How to avoid creating crap testimonials

 

Extract from the Subscriptions Strategy newsletter issue 71

 

Creating great testimonials

Headlines: using quotes to capture attention

 

Dear colleague,

I hope you’ll excuse the vigorous language here, but I have been going on about this since Subscriptions Strategy was launched in 1993 and sometimes I don’t think anyone is listening. And it’s not as if it’s an impossible-to-follow marketing rule – it applies to all copywriting.

 

 ‘Testimonials should be exclusive to your publication.’

 

 That means your testimonial or copy shouldn’t be applicable to other titles too, because the reader is not an idiot and will think as she is reading:

 

 ‘Yeah – but that applies to other stuff I see on the subject!’

 

 So unless your testimonial is specific to your product, it’s almost worthless. Worse than that – the reader will take a negative view of your ‘me-too’ publication. The result is a lost sale – probably thousands of them.

 

 Below are some examples to illustrate the problem, with guidelines on how to create great testimonials.

 

How Amazon sells subscriptions

I typed ‘magazine subscription’ into Amazon’s search facility and found this description of a home improvement magazine among the gift subscription offerings:

 

 ‘The inspirational magazine that helps you make your dreams for your home come true. Discover expert decorating and design tips and creative ideas to help you transform your home.’

 

 Do you have any idea which magazine this is describing? How about Ideal Home, House and Garden, Homes and Garden or BBC Good Homes? It’s actually describing House Beautiful. The copy is weak because it could apply to almost any home interest magazine and you immediately forget which one it is. Read on and I’ll show you how this weak copywriting ruined what could have been a great testimonial.

 

 As all good marketers know, it is vital to communicate the Unique Selling Proposition or ‘USP’ – to explain what’s special about your publication – otherwise you are not giving a reason for your prospects to buy. Your market will fall to others. No-one with experience would overlook the importance of communicating your publication’s USP.

 

 Marketing, like warfare, is a theatre of action: both are highly competitive and both full of inexperienced personnel. But an editor wouldn’t allow an inexperienced writer to write a lead feature in a magazine, so why should a publisher let an inexperienced writer create copy for a promotion?

 

House Beautiful customer review

All the advice I have given so far relates to general copy as well as to testimonials. But a testimonial is more important because it attracts around twice as much attention as general copy. People love to read quotations. Some titles could be sold entirely on testimonials. The Week, for example, uses testimonials throughout its copy.

 

 That is why a testimonial takes (and deserves) more time and effort to get right.

 

 When you look for House Beautiful in Amazon’s gift subscription area, you will find the most descriptive copy about this publication is written by a reader. It appears in the Customer Review section:

 

 ‘House Beautiful - So Much More Than Another Glossy House Mag’

By A Customer

 

 ‘The magazine is stylishly put together and covers every facet of property type from cottages to castles from the modest 1 bedroomed flat to a large Victorian detached. The properties, interiors and locations change each month and from article to article. So for example in any one month you can see features on first time buyers moving into their own home to the more adventurous and experienced house mover. Also articles of self help such as improving a drab bathroom or kitchen, with make over tips, helpful price lists and alternatives. Lots of information for the diyer or home decorator and all told and shown in an informative, lively manner. Just brilliant!’

 

 Are those words from a real customer, or a member of the magazine staff? Whoever wrote this gets one out of ten marks for at least trying her hand at copywriting. Because although the copy is weak and almost worthless, when I last looked most magazines on the Amazon site had no description at all.

 

 Promotions for consumer magazines today contain little or no marketing copy. Some are like the Amazon customer review, but usually less wordy (please correct me with an example if you find one that breaks this 'sad-but-true' rule).

 

 Some do have a small marketing content – an attractive free gift to incentivise the purchase – and that is definitely good marketing. However, organising free gifts is essentially a secretarial job. All that is left is the design, and that is usually done by the art department. So all in all, nowhere is any real direct marketing activity in evidence.

 

How to create great testimonials

Ask readers: “How has our publication helped you?” It may not be the easiest of questions to answer but it can throw up powerful testimonials such as this:

 

 “Training advice from Peak Performance has helped me to improve by using the correct exercises and strategies. I have also learned to get the maximum training effect with less time spent than in the past...”

 

 You can ask any reader for a testimonial, although a well-known personality or someone in a position of authority carries more weight, especially with business magazines. Ask about the reader’s favourite articles.

 

 A good question might be: “How do you use our publication?”

 

 I once published a magazine for a charity and the patron was Princess Diana. I asked her if she read the magazine and she replied, “Oh yes! It’s a joy!” She gave me some real insight into why it was different from the other magazines she read and I made sure her testimonial appeared in every subscription promotion for years to come. In that instance, her name was all.

 

 It is not too difficult to ensure the quotes you get are specific and unique to your publication. If you ask the wrong kind of question, such as: “What do you think of our magazine?” , you are likely to hear clichés like: “I look forward to it every month” and: “It covers everything of interest”. But you must go beyond those and ask: “Can you remember the last thing you read that was really useful?” or: “How does it compare to other magazines? What is better about it?”

 

 When you get answers to open-ended questions like these, they are likely to make pretty good copy. I often use a good testimonial or quote as a headline and that is as good as copy can get.

 

Using a quotation in your headline

Sometimes your testimonial or quote can come from an article. The quotation over the page appeared in the Peak Performance newsletter. I extracted it from the article and put it in the headline.

 

 Written in 2003, this email promotion is still going strong today:

 

 

This Super Set programme will make you “faster,

as strong as an ox and as powerful as a cheetah”.

 

 Dear Colleague,

 

 These are not our words, but those of two independent experts who investigated this extraordinary Super Set training programme.

 

 To see if Super Sets can work for you, answer the three questions below. Your responses could set you on the road to becoming “faster, as strong as an ox and as powerful as a cheetah”.

 

• Are you tired of doing the same workouts week after week?

 

• Are you moving through your usual menu of training sessions with less-than-optimal enthusiasm?

 

• Have your performances reached a plateau?

 

 If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, it's time for you to learn more about Super Sets:

 

  “Super Sets create a maximal stimulus for fitness advancement, which will make you faster, as strong as an ox and as powerful as a cheetah. When you carry out Super Sets, you are red-lining your training and challenging your boundaries. Very few other forms of training can test your limits as much as Super Set training.”

 

 This is a quotation from a recent report on the Super Set training programme published by the Peak Performance newsletter. The full programme is now available for you to try out now. Click below to learn more about this special offer, or read on to find out how Super Sets can work for you.

 

 

All illustrations are contained in issue 71 of the Subscriptions Strategy newsletter. Download in members section >>>