{"id":3701,"date":"2010-08-25T00:00:33","date_gmt":"2010-08-25T07:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/?p=3701"},"modified":"2010-08-25T00:00:33","modified_gmt":"2010-08-25T07:00:33","slug":"the-case-against-using-testimonials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/the-case-against-using-testimonials\/","title":{"rendered":"The Case Against Using Testimonials"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s amusing when people say you &#8220;must&#8221; have testimonials.<\/p>\n<p>You hear it all the time from goo-roos, especially.<\/p>\n<p>But you know what?<\/p>\n<p>In many cases, testimonials are the <em>weakest<\/em> way to prove something. For one thing, they&#8217;re easily faked.  And for another, they&#8217;re easily faked! (Which can make people skeptical of ALL other testimonials and endorsements.)<\/p>\n<p>Plus, they don&#8217;t always help, anyway.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In fact, in some cases, they can HURT your response.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Case in point:<\/p>\n<p>I was recently chatting with the guy who does all the testing for one of the businesses I write ads for.  He&#8217;s been testing the living you-know-what out of sales pages lately and he was telling me how, in one test, response went UP when he removed the testimonials.<\/p>\n<p>Interesting, eh?<\/p>\n<p>Now, does this mean testimonials are all bad?<\/p>\n<p>That you shouldn&#8217;t use them?<\/p>\n<p>And that I&#8217;m telling you to avoid them?<\/p>\n<p>Hellz no!<\/p>\n<p>By all means <em>use<\/em> &#8217;em if you have &#8217;em!<\/p>\n<p>But don&#8217;t RELY on them.<\/p>\n<p>And if you do use them, test them.<\/p>\n<p>Otherwise, all that glowing praise could be hurting you.<\/p>\n<p>You just never know&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Ben Settle<\/p>\n<p><strong>P.S.<\/strong> Since we&#8217;re rapping about testimonials&#8230; <\/p>\n<p>Below are a <em>stack<\/em> I&#8217;ve gotten for my <strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.CryptoMarketing.com\" rel=\"noopener\">Crypto Marketing Newsletter<\/a><\/strong> over the past few months:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Without question the value that Ben puts into each monthly<br \/>\nnewsletter is worth many times the subscription price. Shoot, the<br \/>\nbonuses that came with the subscription are worth the subscription<br \/>\nprice.  Then there is the crypto discussion group that as a<br \/>\nsubscriber you have access to. Ben regularly puts more information<br \/>\nand ideas into the discussion group. If you have a question, within<br \/>\nshort order Ben has a reply. Plus you get some great feedback from<br \/>\nother members of the group. Off hand, I do not know another<br \/>\ncopywriter\/internet marketer of Ben&#8217;s caliber that gives such free<br \/>\naccess.  I just hope none my competitors subscribe. Which is the<br \/>\nhighest recommendation I can give.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; John R. Deck<br \/>\nDirectMarketResults.com<\/p>\n<p>I just finished reading your May &#038; June issue. I subscribe to a<br \/>\nfair amount of newsletters but yours is always moved  to the top of<br \/>\nthe stack. It&#8217;s the first one I read.  It&#8217;s one of the best<br \/>\nmarketing newsletters I&#8217;ve read since the Gary Halbert Letter.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Dan Gallapoo<br \/>\nDobermanDan.com<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have signed up for Ben&#8217;s Crypo Marketing membership after being<br \/>\nintroduced to him by a friend. Now being with him only two months,<br \/>\nit was the BEST recommendation that I could have received. Ben has<br \/>\nan incredible way of telling a story that keeps you interested in<br \/>\nreading. If you are crazy enough to pass him up on his unbelievably<br \/>\nlow cost Cyrpo Marketing, then you are literally lighting your<br \/>\nmoney on fire and watching it burn up in front of you. <\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Jason Froehlich<br \/>\nrenegadefitnessresults.com<\/p>\n<p>I am greatly enjoying your newsletter! I wish it came out more<br \/>\noften. As soon as I see the package, I rip it open before I even<br \/>\nmake it back to my house. Thanks again<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Amy Hainz<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m a marketing consultant, and I like to have a nice big grab bag<br \/>\nof proven, principle-based, ideas for increasing response for my<br \/>\nclients.  I shared one of his PR ideas with a client recently, and<br \/>\nhad a really fun mastermind session on how and where we could work<br \/>\nthe idea into his business.  Like with anything we&#8217;ll have to test<br \/>\nit, but I think it&#8217;s going to be a great lead generator for my<br \/>\ncustomer.  And the whole thing just reinforced the relationship<br \/>\nwith my customer and keeps me positioned as the goto guy.  As a<br \/>\nmarketing consultant, Ben &#038; the ideas he shares in the Crypto<br \/>\nnewsletter just plain make me look good. <\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Glen McNeil<\/p>\n<p>Crypto Marketing gives me new ideas each month that I can actually<br \/>\nimplement because it doesn&#8217;t bog me down with TMI. Also, the<br \/>\nprivate &#8220;back room&#8221; of the Crypto Yahoo group doesn&#8217;t have the<br \/>\nnoise and chest-thumping of the public marketing forums. Ben<br \/>\nhimself is low key, likes to over-deliver, and doesn&#8217;t pass himself<br \/>\noff as a goo-roo. <\/p>\n<p>-Anita Ashland,<br \/>\nAnitaAshland.com<\/p>\n<p>Ben, I loved your newsletter I got in the mail. I&#8217;ll be ranking you<br \/>\n#1 out of everyone. Whatever you do, please don&#8217;t sellout to the<br \/>\n&#8220;goo-roos&#8221; and stay unique like you are. Good job man!<\/p>\n<p>-Ricky Breslin<br \/>\nRickyBreslin.com<\/p>\n<p>As a pro copywriter, I get lots of products, newsletters, and<br \/>\ncoaching programs for free. Usually from clients or people who WANT<br \/>\nto be clients (and who are trying to &#8220;butter me up&#8221;). The number of<br \/>\nthings I actually PAY for is pretty low. If I&#8217;m going to cough up<br \/>\nactual dough, I have to be convinced the product is VERY valuable<br \/>\n &#8212; especially if I&#8217;m paying for it month after month. I&#8217;m happy to<br \/>\npay the full retail price for Crypto Marketing &#8212; because it&#8217;s<br \/>\ngood. Very good. &#8217;nuff said.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Ray Edwards<br \/>\nRayEdwards.com<\/p>\n<p>Wow Ben!  You&#8217;re really over delivering here. Honestly, the bonuses<br \/>\nalone are worth more than the last two products I purchased put<br \/>\ntogether.  Anybody who doesn&#8217;t buy today, is a dork. <\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Courtney James Houde<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You can subscribe to The Crypto Marketing Newsletter at:<\/p>\n<p><strong><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.CryptoMarketing.com\">www.CryptoMarketing.com<\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s amusing when people say you &#8220;must&#8221; have testimonials. You hear it all the time from goo-roos, especially. But you know what? In many cases, testimonials are the weakest way to prove something. For one thing, they&#8217;re easily faked. And for another, they&#8217;re easily faked! (Which can make people skeptical of ALL other testimonials and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-copywriting-and-sales-letters","category-email-marketing","category-sales-marketing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}