I was surfing the web last night and was noticing how many sites have testimonials that never change. The same ones that they put up years ago, that they use over and again on various websites in different ways.
When I see that it makes me wonder – would the person giving the testimonial still say the same thing today?
Should testimonials have an expiry date on them that requires they are renewed on a regular basis?
This is something that I actually did a while back for one of my promotions – I had a testimonial that someone gave me for my book a couple of years ago that I wanted to use for a new promotion. It felt wierd to me to just pop this testimonial on my new page so I popped this person an email and said “hey, i know you gave me this testimonial a while back and I just wanted to check – are you fine if I use it again here [for my new promo] and would you still say the same things or would you prefer to tweak it?” Thankfully that person said yes, LOL.
But really, shouldn’t we be in touch with folks to see if the testimonial still applies? Would they add something to it or change it? Or would they prefer us to remove it altogether for some reason? I think we need to be willing to “stand in the truth” of our testimonials and also to respect if/when someone’s testimonial may no longer apply.
Curious for your thoughts… what do you think?