{"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":"
It’s amusing when people say you “must” have testimonials.<\/p>\n
You hear it all the time from goo-roos, especially.<\/p>\n
But you know what?<\/p>\n
In many cases, testimonials are the weakest<\/em> way to prove something. For one thing, they’re easily faked. And for another, they’re easily faked! (Which can make people skeptical of ALL other testimonials and endorsements.)<\/p>\n
Plus, they don’t always help, anyway.<\/p>\n
In fact, in some cases, they can HURT your response.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Case in point:<\/p>\n
I was recently chatting with the guy who does all the testing for one of the businesses I write ads for. He’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
Interesting, eh?<\/p>\n
Now, does this mean testimonials are all bad?<\/p>\n
That you shouldn’t use them?<\/p>\n
And that I’m telling you to avoid them?<\/p>\n
Hellz no!<\/p>\n
By all means use<\/em> ’em if you have ’em!<\/p>\n
But don’t RELY on them.<\/p>\n
And if you do use them, test them.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, all that glowing praise could be hurting you.<\/p>\n
You just never know…<\/p>\n
Ben Settle<\/p>\n
P.S.<\/strong> Since we’re rapping about testimonials… <\/p>\n