ethical) Marketer
http://www.Twitter.com/DavidHusnian
http://www.8-8-8Sale.com
http://www.MusicForInternetMarketers.com
http://www.SecretsOfGoogleAdWords.com
http://www.MadMondaySale.com
http://www.2ForTuesdaySale.com

O.Y. Don’t forget to retweet this! Use the button on the page or Tweet this:
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Explode Your Sales by Building Trust with Testimonials

There are many ways to do that, as I and many others have talked about in the past.

There is one particular way though that people some people overlook and that many are afraid to use.

That’s a shame because it can make a big difference in your conversion rates.

This fear stems from the belief that bad things can have bad consequences so it is better to ignore and avoid them.

Of course, that’s true bad things can have bad consequences but the opposite can also happen. You know the old saying “it’s not what you do but how you do it”, well that applies here.

So forget the fear, make sure you confess to your prospects to improve your conversions.

What do I mean? Read on…

Admit Your Faults

The basic idea of this is to admit problems or flaws in your product or service; this showing of honesty and trust on your part makes your prospect in turn trust you more – being perfect breeds doubt.

I’ve talked about this before including in my copywriting course but what I’ve found is I didn’t emphasize certain aspects enough or, at least, properly.

Some people use this technique to hide big faults, I believe this is ultimately as path to failure but showing your faults in the correct light can really make a big difference.

Show the Positive, Ignore the Negative

Much (most?) of the sales copy out on the Internet shows only positive features of a product or service and this does work.

Several main problems with it are: the prospect starts wondering what the flaws are and imagined flaws are usually worse than actual flaws; the prospects expectations are built up and then when they see the flaws they are disappointed even if all the things important to them are good; and the prospects doesn’t build trust because of the innate skepticism of the prospect.

All this hurts conversions and increasing refund requests.

Show the Positive and the Negative

Probably the second most common technique is to show the positive features and throw in some negative ones that aren’t related to the positive features.

This also works and overcomes much of the problems with just showing positive but it also has a primary problem, it shows the negative.

You’re probably saying “what, you just said it was good to show the negative!”

Yes, it is good and confessing those flaws does improve conversions over just showing the positive but it is still shows negative and doesn’t maximize conversions.

What if you could get the advantages of the “confession” while maximizing conversions?

You can!

Show the Negative and the Silver Lining

What you need to do is point out a negative and then turn it into a positive by showing the silver lining.

The classic example I’ve seen is for a small restaurant.

Instead of not mentioning it and instead of throwing in that the restaurant is small but there is plenty of free parking say “we are a small restaurant with little space but that is what makes the atmosphere so cozy and the service so great”.

See how it changed the confession of the flaw into something that is highly desirable by the people they are trying to attract.

You can use this in many ways, here are a couple of examples:

1. Our $97 book is short, just 15 pages, and we could have puffed it up and turned it into a $997 course but we wanted to cut all the fat from it and make it something you could read quickly and start benefiting from it an hour after you received it.
2. Listen, our price is 25% more than our competitors but that is more than made up for because it lasts twice as long (compare our guarantee, you’ll see it is twice as long) and saves you money on energy and maintenance costs.
3. We’re not the biggest car rental company, we’re only #2, but that is why we try harder to have better cars and better service at better prices.

To properly use this just point out a flaw and immediate show why it is really a positive (the silver lining); this will optimize your conversions.

Conclusion

As you’ve seen confession can also be good for the wallet by building trust and showing why things that seem like flaws are really not so bad, in fact, they are good things.

Don’t be afraid to show your flaws and warts as that can backfire on you but tie each negative to a positive and watch your conversions soar.

What are some negatives you have that you can show the silver lining?

What are some negatives you have that you can see a silver lining?

Let me know by leaving a comment and, if you don’t see the silver lining I’ll try to help.

Talk soon,

The Shameless (Ethical) Marketer
http://www.Twitter.com/DavidHusnian
http://www.8-8-8Sale.com
http://www.MusicForInternetMarketers.com
http://www.SecretsOfGoogleAdWords.com
http://www.MadMondaySale.com
http://www.2ForTuesdaySale.com

O.Y. Need a sales letter fast but have no knowledge or talent (or time!), try Armand Morin’s Sales Letter Generator

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This post from: Street Guide to Copywriting. To read more post like this, head over to Street Guide to Copywriting

Confession is Good for the Soul and the Wallet: Selling More by Confessing