The Power of Testimonials

14th April 2016

One of the things I encourage my clients to do is to always ask for testimonials. Most people acknowledge that the power of someone endorsing their product or service is extremely persuasive, so you would think that they would immediately embrace this, and use this as part of their marketing strategy.

However, rather surprisingly, the actual response is rather more muted. The thing is that it turns out that people are fairly sceptical about testimonials, often stating that they don’t really believe them, or that the supplier themselves has made them up. Consequently their belief is that their clients will think the same, and therefore their credibility could possibly suffer as a result. It is true that a short one-liner with no name or company beside it might be considered a bit “iffy”, but a proper testimonial, proudly endorsed is without doubt worth its weight in gold.

The first thing about a good testimonial is that it is very cheap marketing, and that secondly you can use it on all sorts of your marketing materials, such as website, flyers, or newsletters. The other thing is that with contact names and company names included, people can actually enquire about you without you knowing, which means they know they are getting a completely unbiased opinion.

I recently met with a very nice lady who wanted to do the coaching course, but was clearly a little unsure even after she had agreed to go ahead. Subsequently she called one of my clients on my website testimonials (without my knowledge) who immediately calmed all her fears, and in fact re-inforced her certainty that coaching would be right for her. When we next spoke she was much more confident about it all, and whilst she was a little sheepish about having contacted my client without my client without asking me first, I was delighted that she had.

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