How to collect reviews and testimonials that help you sell your thing

January 2023

There are several boxes you have to check before someone will buy your thing.

Check out Landing Page Audit-in-a-box for a full list, but for now let’s just focus on two of them:

◻️ Do other people use it?

◻️ Yeah but what about … ?

The first concern is commonly addressed by providing “social proof”—evidence that the product is appreciated by actual human beings.

Testimonials and reviews are a typical way to provide this proof (a row of fancy logos is another option with B2B marketing).

But a testimonial that only provides social proof is shirking its duties. It can, and should, also help address specific customer objections.

For a full framework on how to pull this off, see these two posts by Sean D’Souza. But if you’re in a hurry, here’s a short version.

Just ask your customer two questions.

Take me back to the moment before you decided to buy the thing. What was your situation and what was something that caused you to hesitate?
Now come back to the present. How’s it working out?

This will get you a quote in the following format:

I was worried about {objection}, but I ended up with {benefit}.

A concise, believable (because it’s true) story that addresses an actual customer objection and provides social proof.