Last week, I was checking a new program by an email marketer.
I scrolled through his sales page, nodding at all the buyer’s triggers.
It was good.
But something felt off.
…
…
💡
Suddenly, I noticed a weird coincidence.
I jumped back to the “social proof” section.
“Hmm, this looks familiar…” I murmured in disbelief.
Alex Hormozi. Tony Robbins. Russell Brunson.
“I swear this is the third time this month I see a guru dropping the same ‘proof’ from the same ‘big names’ for a completely different program.”
This is when I remembered…
The Internet Marketing world is full of recycled testimonials.
Copywriter A landed a big guru.
Copywriter B “sold” Copywriter A a program trial… free of cost.
(“Hey, I have this new program. Do you want to try it out?”)
Copywriter B is now officially the “teacher” of students who landed the big guru. To turbocharge this 💩…
They can “swap” testimonials, so now they are both Hall of Fame copywriters.
(and gurus are not afraid to use a testimonial for a 10k DFY service to sell a 10 program… as if you can get the same result)
Customers aren’t dumb.
They are noticing, too.
That’s why social proof, reviews, and testimonials are becoming less effective in every market.
My experience is:
Unless you can weave the testimonial into your email as an emotionally triggering story, slapping blatant 5-star reviews is easy to ignore.
Customers are more sophisticated now.
That’s why many e-commerces are seeing “testimonial emails” stop working.
To make things worse…
AI is making people even more skeptical.
So, you can no longer “get by” with a simple email that includes three 5-star reviews and a CTA button.
Talk soon,
– WYH