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Testimonials

You mean you really aren't? Lots of experts have noticed that there are too few e-commerce sites using testimonials. In the brick-and-mortar world, testimonials have been used for decades. They provide a very low-cost and effective tool for adding credibility to your promotional message.

And credibility is what you need in order to convert prospects to sales. The majority of consumers say that knowing and trusting the sender is the key factor in determining whether they would open an email. With email open rates declining, trust becomes more and important in getting your message across effectively:

"Hey, don't just take our word for it--listen to what our customers are saying! You don't trust us? Then trust our customers. Folks like you." Here's the mystery. Creating trust online is a big, big thing. So why don't we see more sites using testimonials? [Usborne 1999]

Testimonials Work

As marketing experts have shown time and again, testimonials work: "I'm a big advocate of testimonials on websites, even though some people call them hokey. Why? Because Web visitors read them and are influenced by them.

In some tests, Web users spend 85% more time on Web pages with testimonials, and transactions have increased by as much as 300%." [White 2006]

Your visitors naturally don't want to lose money and, just as important, they don't want to feel foolish. Eliminating their natural fear and skepticism is exactly the job that testimonials do best.

You can blow your own horn, and should, but when it comes from someone else then people start to truly believe it.

Testimonials may have a long history, but they are essentially the basis of the hottest and most recent strategies for doing business on the Web: word-of-mouth, social networking, viral marketing. [Nicholls 2006b]

You Can't Fake It

Testimonials work but if you don't handle them properly they can, and will, work against you. A botched testimonial can easily backfire and do you more harm than good. Faking it will not work; authenticity is certainly the most important factor:

"Resist the urge to turn your testimonials into marketing-speak. It is important that you retain the voice and style of real people. Don't make up your testimonials, because unless you are very clever, the effort will be transparent. And put full attribution on your testimonials." [White 2006]

Generic, questionable or obviously phony testimonials will do you no good, and may actually harm your reputation. On the other hand, succinct, believable, benefit-specific testimonials from real people, properly placed on your Web pages, can enhance your website's credibility and boost your conversion rate.

A Web page of endorsements by itself is not enough. The effectiveness of endorsements and user feedback depends on leveraging some specific strategies. The basic steps are:

There is one potential downside to testimonials, too, that you must keep in mind along with the many benefits. And that is the danger of obtaining a great testimonial but later wishing you hadn't. This rather interesting topic is discussed further in Nicholls [2006a]