When you go to a website and you see quotes or videos from clients gushing over that business' products or services, how convinced are you that those are genuine responses from real customers?
It is similar to reading reviews for products on Amazon - maybe the positive reviews are posted by people who just work for the company. Or maybe I am just overly cynical.
The reason I ask is that I just added a video to my web page and YouTube channel containing video testimonials from some of my clients. (Click here to view it.)
How did I get the clips? I simply asked folks if they would be willing to say a few words about the show they just enjoyed. I did not give them a script or ask them to make stuff up or be overly effusive in their praise.
I obviously picked what I thought were the best clips to use and yes, they are absolutely genuine. But how do YOU know that ? (besides the fact that I just told you.) There are a few clues.
I made sure to incude at least a couple of people stating their names. For brevity I often edited that out (though I always had them give it when I recorded them), but a name does give credence to their statements and helps to legitimize them. Also, in most cases I did include their referencing "Steve Haffner's show" so that you can tell I didn't steal somebody else's testimonials.
On my web page, I include some text quotes and I always include the person's name and company, and sometimes their position.
I suppose if someone REALLY wanted to create fake testimonials, they could go to the trouble of faking them. But why not just have a great show and then get the real ones?
Should you use testimonials - video or otherwise - for your business? Check out this article from Entrepreneur.com. It's a testimonial to the power of testimonials!
Until next time, keep it real!
- Steve
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