Sooner or later, after all the clicking through blogs and search engine links, you are going to run into the main page for the product. And whether it is an e-mail marketing campaign, the Reverse Funnel System, or an e-book; you will find some testimonials.

Copywriters love testimonials. Mr. J. Robinson of San Diego says. “I absolutely loved it! I’m making more money in a week than I used to make as a neurosurgeon in three months!”

Hard to believe? Some are, some are more down to earth. But they appear for a reason. Copywriters know we are largely immune to overt sales pitches. That’s why newsletters and forum marketing are used. We don’t trust sales people when they appear too pushy because we know their main interest isn’t in us, but in their own commissions. Reading about a product on a forum uses the human touch to instill trust.
So too with testimonials. A third party, who doesn’t seem to benefit and who tells us the sales claims are true, enhances our feelings of trust.
How do those testimonials get there?

Here’s one way:

An ad appears on an online, brokered writing site. Here’s a recent one:
Hiring writers to evaluate my site. One paragraph, $10.

The money isn’t much, but it’s enough for someone who wants to make a quick ten bucks. This gentleman also offered to embed a link to the writer’s web page along with the paragraph.

Looking over his site, you could see he’d done some good work already- it looked professional and was easy to navigate. His products were an ebook about personal finance and one on credit repair. The copywriting was good. He just wanted a few testimonials to punch up the pitch.
Writers who signed up to ‘evaluate his site’ got a password to read his materials. They were requested to write a ‘review’ and include a photograph and valid email address as well as a link to their personal webpage. Writers were also told to give their name and hometown.

Everything was straightforward. They site owner wasn’t asking anyone to lie and he didn’t tell anyone what to write. What he did do is ask for ‘whatever you think is good about the site’ in one paragraph, and ‘whatever criticisms you have’ in a separate paragraph. You can figure out which of the two paragraphs were slated to become testimonials.
He used the criticisms as useful (and private) comments on his product and posted the testimonials. The nice thing about hiring writers for the paid testimonials was that they were well written and readable. He edited out a few bits, but didn’t add bogus text.

You should also know that this was a done as a ‘work for hire’. In the writing game, that means that this gentleman owns all rights to the material and can use it or change it as he sees fit. For $10.

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