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Stronger, Clearer Testimonial Letters
Sell Better
© 2002
by Marcia Yudkin
Misconceptions about testimonial quotes from clients and
customers are rampant, weakening Web sites and printed
brochures that fail to use the full power of these marketing
tools. For instance, longer is not better, and
unsigned testimonials add little credibility, even for a
professional service where confidentiality is appropriate.
Here are two blurbs that I found posted on the Web, along
with my analysis and revision.
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1. BEFORE:
Rudy, Exelrod & Zieff LLP has been very pleased with
results of its website developed through Lawinfo.com.
Because our firm is easily locatable through the major
search engines, we are finding that numerous people are
contacting us who otherwise would not. Additionally,
Lawinfo.com handles modifications of our website easily and
otherwise provides good service. Sincerely,
Alan Exelrod, Rudy, Exelrod & Zieff LLP, www.reztlaw.com
PROBLEMS:
"Numerous people" is vague. I would ask this
attorney how many that would be - three a month, thirty a
day or what? "Handles modifications of our website
easily" is unclear - does it mean that Lawinfo.com
makes changes soon after you e-mail them in, or that they
have a procedure in place to enable site owners to do it
themselves? While this question is undoubtedly answered
elsewhere on the site, it can usefully be clarified within a
testimonial like this as well. Next, what is meant by
"provides good service"? I don't think the
"Sincerely" is necessary. Finally, all
testimonials should have quotation marks around them to make
it explicit that these are the customer's exact words.
AFTER:
"Rudy, Exelrod & Zieff LLP has been very pleased
with results of its website developed through Lawinfo.com.
Because our firm is easily locatable through the major
search engines, we now have more than thirty new clients a
month that we would not otherwise have. Additionally,
Lawinfo.com posts our e-mailed website modifications within
a day, is always up and running and resolves billing issues
promptly."
- Alan Exelrod, Rudy, Exelrod & Zieff LLP, www.reztlaw.com
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2. BEFORE:
"Kidspiration is fun! Students will think they are
playing while they are engaged in language development,
concept building, and acquiring a variety of learning skills
such as classification and sight word knowledge." -
Renee Schorr, Early Childhood Teacher, Winship Elementary
School, Brighton, MA
PROBLEMS:
All nine quotes on this site use "will" or present
tense, referring to predictions or guesses about results.
Not one testimonial talks about real-life, classroom-tested
results. Overall, this conveys a strong sense that the
product has neither been released nor tested in actual
classrooms. Poking around on the site, I learned that is
absolutely untrue. The site thus needs to go back to its
testimonial writers for real observations or get new quotes
from those who have seen the product in action.
AFTER:
"Kidspiration is fun! Students in my classroom believe
they are playing while they are engaged in language
development, concept building, and acquiring a variety of
learning skills such as classification and sight word
knowledge." - Renee Schorr, Early Childhood Teacher,
Winship Elementary School, Brighton, MA
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
The above is excerpted from Secrets of Mouthwatering
Marketing Copy by Marcia Yudkin, available from http://www.yudkin.com/mouthwatering.htm.
Marcia Yudkin <marcia@yudkin.com>
is the author of 11 books, including Persuading on Paper and
Internet Marketing for Less than $500/Year.
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