7/7/2009
Don't Let Testimonials Dictate Your Marketing Strategy
Monkey See, Monkey Do Will Make a Monkey Out of You
When Marketing, Use Your Head
Yellow Page Ad Bleeds Red Ink
The good news was … when I started out as a marketing manager, I was given a lot of rope. The bad news was … I immediately went out and almost hanged myself.
We were trying to sell more brown boxes, which were quite profitable at the time. Problem was, our usual methods – sales calls, brochures, seasonal promotions – weren’t generating much growth.
I started doing some research and discovered that many of our competitors, including the top distributors in our market, had huge Yellow Page ads (this was in the 1980s, when the B2B Yellow Pages were all the rage).
So I immediately jumped to reached the conclusion that Yellow Page advertising was The Answer. I summoned the Yellow Pages sales rep, who used testimonial after testimonial illustrating the awesome selling power and ROI of his ads. (My first clue should have been none of the testimonials was from a firm promoting our product line.)
If everyone was doing it, we should too, I reasoned. So I bought an ad. Cost – $10,000. To put this in perspective, our entire marketing budget up to this point was somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000.
Nine months later, I was in an executive meeting and someone asked me how the Yellow Page ad was doing. That was the one question I was hoping nobody would ask. I was forced to report that after nine months, we had obtained two orders generating about $200 in gross profit. Miraculously I was allowed to continue marketing, but they were still razzing me about it 10 years later. While most of the jesting was good natured, I can’t help but feel the episode made my superiors less inclined to let me innovate.
In Marketing, There’s No Substitute for Thinking
Anyone in marketing knows that testimonials are extremely persuasive. People are inclined to do what they see others do, especially if those others are respectable members of the business community. While testimonials have a role in decision making, they can only take you so far. Rather than be swayed by appearances and superficial comparisons, this is what I should have done.
- Ask the Yellow Pages rep for endorsements from companies in my industry, preferably for advertisements featuring my product line.
- Attempt to find out if these gigantic ads were getting results for my competitors. (As time went on, I discovered that they were generally flops.)
- Survey our new brown box customers to determine how they found us and why they bought from us. (I would have discovered the predominant reason was word of mouth.)
- Observe that our average order size was less than $300, leading to the conclusion that an acceptable ROI would require an unrealistically high response rate.
Instead, this is what I did.
- Allowed myself to be led where I wanted to go. I wanted to imitate my top competitors and I wanted to do something different.
- Made my decision more or less in isolation, rather than involve colleagues with greater business experience.
- Used my communication skills to sell a weak argument instead of using my analytical skills to construct a good argument.
Maybe if my mistake had been smaller, I wouldn’t have learned so much. Still, today’s business climate is more pressure packed than I ever remember it. Maybe this post will help someone else learn the lesson without squandering the money.
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18 Responses to Don't Let Testimonials Dictate Your Marketing Strategy
Great lesson, Brad! I can’t count the number of times I’ve done all three of your “what I did” list myself. It’s so easy to get carried away when the only one we consult with is that guy in the mirror – and he rarely disagrees with me, y’know? (But boy, when he does…)
Thanks for the WILF entry, along with a great life lesson too, for that matter! Tip o’ the hat to ya!
Robert, Your projects are a ton of fun and I look forward to participating and reading the entries every month. We’ve probably all been where I was on this marketing blooper, but the trick is to be aware of it beforehand versus while performing the autopsy.
Brad,
Great post and a great lesson. The good news is that you learned the lesson many years ago. Some people don’t learn it until they are deep in their careers. Some ideas come and go — good thinking is never out of vogue.
Bill
Bill, Very true, though I must confess I
frequentlyoccasionally make the same the mistakes even now. I guess that demonstrates that learning is never out of vogue, either.Hi Brad – At least you learned from your mistake and they didn’t fire you. I have used Yellow Pages before but as you say, it doesn’t work for all businesses – especially those who only make a small profit on each order.
Cath, So true. I assumed my seemingly successful competitors had discovered the secret … but they probably made the same mistake I did by copying someone else.
The best mistakes are the biggest ones we survive.
Your advice on testimonials is very sound. Depending on the type of decision being made you may also have to check them like references to make sure they accurately describe what is being said.
You have to love a boss that lets you learn by mistakes. I love the idea of asking customers how they found you. The information is all around us — where and why we succeed — if we just ask the questions. Kay
Hi Fred, Another great point – testimonials can be misleading and it usually pays to talk to the endorser. I find this to be particularly illuminating for web design and programming.
Kay, It always amazes me how infrequently companies follow your advice and actually talk to customers and potential customers. I’m reading that portion of your book right now – you have an excellent resource for firms that want to figure out what and how to ask. http://www.plantescompany.com/beyondprice/
Brad,
Your lesson was expensive, but you learned it well and probably saved a lot of money through the years. Maybe it wasn’t as expensive over the long haul as it seemed at the time.
“In #Marketing, There’s No Substitute for Thinking”
Can I have a t-shirt with that emblazoned on it? That really cuts straight to the heart of the matter – great article!!
Lillie, True – I might have spend $2000 a year on ads for 10 years and never been the wiser.
Barbara, LOL. Perhaps that should be my new tagline as well.
i read your article, its nice and im learning. im a newbie on blogging and is still suffering from low traffic. thanks for your posts.
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That was quite an “investment” you made on your own Brad! My more “conservative” former employer wanted me to reach prospective clients for our new service ( pre internet) and to help I subscribed to a reputable directory of what we considered to be top notch companies at a huge cost ( by our – not your standards). The enormous tome arrived in the mail and I had to trawl through it to find appropriate “target” companies – of which there were probably 20 out of thousands…and not one of them would even meet us to discuss working together. At least I could fall back on the fact that my boss had signed that spend off as he was suitably impressed by its potential…
As usual I laughed at this post – and as is also usually the case I learned a lot!
Lloyd, Thanks for stopping by, and hope the articles help. Sorry for the late response/welcome.
Jackie, It’s nice to know you’re not alone when it comes to goofing up marketing campaigns.
Your comment made me feel a whole lot better. Interesting how the humor element is such an aid to learning … I remember years ago watching a series of sales training videos by John Cleese. Probably the best sales training I ever had – I can still remember some of the key points, 15+ years late.
Interesting post!
It is so important to take a look at competitors and see what they are doing that you aren’t, and then work upon it, enhance it in your own way.
I agree with you that testimonials are so important as if they are good, they will generally suggest that using that marketing technique will have a successful effect for you too.
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