HN Explorer

Ask HN: Hush-Hush Testimonial

3 points by eruci ↗ HN
I asked a South Africa based client for a testimonial yesterday and this is what they said: "We're very happy with the quality of your reverse geocoding but we'd rather keep the fact that we're using your API secret from our competitors. " Could this still qualify as a testimonial if I keep it anonymous?

3 comments

[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 19.5 ms ] thread
vikramkr
Ask them what they're willing to let you post. Only thing that matters is what is comfortable with you saying. If they dont want you to use any of their words at all then no dint use anything. If they are willing to let you use their words, then what matters is what your own customers think. If they will view an anonymous testimonial as legitimate, then use it. If not, then dont. It's a very industry and customer specific thing, though I know personally I wouldn't ever take an anonymous testimonial from a company at face value. Why do you want to use this client's testimonial in particular? Big name brand or something? Why would an anonymous testimonial be helpful to selling to your client base?
eruci
Big brand, yes. I've never done any marketing, but I see testimonials as a common technique. No idea how to go about it, however.
vikramkr
Testimonials alone aren't a good enough marketing tool, and certainly an anonymous testimonial won't be good enough then. There's no secret to marketing, just talk to your users and potential users and ask them what they want to see to commit to using your product, and if they say they want to see testimonials, then you know to focus on testimonials. Although, if you can demonstrate that you are solving their problems, and you are at this early enough stage that you can spend time on each customer, you likely won't need testimonials, and of course if you don't have any then you need to focus on getting customers that you can get without needing testimonials. But there definitely isn't some sort of ruleset like "if you get two testimonials then you unlock 3 million ARR" - you understand your customers better than anyone and need to play to their specific needs.

In terms of how to go about getting testimonials, ask your customers if they are willing to write testimonials or reviews with their name on it or allow you to use their name on your website, and if they say yes and write a good one, put it on your website. The mechanism genuinely isn't more complicated than that, you just need consent from everyone.

Good luck and congrats on having a big brand as your client!