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Do you use client testimonials on your sales marketing materials? The use of client testimonials is one of the best and oldest sales marketing tactics, whether it be used on your flyers, brochures, company website, newspaper & magazine advertisements, or even framed letters hanging on your office wall.

Using client testimonials works. But there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.

In short, when including a testimonial in sales marketing material, include the full name and, if applicable, company that the testimonial giver works for, along with their position within that company.

Why should you include the full name, company, and position in a client testimonial? The reason is that it is so easy to create a fake testimonial that a lot of companies do just that. And, consumers realize this and don’t give much credence to fake looking testimonials. They’re easy to spot too. They usually include just a first name. The client testimonials on your sales marketing material should not make this mistake.

A client testimonial that is verifiable is, more often than not, a real testimonial. By “verifiable” I mean that a consumer reading it can take note of the testimonial giver’s name and company that he works for and easily look him up to ask further questions. Most consumers will not actually do this but that’s not the point. Just the fact that they believe they can look the person up will give the testimonial all the credibility in the world.

Just look at movie reviews on movie posters. Have you ever seen one like this: “A must see - John.” Of course not. You’d be thinking, “Who the hell is John?” It would look more like this: “A must see - John Doe, New York Times.” Movie reviews always include the full name and company of the reviewer. That doesn’t mean that people call the reviewer to verify his comments. And, so should your own company’s testimonials include the full name and company of the testimonial giver.

Client testimonial work in sales marketing, you just need to know how to use them correctly.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 30th, 2007 at 9:08 am and is filed under Sales/Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.