I recently decided that I wanted to run a marathon.  I’ve been running off and on for most of my life but I’ve never taken on anything quite like this so I purchased a book called The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer.  It is a book written by two professors at the University of Northern Iowa who have successfully taught a course called Marathon Running 101 for more than ten years.  The result has been more than 200 students successfully running a marathon at the end of the course. 

Why am I telling you all of this? 

Because after only a few pages into the book, I was absolutely astounded.  This book is amazing!  I’m not talking about the training structure or the running tools and advice that they give – I’m only a few weeks into the program and the proof of their advice will be in my marathon results. 

The truly great part of this book are the testimonials contained inside.  They demonstrate how powerful the voice of experience can be. 

When I read the stories and testimonials inside the book, meant to keep the reader encouraged and committed to the program, I was inspired to give it a try but more importantly I was amazed at the power, the affect, the words of these people had on me. 

More than 200 people have taken the course and all but one has successfully completed a marathon.  These students range in age from 20 years old to 55 years old.  They all have different backgrounds and running experience, many of whom had zero running experience before they took the course.  What struck me as I read the intermittent testimonials, case studies, and inspirational success, and failure, stories was that every book should be like this. 

Every book, every article, every blog, and every email message, could benefit from using testimonials and personal stories just like this book does.

 Testimonials aren’t just for sales pages! 

Testimonials not only give your copy immense credibility, testimonials enable your reader to relate to your material, it gives your reader the ability to put themselves in someone else’s shoes, to imagine themselves in the same position – it’s the best sales and marketing tool available.  Nothing is better than real word of mouth experience and advertising. 

To strenghthen your copy consider this:

You can include testimonials or personal stories in your articles, in your blogs, and even in your email marketing messages and e-zine copy.  If you cannot find a personal story or testimonial relating to your copy, pull one from your own life.  For example, if you’re writing an article about teaching your parrot to roll over, (yes I have really written articles about this exact subject) talk about a time when you were working on the trick and something funny, successful, or even unsuccessful happened and how you overcame it.  Whether the story comes from you, a customer, a friend, or a client, when you interject a bit of personal information into your copy your words become much more powerful. 

 I strongly recommend grabbing a copy of this book at your library or purchasing it at Amazon where it retails for $10.17 and I believe it is available for download there too.  The copywriting lessons you can learn from it are priceless.