It was 2004.
We were promoting the Workshop in Los Angeles. As part of the marketing promotion, we put one little audio testimonial on the website. No, it doesn’t matter what the testimonial said.
What matters, is that over 1200 people clicked on that one link to listen to the testimonial.
Now why would they go clickety click? Hmmmm…wouldn’t you like to know why? đ
It wasn’t the testimonial itself
I already told you so. It couldn’t be the testimonial, because how on earth can you listen to a testimonial without first clicking on it? You can’t, and we all know that. So why the heck did all those people click?
It’s called curiosity
If all you’re ever going to do is post an audio testimonial, and all you’re going to do, is slap a photo above the testimonial, you’ve got a 50/50 chance that a client is going to click on that link. But if you put a curious caption right under the testimonial, you’ve suddenly increased the chances of clickthrough, by a whole lot more.
Customers are curious
They want to know what’s behing the ‘green door.’ If you tantalise customers, and tease their brains just a little bit, you have a darned good chance of increasing your conversion rate, because hey, now they’re going to click through and listen to another customer give a testimonial.
Let me give you an example of a few good audio testimonial captions
Example No.1
You can’t listen to this testimonial. I know that. But you might still want to listen to it. There are several reasons.
1) The smile makes a difference. A testimonial with a smiling face gets more clicks over a non-smiler.
2) The caption is specific. It’s related to online growth, not just any growth. If you’re interested in growing ‘400%’ online, then and only then, would you click on this testimonial.
3) There is a level of curiosity. Can you make the caption better? Sure you can. Can you remove words like exploded? Sure you can. You need to go with your gut.
Example No.2
You can’t listen to this testimonial. I know that. But you might still want to listen to it. There are several reasons.
1) Again, big smile đ
2) Again, specific audience.
3) Again, can we improve the caption? Sure we can. For example: What happened to Jackie 30 minutes into the Masterclass? Why was she ready to leave?
You’d want to know, wouldn’t you?
So let’s summarise:
1) Photo: Smiley is better than grumpy
2) Title/Profession: It matters. I’m looking in the mirror when I see a testimonial. If the testimonial isn’t about ‘me’, I’m gone.
3) Results: It always helps to have results in your captions.
4) Rewrite: There’s no such thing as the best caption. I think both these captions need a rewrite. Note: I’m not rewriting the testimonial. I’m rewriting the caption.
5) Curiosity: Create high levels of curiosity. Ideally, put in at least one question in your caption. The brain wants to know the answer.
Hey, don’t stop at audio testimonials
Written testimonials or video testimonials too need some whack. Take the lessons you’ve learned in this article, and rewrite, re-design, rewire your testimonials. Do the audit.
Yeah, yeah! đ
Most new writers are stuck when it comes to testimonials. They know testimonials sell books and products, and when youâre a ânobodyâ, itâs almost impossible to get testimonials. Well, for starters youâre not a ânobodyâ. And impossible is an opinion, not reality.
So letâs go about getting testimonials, shall we?
First letâs see what kind of testimonials you can get, and then letâs look at how to make these testimonials as effective as possible.
And while weâre at it, letâs also solve the problem of how to speed up the business of getting those testimonials âand actually enable readers to give you far more impactful testimonials.
Heck thatâs a lot of stuff to cover. So letâs start with understanding the core of testimonials and destroy some crazy myths in the process. In fact here are the two main areas where you can get testimonials.
1) You can get testimonials about you as a person.
2) You can get testimonials from “test readers”.
All testimonials don’t need to be about the product itself. Amazing but true. So when I launch a new product, I can’t always get testimonialsâespecially if I’m pre-launching a product.
But it’s not just you or I that has a problem. A rock star like John Mayer, or a rapper like Eminem can’t get testimonials either. How do you get testimonials for something that doesn’t existâor at least won’t exist for a while?
The way around is to get testimonials based on you as a person.
No matter who you are, you have some history. People know you in your school, university, hometown or work. So letâs say youâre a consultant or have some sort of service and want to get testimonials for a book youâre about to write.
What you do is seek out a friend. You seek out your high school teacher. You seek out someone in the neighbourhood. You seek out someone in an online forum. And you ask them to comment on issues where theyâve dealt with you.
The way that you can insert testimonials is about other aspects. e.g. Let’s say you’ve done some consulting before. Let’s say you’ve had a course before. Let’s say you’ve written a poem in third grade and your teacher wrote a note about the beauty of your poem. Heck those are all testimonials.
They could be testimonials about your personality. They could be testimonials about your sense of humour. They could be testimonials about your neat structure. They could be testimonials that describe you and the things you do. And that would be fine.
You see the testimonials don’t have to have any bearing on the product.
Read these testimonials for instance:
“Running into Sean is like running into abrasive sandpaper. He really scrapes away at your business soul. He gives your business the angles not yet explored and wipes away traditional thinking. And that’s just for starters.”
“I can only say this. If you aren’t using Sean currently, you should be, because next year he’s going to be TWICE as expensive!”
Do you know where those testimonials came from?
Which product is being sold? No idea, right? That’s because they don’t have to sell the product. People aren’t always buying into the product. They buy into the product, but they’re keener to buy into the person as well. Or the personality.
Of course it’s not fair comparing John Mayer or Eminem with us folk. They’re brands. But so can you be a brand in your own way. A brand is just a group of “images”. They’re just a group of “stories”. They’re just a group of “angles” put together to give the potential buyer a reason to buy. And if you eventually do put the note that your teacher in the third grade gave you, it reveals some of that story. It shows that you have a sense of humour đ
2) You can get testimonials from “test readers”.
Test readers can be anyone. They could be friends. They could be clients. They simply need to comment on what they read. And for starters, you can get these test readers to just read a single chapter. e.g. you could read the chapter on âTarget Profileâ in âThe Brain Auditâ and comment on just that single chapter.
The person is strictly speaking about that chapter and how it makes a difference.
They don’t have to comment on the entire book. In fact, it may well be a superb strategy to send the entire book, or parts of the book to these “test readers” and ask them to focus on just a chapter or two.
If youâve waited and waited for testimonials before, this is a good strategy
Reading one chapter will get your test-readers to write a testimonial quickly as they don’t have to read a whole book. And if you have six-seven readers reading six-seven chapters, now their comments are focused and diverse at the same time.
They’re focused because they’re talking about a specific chapter. They’re diverse because they’re now giving a potential reader the ability to “see inside” the book. So for example, let’s say that I sent out a product to a bunch of “test readers” with instructions on which chapter to read.
One person comes back after reading: The Problem.
One person comes back after reading: The Solution
One person comes back after reading: The Uniqueness
Now we have three separate testimonials all drooling about different sections of the book. If you have a dozen test readers reading specific sections, then you get specifics about the book in your testimonials. And it sure beats the boring testimonial that goes like this: “You should read this book. It will change your life”. Instead you get a testimonial like this: “When I got to Page 83 and read the chapter on testimonials, I was stunned. So I took your advice and called the client and instantly got an amazing page-long testimonial.”
But is it ethical to put in a testimonial of just part of a book?
Itâs a tricky question, that one. Itâs a bit like a reviewer doing a restaurant critique. Thereâs no way they can (or would want to eat) all the dishes on the menu. So they order a few dishes and the review is based on the meals ordered, the service, dĂ©cor and price. And we consider that to be perfectly acceptable as a review. The same concept does indeed apply to a book, because truly speaking it may take a long time to read and review a book, so a review of a chapter is perfectly acceptable.
And frankly itâs way more ethical than all those books out there that get endorsed by other best-selling authors. You see some authors giving so many testimonials to fellow-authors that you have to wonder how ethical that practice is anyway. In fact if you scan those testimonials, youâll find theyâre vague and flippant because thereâs a good likelihood that the reviewing author has been âcoercedâ into giving a testimonial, so that when the reviewing author writes his/her own book, they too will get a testimonial in turn.
So yeah, we did take a bit of a detour there, but you needed to know how things work in any industry, so you donât feel so bad. Not only not feel bad, but also realise that your methods as a newbie are going to be far more ethical.
So yeah there’s a strategyâeven if you’re a first time product creator.
All you have to do is:
1) Get testimonials about you as a person.
2) Get testimonials from “test readers”.
And youâve got a page full of testimonials and youâre well on your way.
Are you struggling to create a memorable positioning statement or USP (Unique Selling Proposition) for your marketing?
Do you want to stand out from your competition, but the uniqueness of your business seems to elude you? Here’s a sneaky, vital secret that turns conventional marketing psychology on its head. By changing your positioning statement, find out how to transform your weakest link, into your strongest marketing strategy ever!
Avis Is Only Number 2. So Why Go With Them?
Years ago, in the rental car market, Hertz was chugging along merrily, with Avis a distant second. With one Problem-Based USP, Avis closed the gap. Their catch phrase, We’re No.2, We Try Harder, ignited the minds of the target audience like a rampaging bush fire. They turned a liability into an asset.
Southwest Airlines took to the skies with a similar message. We’re Smaller Than Everyone Else, they told us, while gently explaining why their service was dramatically better, as a direct consequence of their size. They also turned a liability into an asset.
In 2001, Harley Davidson proudly boasted how their CEO was 38th on the waiting list for the company’s then, new V-Rod motorcycle. And they took pains to describe how each Harley was lovingly rolled off the plant. The waiting period, which normally would be perceived to be a negative, was turned into a publicity coup that burned a stamp of quality and a uniqueness into the brains of every prospective Harley owner.
All of these companies took a cold, hard-nosed look at reality. The superlatives in their business had been taken. Instead they unearthed their USP, in what most people would consider a disadvantage of sorts.
Are You Doing What Sally Did?
Sally is one heck of a real estate agent. Barely six months into real estate, and she’s already forging a red-hot path into the top ten salespeople in the country. While her talents and persuasive powers are formidable, there’s a little something that puts her head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd.
That Little Something Is A USP On Steroids!
If she chose to be unimaginative, Sally’s USP or tagline could have ended up as pretty run-of-the-mill. It could have ranged from a tacky, Residential Properties for every budget, to utterly boring, Getting Top Prices for Your Home. All of which would see her struggling to stand out, in a dog-eat-dog me-too marketplace.
A goody-gum-drop USP would get her nowhere in a hurry. She needed a USP with rocket fuel in its tanks. Something that would reach out and demand your attention without hesitation.
If You Sold Your Home In A Week or less, You Probably Got Too Little
That’s the USP that Sally created. Can you see what I mean? Doesn’t that USP go for your jugular? Sally’s target audience is sellers, not buyers. If you just sold a house, wouldn’t you feel a twinge of regret? What if you were about to sell a house?
Wouldn’t you be curious to find out just a little bit about what Sally does to lasso in a higher return? And wouldn’t you be just a little bit wary if the next real estate agent you met told you that she could sell your house in next to no time?
You’ve just witnessed the psychological power of the Problem-Based USP.
How To Create A Knockout USP For Your Business
Let’s assume you’re in the wine selling business. To own real estate in a customer’s brain, you’d have to do battle with about a zillion other wines. Yet decades ago, Paul Masson cut through the clutter with a simple statement. We sell no wines before their time. With charming simplicity, they turned a negative waiting period into an exploitable advantage.
You too can turn your liabilities into assets. Stop screaming about how magnificent you are, and look for the apparent glitches in your business. Let’s just consider a few scenarios.
Are You Perceived To Be Too Expensive, Slow, Or Maybe Just Too Busy?
When we started our website at PsychoTactics.com, we were faced with a similar dilemma. As human beings, we often disdain simplicity and common sense. The distillation process needed to simplify a concept into easy-to-munch bites is often just seen as common sense, and of no huge intrinsic value.
Taking that liability into consideration, PsychoTactics.com created a USP concept, that stressed the fact that everything was not just old, but at least 5000 years old. In fact, everything has already been tried and tested. That put us in a mould that is totally different from all the new-fangled marketing angles you hear about every day. The liability of common sense was turned into the asset of experience.
Best of all, it turned a problem into a winning USP concept.
The Biggest Reason Why You Should Search For The Hiccup In Your Business Strategy
Finding what makes you beneficially different is a notoriously difficult task. However, just about any client or potential buyer will very quickly identify your weaknesses and liabilities. If it’s a technical problem, you can fix it. If it’s a conceptual problem such as speed or price, it is much harder to fix.
This, however, is the key to your success. The more you try to keep your weaknesses and liabilities under wraps, the more customers will uncover them. On the other hand, take a liability and turn it into an asset. Expose a problem to the harsh glare of the spotlight and transform your frog into a prince.
This brave act will gain the instant admiration and support of your clients, while giving you a USP that others simply won’t have the guts to match.
Can You Make The Leap?
Creating a negative USP is a tricky, dangerous tactic, and one not to be taken lightly. “We’re slow and proud of it!” is hardly a selling point, yet fulfills the requirements laid out in the article. However, if you’ve been struggling with your USP, as many companies do, this is a tactic that may work well for you as it has with some of the companies above.
It’s time you tickled your customer’s brain with some sharply focused psychological marketing jujitsu. Find the weaknesses and liabilities in your business, carve them into a dynamic USP, and the attention your business has been craving for, will be yours forever more!
“I’ve used yoor product. And it’s definately the best product I’ve ever used. It made our business grow by over 33% per cent in the last qarter. And I recomend your product to everyone I meet, becuase it’s the very best.”
Notice how distracted you were while reading that testimonial?
You so wanted to read the testimonial, but somehow the spelling mistakes kept you from concentrating.
The more you ran into spelling mistakes, the more you had to struggle to keep your focus on what was being said. You should have been running a 100 metre sprint, but instead you got stuck in a race with hurdles. And it frustrated the heck out of you.
Your prospect feels exactly the same when reading testimonials
No matter how earthy and wonderful the testimonial, your prospect goes bananas when trying to negotiate the spelling ‘hurdles.’ Sometimes, the prospect just gives up and reads no more. In many a case, the bad spelling contained in the testimonial bounces back on you, making your business less professional than it really is.
So what’s the verdict?
Should you or should you not correct a client’s testimonial? The answer is simple. Do you want your prospect to read, or be put off by what they’re reading? If you want the customer to read, then be sure to remove the ‘hurdles’ and present the client’s testimonials without spelling mistakes.
A testimonial without errors presents both you and the client (who gave you the testimonial) in a good light.
And best of all, it helps you sell.
Wasn’t that the reason why you put the testimonial up in the first place?
You ask for feedback. Your customers give you answers.
So read this answer.
“I would have signed up for the Premium Membership at 5000bc, but I don’t much care for audios.”
“Fair enough,” you say. And you continue with your work.
And in continuing your work, you’ve missed out on some vital information that’s been unspoken.
Ja, ja, you’ve forgotten to read between the lines.
So let’s analyse that line again
“I would have signed up for the Premium Membership at 5000bc, but I don’t much care for audios.”
What is this customer really saying? Here’s my guess:
I would have signed up for Premium Membership at 5000bc, but Sean, if you weren’t so thick headed, you’d have more than just audios. You see, I learn best by reading. And yes, there are videos. I like that stuff.
Go on, read between the lines
Because a lot of what customers want to say, is buried in what they don’t say. So when a customer buys a product or service from you, your first job is to ask for feedback. No, no, not the goody-gumdrop stuff. Actively ask your customer why they took one package over the other. Why they chose one form of consulting over the other. Ask for most people would call the ‘negative feedback.’
Then make sure you do the analysis thing
What is your customer saying? What are they really saying? And what are they saying when they don’t say anything?
It’s not an answer I can give you
It’s only an answer your customer, and your analytical brain can make sense of. So yes, the next time you get feedback, make sure you get the ‘negatives’ first. Make sure you read between the lines. And yes, if you can’t read between the lines, call up the customer and simply ask.
You’ll be amazed at what you learn!
Personal Experience:
At 5000bc, only so many customers either read/post at the forum. When I first started out the Membership, I wondered why customers wouldn’t post on the forum. It seems so logical to do so. No, it doesn’t. The customer that avoids going to the forum is still a customer. When I read between the lines, I get the clear idea, that the non-forum customer will leave, if they get only the forum. The non-forum customer’s needs are different. And if I don’t pay close attention to those needs, those customers will leave.
Of course, the best way to get feedback, is to ask for it. And 5000bc has grown, based on the feedback we’ve received. But not everyone responds. In the absence of response, read between the lines.
Cautionary Note:
Grow your business one step at a time. Yes, we could have more than just audios in the Premium Section. But there were other pressing issues that came before putting in additional content. You can drive yourself right into Stress City, if you try and achieve everything at one go. So yes, make sure you get the feedback. Make sure you make a note to act upon it. Allocate the time to act upon it, sometime two, three, six, twelve months from now. When the workload isn’t so heavy, allocate the improvements as part of that month’s project, and get down to it, thus making your business far more profitable than it is right now.
Imagine you went for a date with a person you hadn’t met before. And your date wore a paper bag on his/her head.He/She refused to show you his/her face.
That date refused to tell you anything about his/her past. Or let you into any information at all. Instead what he/she gave you was a resume.
A resume containing all the things achieved. A clinical, boring, resume.
Fine date to have, eh?
But surely, I’m joking.
Surely nobody would ever hide themselves in this fashion, on a date.
Or any meeting for that matter.
You think so?
Well, go to every website out there. Pick one at random.
Then go to the ‘About Us’ page.
No photo.
No personality.
No history.
Just the boring, clinical resume.
Nice, eh?
You want to hide yourself from your customers? Well, be my guest.
But don’t whine when you don’t get enough business.
As humans, we all want to know something about the other person. We want to see their faces, know their history, and get a feel for their personality. If you choose to hide your personality, good luck.
I have a supply of brown paper bags somewhere, that I’d give you.
But I suspect you already have your own.
