by Blair Cariss

“Blair Is A Great Guy, Use Him For Your Printing.” - Anonymous.

Today I’d like to talk about testimonials. Specifically good ones and bad ones. Not enough businesses use testimonials in their marketing, and many of the ones that do make a mess of it. Whilst you don't have a lot of control over reviews posted about your business online, in print, fortunately, you get to pick and choose which ones you publish.

Why would you want to use testimonials in your print and online marketing?

Simple really – testimonials are a chance for you to back up what your marketing is saying about you and have a customer tell their story in their own words.

Which is going to be more convincing to your potential customers? You beating your chest telling them how great you are? OR Your clients' testimonial saying they had the same hopes and fears as the reader does and that you delivered the goods for them?

It’s much more believable when somebody else says nice things about you isn’t it?

What Makes A Good Testimonial?

Take the first line of this article – is it a good testimonial? No, I don’t think it could get much worse than that - people definitely won't be beating down my door to print with me if that's the quality of my testimonials. However any testimonials are better than none so don’t scrap the ones you have just because you think they are bad.

With some research into what makes great testimonials I have found they have the following attributes.

They are Specific. 

The more specific the better, (don’t say it increased “over 100%” or “about 120%” when it actually increased 117%). See how there are no specifics in our ‘bad’ headline testimonial.

Stick with One Benefit Per Testimonial. 

Where possible try and only have one benefit per testimonial – too many benefits overwhelm the reader.

Make sure the testimonial appears believable. 

If your testimonial is too good it will build scepticism in your reader rather than helping the sale. Don’t be too formal. Relaxed and conversational is the ideal tone.

Be targeted to your audience. 

Chiropractors are going to be more interested in testimonials from other chiropractors about a service for chiropractors etc. So who your testimonials are from matters. They should also be used to ‘back up’ what you are saying about yourself.

Take Nicholas Tait’s testimonial below.

"We've just completed our biggest publication for the year, an 84 page book of which we print 30,000 copies. This year our timeline was extremely short and Blair and the team at Cariss Printing where still able to deliver an exceptional quality product, on time, on budget and with complete professionalism. Thanks again for your help and I look forward to working with you on the next one."

It is about one specific benefit – our customer service, making sure that our clients get what they want and what that means in return to them. I hope this is believable (it's what we do) and that you as the reader find it relevant.

Get yourselves as many testimonials as possible – they really make a big difference to your print marketing.