There are a number of things that can be done to help give you more credibility among your prospects and customers.
Remember, your audience is very skeptical. And in an age of skepticism, you need to overcome that skepticism to generate leads and sales.
If you do the following, you will increase your response and profitability of any campaign.

  1. Testimonials – Whether online, electronic media, or print, testimonials are powerful in being able to convey trust and believably. People much rather read what others say. They believe it more than what you say.

In your copy, several things can improve the credibility of the testimonials:

  • Use the person’s picture
  • Use the occupation and or city and state
  • Don’t have the testimonial be perfect in language, let it be natural.

In testing, we found that by using common looking people, not “beautiful” people, increased credibility. We found that grammatically incorrect testimonials work better than the ones we massaged to be perfect.

  1. Video Testimonials – Create video testimonials to draw people to your banner ads, emails, landing pages, and corporate sites. Videos also featured people who are not perfect, but normal.
  2. Celebrity Testimonials – These testimonials can work but you have to be very careful. Our ad agency has used many celebrity testimonials over the years and it didn’t always pay out. They must be a good fit to work.
  3. Expert Testimonials – These testimonials are the ones where, for example, if you have a financial product and a CPA said that it is a good product or service, it works very well.
  4. Media Testimonials – Do you have articles or media interview that build you up? Use it.
  5. Reviews – In the online world, reviews are common. Reviews can be: 1) publication reviews; and 2) prospect or customer reviews. People read the reviews and believe them. If your landing page has a review section, it will be well read. One study shows 85% read up to 10 reviews before they can trust the business.
  6. Star Ratings – People have become conditioned to look at the star ratings. Do you use them? Their willingness to do a business would drop up to 50% if the product has 2 stars instead of 3. Create a star rating.

 
If you need help creating direct response copy for your next marketing campaign, call me at 310-212-5727 or email [email protected].