When you write a sales letter you are writing a short story telling your prospect how good your product is and how it can help him solve his problem but…

“Your words alone are not enough to convince your prospect to part with his hard earned cash and buy your product…”

While reading your letter he will have two big fears that you need to address…

1. The fear of being the first or only person to get your product and
2. Does it really work?

You could go on and on rattling about what a good offer you have for your prospect, and why he should buy from you, but unless you can prove that other people have bought it, and it has helped them, it’s going to be very difficult to convince your prospect to buy from you.

This means you need testimonials.

“Testimonials from your other customers are one of the strongest marketing tools available…”

A testimonial is a statement from a satisfied customer saying what great service he has received from you or how your product has transformed his life.

As soon as your client sees a few testimonials in your sales letter he immediately relaxes, they take the pressure and fear of making a mistake from his shoulders. After all, he thinks, “…other people have bought from you and been satisfied so why shouldn’t I?”

Whatever you do though, do not fake them! It is better to have no testimonials than a bunch of lies staring at your client – lies always catch up with you in the end.

What to Have In Your Testimonials

• Testimonials are about YOUR product or service – not you. They should show how much your product or service has helped other people not what a great person you are. Your prospects are only interested in how your product can benefit them or solve their problems. (Remember ‘ What’s in it for me?’)
• Results. The more specific they are, the better. Interested prospects want to know what benefits and results other customers have had from using your product or service.
• Quality / quantity. If you can get the top names in your niche or field to endorse your product, it will help increase your sales. If you do not know of any experts or ‘top names’ who will endorse your product, you can make up for this with the quantity of testimonials. The more testimonials you have, the more convincing your sales letter will be.
• Customer’s essential details. Include your customer’s Full Name and City/State/Country after his or her testimonial. You should include your customer’s web site URL or contact e-mail address where applicable (with permission). Also, if you can, get your customer’s to forward a photo and paste it alongside the testimonial. Photos add credibility and show how pleased your customers are when using your product.

A word of warning here…

Don’t hyperlink your testimonial givers website URL – any clickable links are an invitation to leave your page and go to someone elses sales letter.

If you include a photograph, you should host it on your own server – many web browsers are set to show only the images from the originating site. This means that if you simply include an image sourced from a different website your reader may only see a blank space insted of a photo.

Great, you now understand why you need testimonials, tomorrow I’ll show you how to get them even if you’ve not sold any products yet…

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Stuart Elliott is a world class copywriter who has written numerous stories on sales letters and copywriting. Drop by:
http://howtowritekickbuttcopy.com to pick up a free copywriting power guide.

Article copyright Stuart Elliott 2006 all rights reserved. You may only reprint this artitcle in it’s entirety and you must include this resource box.

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