Testimonials Suck – Here’s What To Use Instead

Every time I hear someone talking about proof, or sales letters in general, I always hear one thing that really ticks me off… “You need testimonials!” Oh boy, could this be farther from the truth. Now, I’m not totally condemning testimonials, they certainly have their place. But are they the best and only proof you can give? Absolutely not. I’d even go so far as to say they’re the weakest form of proof considering how easily and FREQUENTLY they’re faked on the internet nowadays.
So, what’s the best form of proof that you can use in your copy? Stories! If you can tell an emotionally charged story that deeply connects with your reader, that’s the ultimate form of proof. Not only are you connecting with them but you’re showing them that you know EXACTLY what you’re talking about and what they’re feeling and going through.
Let me give you an example:
Let’s say you have a problem with training your dog. Now you go online, and you arrive on one sales letter, and they show you a bunch of graphs, pictures and a whole bunch of other stuff as proof to “convince” you to buy from them’. You decide to check out some other sites to see what they have to offer, and you land on this other guys site. This time the sales letter has a riveting story telling you how the guy had trouble with his dog constantly barking and biting things in his house until he found out about this training system that allowed him to completely train his dog in under a week.
Who would you believe?
The guy with the lame “graphs” or the guy who connected with you through his story and related to you on a deep emotional level?
I thought so.
Whenever you’re doing anything sales related, try to find the story hiding within everything because 98% of the time there’s a story behind EVERYTHING.
But how should you structure the story?
Well, you can use the classic Dan Kennedy formula:
Problem, agitation, solution
At the beginning of your story, talk about the problem, then towards the middle of the story, agitate the problem (put salt on the wound basically) and then towards the end there’s a solution (aka, your product or service).
It doesn’t need to be complicated at all and it could put you leaps and bounds ahead of your competition.