Entice me with your testimonials ... really?

Personally I don't buy into testimonials. 

If I, as a potential customer, visit your website and testimonials are scattered around the place will this really entice me to buy your product or sign up for your service? Unfortunately not, but instead I will become skeptical as to the validity of these testimonials and possibly your products and services to.

Were they really written by your customers? Were they heavily edited to alter the overall impression?

I will not deny the effectiveness of transparent marketing tactics as potential customer are going to be much more responsive to endorsements from an existing customer base as opposed to a business harping on about how good their products and services are.

Trip Advisor is one example of transparent marketing but one that is setup for the holiday goer and not the hospitality industry, that said it can work wonders for businesses if they provide a good service, therefore getting rave reviews. On the other hand it can be enormously detrimental to a business if they don't provide a good service but then what can they expect, bad service means unhappy customers.

Word of mouth is the most influential marketing tool for most businesses but this trustworthiness can easily be lost in badly constructed testimonials. Two emerging tactics that retain trust is the use of video and social media. A video testimonial is more believable as customers can see and hear your customers opinions and expressions therefore making them more human than flat text on a screen. The other tactic is social media which is a fantastic way to showcase a business in a transparent manner by engaging directly with a customer base. This engagement is on a platform that anyone in the world can see. Surely this can only be liberating and educational to a business?

I believe that the days of written testimonials are long gone as 'testimonial blindness' has crept in, its popularity has become its downfall. Video and social media offer a more transparent and believable way of marketing products and services. With the right strategy in place these tactics can engage and revitalise a new and existing audience.