17
Others’ Singing Your Praises

By Chip Kessler

Dr. John R. Brinkley didn’t need to search too long for any number of wonderful and talented singers to fill up the hours on his radio stations that were devoted to this form of entertainment. The good doctor didn’t have to look very far to have “ordinary folks” talk him up either when it came to his abilities as a physician and surgeon.

The Brinkley marketing machine paid proper respect and reverence to the power of a well-crafted, heart-felt testimonial. As introduced in our proceeding chapter, there was the real-life testimonial: little Billy Stittsworth, Jr., and his parents’ enthusiasm, parents that only a short time earlier were looking at a life devoid of sex let alone offspring.

Could a marketer ask for a better testimonial in this situation than flesh and blood social proof? It’s such a strong tool that today; social-proof is in the toolbox of every savvy marketer. Let’s spend a few moments and offer up some “social proof” examples that have been paraded in front of us in all kinds of advertising:

•   The plastic surgeon that uses before and after photos of a woman’s nose, lips, eyes or figure. Common, almost, now essential. You may have heard my co-author, Dan Kennedy, talk about a one-time client of his, Dr. Robert Kotler, a cosmetic surgeon recently seen on the reality TV show Dr. 90210. When Dan was working with him, Dr. Kotler often held get-acquainted seminars for prospective patients and brought actual patients to the seminars… so, after showing their Before photos, people could see the After’s in the flesh, ask them questions, and hear from them, not just about their successful surgeries, but about their lives… very much akin to Dr. Brinkley’s bringing little Billy Jr. and his beaming parents in to meet groups of patients to-be at his clinic.

•   The couple that was in deep debt and despair because they owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the I.R.S. until they visited the expert tax attorney who arranged for them to pay “pennies on the dollar” in a settlement. We see them happily enjoying their beautiful home, maybe racing across the lake in their boat on a sunny day.

•   The lonely man or woman who couldn’t find love, until the online matchmaking service connected them with the perfect mate. We see them sitting close to each other on the couch, holding hands, smiling, as they speak of soul mates. We may see their wedding pictures. Their romantic walk on the beach.

Such social-proof testimonials can represent and speak only of reasons to believe. Under ideal circumstances, the savviest marketer presents those who can also motivate desire to believe.

I recall as a boy sending away for some information in the mid-1960's about a table-top dice pro football game. The game, for its day and time was rather expensive at $11.95 compared to other football games back then that were selling for $2.95 or $3.95. When the information arrived, it not only contained a full color brochure detailing every aspect of the game, how much fun it was to play, and how it was the next best thing to being a real pro football player yourself; the game company also sent along an eight and a half by fourteen inch sized piece of paper that contained one testimonial after another (on both sides of the page) from boys (full names along with cities and states) that had previously purchased the game, loved it, and had taken the time to write the company and tell them how much they loved it. I enjoyed reading those testimonials more than the game brochure because it made me picture myself playing the game and enjoying it as much as those guys that had written about it. I had a paper route at the time and you better believe that I started saving up my money to buy that game!

Customers are certainly not the only people you might want to have singing your praises. Depending on your business, you might want to have experts and credentialed authorities, local or national celebrities, professional peers, the media. But it’s hard to trump the farmer and his wife, with little Billy Jr. in tow.

In fact, a Brinkley strategy was to be alert for opportunities to capture particularly dramatic testimonials—something too few marketers focus deliberate effort on. For that reason, Brinkley wasn’t content to just treat the easy patients, such as younger men that could buck the odds of an unsuccessful goat gland transplant and still find their way back to sexual health because the onslaught of time hadn’t yet taken its toll. An example cited in Charlatan recounts the “remarkable story of” 71 year old J.J. Tobias, a chancellor at the University of the Chicago School of Law. After going under the doctor’s knife, Tobias is quoted as exclaiming how he felt “25 years younger … full of pep, strong, healthy … ready to go on with my work.” Tobias goes on to tell how he was “ill, old and played out, but the operation has revived me.” Brinkley was eager to operate on Tobias despite the low likelihood of the patient feeling he was improved because, if he did experience positive results, he would be an immensely valuable “poster boy". Not only was he 71 years old, but he was an influential leader at a respected academic institution. As it turned out, in his mind, J.J. Tobias went from old to new again, and he gladly sang the praises of the amazing Dr. Brinkley, including giving an interview that was published in the Syracuse Herald newspaper.

If you want to excel and stand out from competitors and clutter with social proof, it’s not enough just to collect and present testimonials at random. To replicate Dr. Brinkley, you will seek and intentionally create and present exceptionally dramatic human interest stories from customers who not only provide reason to believe, but also motivate desire to believe.