The Testimonial: 6 Keys to Making Them Work
The rise of social media and prevalence of online ratings and customer reviews on e-commerce sites tells us that today’s consumer values the opinion of her peers over that of the marketer or company.
This online phenomenon translates into direct mail in the form of customer testimonials, a direct mail fundamental. “What the testimonial is, and this is the same thing that we’re seeing online, it’s that the consumers are turning to each other to get confidence in who to trust,” says Russell Kern, founder and president of The Kern Organization, located in Woodland Hills, Calif. The customer testimonial takes the product endorsement out of the marketer’s hands and puts it into the consumers’ hands, adds Ken Schneider, direct mail copywriter and president of Ken Schneider & Associates, based in Houston.
In order to successfully implement testimonials in direct mail, marketers may need to dig to find the best comments to match with their selling points or mail package, and do some testing. Below are some tips from Kern and Schneider to get the most out of your testimonials.
