Using testimonials to write expert copy

Posted by David Tendrich on Oct 7, 2009 in All, Expert Copywriting | 4 comments

Note: You can use this technique even if you think you’re terrible at writing, and you will have powerful copy that sells.

Your testimonials are a gold mine for copywriting.

So are your competitors’ testimonials.

What do I mean? Let me show you…

Say you have a few testimonials that sound like this:

“I used to think I could never learn guitar. When I was growing up my family told me I just wasn’t musical. But after the 4th lesson I could already play a song.”

“You’re a very inspiring teacher and I’m learning very quickly – I felt with the right teacher I could succeed and you proved to be that teacher.”

“I’m learning the deeper part of playing music – the soulful side – something I didn’t know could be taught. It’s bringing a depth to my playing that I never had before.”

This is how I would turn these into copy for a website, newspaper ad, etc.:

To an aspiring guitarist,

Maybe you think you’d never be able to play guitar. Maybe as a child someone told you “you’re just not creative” or “you’re just not cut out for music”. Or maybe not, maybe you’re one of the few out there who knows you can succeed on the guitar if you only had the right teacher.

Regardless of your background with music, I guarantee you after just 4 lessons you’re going to have a song under your belt (or close to it). And not only that – you’re also going to learn how to connect to your inner-musician to play soulful, meaningful music. Just about anyone can learn how to play a few chords and scales – but what separates the great guitarists from the average ones is the ability to play from the heart.

And that’s just what I’d like to teach you….

Now, this isn’t the most brilliant copy in the world (I just wrote it off the tip of my head), but did you see how I weaved the things written in those 3 testimonials into the copy? And did you see how I used the same language in the testimonials in the copy? I pretty much copied them word for word!

Here’s why this works so well…

The most powerful way to get people to trust you, whether on the phone, in writing, or in person, is to use their language, and their words, to describe their problems, and their aspirations.

If you use words that they’d never use – it creates a disconnect. Your customers will feel unfamiliar with you and your service. But testimonials give you these words that you need to connect to them – all you have to do is weave them into a story or some copy like the example above.

Here’s where your competitors’ testimonials come into play:

Your competitors’ testimonials discuss the problems and aspirations of your target market just as well as yours do. So use’em! Take the language of their testimonials and morph it into copy. The more testimonials you read, the more language you adopt from your target market, and the better copy you can write.

Till next time,

David