How to Select Testimonials

This article on how to select testimonials is particularly directed at two groups of people:

-          Individuals (usually Internet marketers) who contact me with a product to sell

-          Other copywriters who wish to improve their copy

Here’s the dilemma:

1. A client sends me a product and wants a sales letter.
2. I ask the client for some testimonials to include in the sales letter.
3. The client piles testimonial upon testimonial on me.
4. I sift through the testimonials, looking for the few that are quality testimonials.

The problem is testimonials are easy to come by. Most internet marketers have scores of testimonials simply from giving out review versions of their product. Usually, the suppliers of these testimonials are not stating how they truly benefited from the product, but are sampling “returning the favor” for getting a free review copy.

To internet marketers, this is great. After all, the more testimonials, the better. I have to disagree. While the purpose of a testimonial is to provide both proof that the product works and social proof, there is a difference between a good testimonial and a bad one. Not all testimonials are created equal.

Here I offer a foolproof three-step method for selecting testimonials to put onto your sales letter.

1. List the benefits of your product. For example, if you are selling a pair of headphones and you believe your headphones have three great features—the ability to fit extremely large or small heads, an extra-long cable, and a light grip on the head—then you have three features (a decent copywriter should be able to come up with dozens of features, by the way—but this is just an example and can be used by internet marketers themselves as well).
2. Determine the number of testimonials. This is easy. It should be less than or equal to the number of benefits of your product. Ideally, just choose the number equal to the number of benefits. In the above example, it in three.
3. Select your testimonials. Out of your list of testimonials, select one-by-one, the testimonials that best evoke one specific benefit of your product. You want testimonials that sound real and describe how the user benefited from your product. For our example, we would choose “Wow! The first pair of headphones that fit on my head” by Big-Head Dean, “I can finally lie on my couch and listen to music on my PC” by Lazy Zack, and “As an audiophile, I wear headphones for twelve hours a day, but these are the only headphones that don’t leave my ears red at the end of the day” by No-Friend Eddy.
4. (Optional For Copywriters) Get permission to edit the testimonials to remove unnecessary statements about the benefits or features that particular testimonial is not targeting.

Internet marketers, follow these three steps and I’ll like you a lot more.

Copywriters, follow these steps to avoid verbose copy (especially you WSO creators!).