Almost everyone who does well in business realizes the importance of satisfied-customer testimonials, and many books on marketing and copywriting stress that YOU NEED TESTIMONIALS in your marketing materials. Testimonials are so effective in getting prospects to take action that it is illegal to use fake ones.
So what do you do if you’re just starting out in business and have no necessary testimonials? Some tried and true advice is to get your friends or colleagues to try out your product and write glowing (but truthful) testimonials that you can use on your website or in your sales letter and brochures. If you’re selling a service, you can give it away free (at first) in order to get some testimonials. This is probably the best way to get your starting testimonials.
But what if you have no friends and you’re not particularily generous with giving your service away for free? What can you do?
The answer is you can use what are called “unattributed testimonials.” These are rave reviews about your business, but they don’t have anybody’s name attributed to them. You are basically saying how great you are. This is perfectly legal. Sneaky, yes. And not as effective as real testimonials with a person’s full name, city and the specific benefits they received.
To up the power on your unattributed testimonial you can tie your name with an expert in your field. It’s probably a good idea from a legal standpoint to use an expert who is no longer with us.
“Lou’s copywriting service has converted many prospects into paying customers. And like David Olgivy he treats customers with courtesy, respect and the intelligence they deserve.”
Make sure when using your testimonials, either attributed or unattributed, to use quotation marks around them. Readers are very drawn to words surrounded by quotation marks.