Testimonial tips.

"It's easy to get early adopters to try a new product," says Peter Katz, vice president of marketing at Micro Focus. "Winning over people later in the technology life cycle is much harder: They need to see references from people just like themselves." Since Katz's company targets Cobol engineers (who tend to be exceptionally late adopters), he's fine tuned the use of customer testimonials to build greater "credibility and identification."

Those are tough feelings to measure, but Katz's testimonial strategy seems to be paying off. In Computerworld's 1992 brand preference survey, Micro Focus's Cobol Workbench scored eighth, tenth, or twelfth in 16 different product categories, says Katz. A year later, after an intense testimonial-based advertising and direct mail campaign, Cobol Workbench jumped to first place in 14 categories and second place in the other two. "There was a dramatic change in customer perception in one year, even though the product didn't change much at all."

Katz offered several tips on how to make testimonial marketing work well:

Recruit your "biggest fans": Katz says the most persuasive testimonials tend to come from users who are product champions rather than industry luminaries or top executives. The ideal combination, says Katz, is a committed product evangelist who also holds an "appropriate job title" that other customers will identify with. "You want the reader to say, 'I'm just like the person in this ad."'

Get the endorser's company on your side as well: Testimonials often get bogged down in corporate red tape, Katz points out, because big companies think endorsements create potential legal liabilities. So it's important to sell a corporate benefit as well (for instance, "being seen as state of the art"). "Besides, you never know how long your key contact is going to be around."

Don't put words in your customer's mouth: "When an ad agency writes a testimonial, it usually sounds bogus," Katz says. "Let your customers speak freely and then pick through what they say. You'll probably find something you hadn't thought of. In fact, customers often make statements that are much stronger than you would make yourself."

Encourage endorsers to focus on solutions: "Don't use quotes saying, 'This is the best product in the world.' There's no added value in that. The best testimonials talk about how the product affected someone's business or solved a problem for them."

Keep your endorsers happy: People who do testimonials usually expect exceptional tech support in return, Katz warns. "They're doing you a favor, so they expect you to go out of your way for them." He adds: "Customer satisfaction is very fleeting--you've got to keep them happy enough that they stick with you, at least until the testimonials are done."

Peter Katz, vice president of marketing, Micro Focus, 2465 E. Bayshore Rd., Palo Alto, Calif. 94303; 415/496-7262.