02 – Systems for Success: Mindset and Skills for Collecting Compelling Testimonials & Case Studies
05 - Different Categories of Testimonials and Case Studies
Batching your testimonials into different categories is powerful from the following perspective: As humans, we like to associate with certain groups and therefore, anytime you see an ad for senior citizens, oftentimes what is featured in that ad are happy senior citizens… and then they're trying to sell you whatever it is that they're trying to sell you. Making your testimonials into different categories that go beyond demographics, that go beyond that picture of senior citizens is extremely powerful because it batches people in different ways that are even more powerful than demographics.
So what do I mean by that? Well, let's say I'm a beginner at a particular activity. If I see a testimonial from another person who's just starting out, I'll look at that person then I'll say “wow I‘m a beginner like them.” I share that commonality. Now on the other side of the spectrum let's say someone experienced with this particular activity and I see a testimonial from a beginner I might think that this person and therefore this product or service is not at the level I need it to be. This works the other way too. Let's say I'm a beginner and I see a testimonial from an expert. I also might not think I'm in the right place. There are several categories of testimonials that we want to pay attention to and I'm going to go over them with you really quickly right now.
So as we've discussed there's the beginner testimonial. There's the expert testimony, and this is more from the academic perspective this is the: “eight out of ten doctors prefer a Crest” is an example of an expert testimonial. Then there‘s also the professional testimonial. This is rather than being from the dentist example eight out of ten doctors prefer Crest. This might be for doing a professional testimonial. This might be someone who let's say was a woodworker was an expert woodworker who is talking about the function of this particular piece of machinery and how that improves their production and improves their company. Subtle difference there.
The next two I think are perhaps the most powerful. The first one is the “I’ve tried everything and nothing worked until… “ style of testimonial and that solid testimonial is exactly what it says. They've tried a bunch of different things to address the challenge that they face and none of them work until they engage with your organization. The reason that's so powerful is that there are a lot of other people in that situation and it also shows credibility from the perspective of being able to solve a challenge that no one else could solve.
The next one is the celebrity testimonial. This one is good. I think that this one is a lot. It is powerful in certain markets more than others. Once again going back to positive affiliation people in markets where there‘s considerable peer pressure, or the desire to have a sense of belonging or affiliation when it comes to celebrity endorsements.
The last one is the skeptic or the researcher. This is a testimonial from someone who has researched many, many, many different solutions or providers and decided to go with your organization and ultimately had a good experience and is giving you the feedback as a result of that experience.
So I hope you can start to see that by framing these testimonials in these categories like this is a lot more powerful than not categorizing them at all. So I would ask that you think about your customers and start binning them in these categories and if you have different categories I haven't mentioned here I would be interested in learning what those different categories are as well.