Audio Testimonials: A Review

I had an opportunity to deconstruct the sales funnel for a company in the business training space with a popular podcast series. This particular podcast has a significant listenership and has at two basic revenue streams: The company first uses the podcast as a platform to promote an in person training program they conduct, and second the company sells advertising space in the podcast itself.

This particular company does have some ads that read like ads. That is - the host reads a branding message that was fleshed out with the company purchasing the ad space. For just about everything else, they lean towards using a testimonials model.

The products this company promotes are ones that align with the brand of company. “This episode is sponsored by XYZ. I like this product because of XYZ feature(s), and I use it all the time.” Something off the cuff sounding and authentic. These ads are recorded separately from the main content of the podcast, polished up and spliced in later.

This is something that the average consumer recognizes right away. There’s no smoke and mirrors, “This company paid us to review the product today, and here’s what we think.”

The model flips, however, when they promote their own training program.

During the show, the host introduces an audio testimonial from someone that has completed their training program. Unlike the off the cuff paid advertisement, the customer testimonial fits into a well formed template that is relatively uniform from episode to episode. It’s a single testimonial placed as a break during the most engaging part of the podcast content - where the prospective customer is most engaged.

Now instead of turning on the mic and letting the customer ramble, instead he comes to them with a series of questions (some targeted, some open ended) that will get the customers thought process rolling. They record the back and forth. Then afterwards, edit the recording so it sounds like only the customer is speaking.

The questions look something like this:

• Who are you, what do you do and where are you from?

• How did you hear about our company and what initially got you interested in our program?

• What made you decide to take out program and what were you looking to get from it?

• What was holding you back from taking our program or what concerns did you have, and what changed your mind or pushed those concerns aside?

• What results did you see after taking the program?

• Would you recommend our program and who would you recommend it to?

Then the recording is edited, and the final cut looks something like this:

“My name is Jack, I’m in XYZ career and live in XYZ. -cut- I heard about the program by XYZ source and began to look over their free information/blogs/articles/podcasts/videos and found the content useful. -cut- I decided to take the program because I wanted XYZ result and I picked this program for this-that-and-the-other reason(s) -cut- I had XYZ concerns/reservations (sales objections), and here’s what happened that assuaged those concerns -cut- The results I’ve had are XYZ and I would recommend the program to XYZ people who are looking to solve XYZ problem. “

This model works like gang busters because the content the company produces is good. People find it useful and share the podcast enthusiastically. Because podcasts has a wide reach, it’s worth the while of external advertisers to place a single ad, or multiple ads. Because podcast apps can be set to subscribe to new episodes, listeners are also exposed to the advertisement for the live training multiple times over the course of their personal buying cycle.

In the internet marketing space, some may be familiar with the idea of offering lower priced initial products to get customers in the sales funnel. The eventual intention is to get a percentage of those customers in the funnel to make bigger dollar purchases, and even a high end purchase down the road.

This company essentially only offers a high end purchase option. They have structured their business such that they generate revenues from listeners that only consume free content, and those that jump into the deep end with the big purchase.

This audio testimonials are so effective because they are so mildly edited. They are given come ques to make sure they touch on everything that is important for a prospective customer to hear, but otherwise the strongest selling point is their authenticity. The testimonials were left by people that loved the training and loved the results they saw.

Many businesses can do some variation of the same thing. Even a landscaping company has happy customers that would be happy to speak into the camera of an iPhone and let the clip be used on a website. Look for ways to leverage, copy and clone the enthusiasm of your happy customers and how to use that to pull in more sales.