It is best to avoid caveats altogether. Why?

• caveats interfere with your sales proposition
• reading is a challenge because your flow is constantly interrupted by irritating little swords and asterisks
• caveats make you sound negative
• and, contrarily, they make you seem less trustworthy

Is it possible to avoid caveats altogether?

Yes. It’s easy. Turn them into positives instead. Make them earn their keep. Here’s an example.

• Replace the caveat *Offer valid for  a limited time only with a sentence  in your body copy, loud and proud: Hurry, this great offer won’t be around for ever!

What if you can’t make a caveat positive?

There’s always a positive side. If there genuinely isn’t, think about making people a decent offer that’s worth accepting.  

What if you can’t bear to clear out the caveats?

Put them all in your Terms & Conditions or Agreement, where they’ll work their hardest to reassure people rather than scaring them off.  

Customer testimonials. Useful, right?

More useful than you might think! Here’s five top ways to make the most of testimonials.

1. Use a testimonal to introduce every web page, like this, and they’ll give your sales message a powerful little boost

• Header:  You deserve a brilliantly clean home!
• Subhead:  Brighton’s favourite cleaning company
• Testimonial: “I’ve used BrightInBrighton for a year now and they’ve never let me down. My home is always absolutely spotless!” 
• Body copy: BrightInBrighton deliver superb quality cleaning services (etc)

2. Use several short testimonials on your sales page, where they’ll work hard to increase conversion

3. Create a dedicated testimonial page and add new praise regularly. You’ll benefit from SEO juice, enhanced visitor interest and valuable extra credibility

4. Use a short testimonial to lend power to your email marketing campaign – we all enjoy knowing what other people think and we like to trust our fellow consumers

5. Include testimonials with the stuff you sell and hammer your quality message home. They’ll help you encourage repeat visits, increase sales, cross sales and up-sales…

• on the cover of your ebook
• designed into your product’s packaging
• printed on delivery notes
• etc 

6. Create a regular ‘what our customers say’ section in your newsletter. It’s a good place to display longer testimonials and entire letters full of praise without interfering with your core sales message. People like to read about their peers’ experiences and good news helps create a positive, trusted brand

PS. Dont forget you can use testimonials from peers and experts within your field as well as customers.