You've got clients who love your company, and you know their words of praise can sway prospects, build credibility and demonstrate the value of your offering.

The problem is, your competition knows that too. Websites are full of testimonials like, "I would definitely recommend your service," and "Thanks for your good work."

Unfortunately these testimonials aren't very persuasive. Because when a prospect does her due diligence, odds are she'll find your testimonials mirror the competition's.

So how do you make sure your testimonials create confidence that your company is the best choice?

Choose the right clients and use their own words

Don't make the mistake of asking only your most lucrative accounts. An enthusiastic testimonial from a mid-sized client will likely be much more persuasive.

Using your client's own words shows how your company has actually improved her business. The resulting testimonial zeroes in on the real value you create. This goes a long way to differentiating you from the competition. 

Problem is, your clients are just as slammed as you are. But there's a couple things you can do to make providing a testimonial easy on them:

1. Send an email request and make it very low key so your clients don't get bogged down in creating a masterpiece: "Could you take 1 to 2 minutes to write a couple sentences about how our service/product has helped your company?"

2. Ask for the feedback verbally. If a week goes by and you've gotten no response, give your client a call and ask for the feedback verbally. Jot down the words they use, write the testimonial for them and email back for approval.

Building the testimonial pipeline

Ask for feedback regularly in person or by email survey (Survey Monkey is a great tool-and it's free www.surveymonkey.com).

This not only allows you to build a bank of testimonials, it keeps you in touch with the real value of your offering.

People love stories, and case studies, unlike most marketing collateral, are natural story-tellers. That's why they're such an effective marketing tool: people will actually read them-if they provide value.

Do your case studies provide value?

A good case study tells a story about a client whose business you helped in three parts: challenge, solution, results. The most effective ones are matched to your prospects' industry and, especially, their pain points.

Here are three things to keep in mind as you assess the value of your case studies:

1. Specific outsells generic

It's not always feasible to create a case study for every industry your company is targeting, but writing one to speak to all your targets is a mistake.

Specific always sells better than generic, so if you're only going to create one, select your hottest target. Write a case study that will best demonstrate your company's success in resolving the biggest challenges for that target.

2. Plain-speak communicates better than marketing-speak

Buzzwords, hyperbole and jargon are never effective communicators, but in a case study, where the goal is to hold a reader's attention for 3 to 5 pages, they're particularly deadly.

Writing more like a journalist and less like a marketer, and remembering that the story and the specific outcomes are what your prospect wants to know will keep them reading.

3. Directly stated benefits

Many promising case studies fall short at the end by not using very specific-and ideally quantifiable-language.

Use these tactics as you create your case studies and your prospects will learn valuable info about your company's offering--and be eager to talk with you to learn more.