No telling how many roofs that company will eventually install from just one original customer referral. The roofer may get every job up and down the entire street. That's the power of customer spokespeople.  

Customer spokespeople are an effective – perhaps the most effective – way to communicate about a product or service. One-on-one, it's called word-of-mouth. In mass communications it's a testimonial. Either way it works.

Testimonials have been a mainstay of B2B advertising for time immemorial, and their effectiveness will keep them going far into the future. This is especially true for significant purchase decisions, like capital equipment or systems which may require changes in the way the purchaser does business. When a BrainPosse principal changed Sprinter's forms automation software campaign from ads based on technology and how the system works to testimonials about the system's bottom-line benefit for customers, qualified leads increased 900%. (See ROI Marketing: It's Not Rocket Science.)

True testimonials (as opposed to dramatizations) are not as prevalent in consumer advertising, but even there, they are extremely effective, As in B2B, the more important the decision, the more effective a testimonial is likely to be. We use them extensively in healthcare advertising, for example. But they can also work on less crucial decisions – like what to have for lunch. Jared Fogle's story of losing 235 pounds by eating Subway sandwiches has been a powerful communications tool for the chain.

Of course testimonials – whether B2B or consumer – don't have to be as literal as people talking to a camera in a TV spot or web video. Or smiling out of a photo with a quote beside them in an ad or brochure. Two commercials we did for hospitals' cardiac services illustrate the point. In the first, a former patient describes the treatment he received and the fact that without the resources of the hospital he might have died. The second simply features a montage of shots of former patients being kissed by their spouses with the patients' names and their heart conditions superimposed over the shot. (Click the screen captures above to view the commercials and see the difference.)

Testimonials are no longer limited to ads and commercials. Now that users communicate freely and frequently about products and services on the web, testimonials (or slams) are everywhere.

As Martin Baird says in a white paper on the Net Advocate Index, "Consumers are willing to share their knowledge with millions of others and thus advocate the good/bad experience they have had with any firm, product or brand. The seller's reputation today depends on feedback that is given by the customer – feedback that is instantly felt or measured on the Internet."

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell formulates "The Law of the Few," which describes individuals or small groups of influential people who have disproportionate impact on the beliefs or behaviors of much larger groups. Gladwell divides the few who influence the many into three categories:

• Connectors: people with a wide range of acquaintainces. They are the links that always turn up in the six degrees of separation chains,
• Mavens: experts who are avid collectors and dispersers of information about product categories.
• Salesmen: advocates who persuade others to adopt their beliefs or behaviors.

Reaching these three groups has always been important. It has now become critical. The key is invitation to dialog. The conversation can begin at special events for these new influentials. It can be on the web via sites with free-flowing information, scary as that may be. It can be through research that pinpoints their attitudes so company communications are answers to their questions, not just sales talks.

However dialog begins, good listening is essential.

In a recent case, dialogue occurred during one-on-one interviews we were conducting to develop a testimonial campaign. We knew the important functional benefits our client's product provided. But until speaking with users we were unaware of an even more important emotional need the product filled. What we learned in those conversations helped us create a much more effective campaign than we would have developed with functional – purely rational – benefits alone.

Marketing communications has changed fundamentally from simply sending messages to a target audience to conversing with constituencies. In this new environment the importance – and power – of testimonials is greater than ever.

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