A Prescription in Marketing

Well, I’m finally back from vacation. My sister’s wedding went off pretty much without a hitch. My wife and I spent some lovely vacation time in Plymouth, MA and along the Cape for our anniversary. And Labor Day, the “unofficial” end of summer, has come and gone.

Now it’s time to get back into marketing. Today I want to talk a bit about incorporating proof and believability in your sales copy, because it’s one of the most lacking things I see in many sales letters online today. There are so many opportunities to pile on the proof, there’s really no excuse to be slacking in that department.

The old story goes that a famous attorney had his staff in a meeting, preparing for a major case. He asked them if there was anything they were missing.

One of his staff spoke up: “I think we’ve prepared enough evidence for you to prove your case.”

The attorney lunged across the table, grabbed the assistant by the throat, and said: “Don’t you ever send me into a courtroom with ‘enough’ proof. I want a preponderance of proof!”

And so it should be with your copy.

When your prospect reads your sales letter, you want to make sure he believes any claims you make about your product or service. Because if there’s any doubt in his mind, he won’t bite, no matter how sweet the deal. In fact, the “too good to be true” mentality will virtually guarantee a lost sale…even if it is all true.

So what can you do to increase the perception of believability? Because after all, it’s the perception you need to address up front. But of course you also must make sure your copy is accurate and truthful.

Here are some tried and tested methods that will help:

• If you’re dealing with existing customers who already know you deliver as promised, emphasize that trust. Don’t leave it up to them to figure it out. Make them stop, cock their heads, and say, “Oh, yeah. The ABC Company has never done me wrong before. I can trust them.”

• Include testimonials of satisfied customers. Be sure to put full names and locations, where possible. Remember, “A.S.” is a lot less believable than “Andy Sherman, Voorhees, NJ.” If you can also include a picture of the customer and/or a professional title, that’s even better. Audio or video, better still. It doesn’t matter that your testimonials aren’t from somebody famous or that your prospect does not know these people personally. If you have enough compelling testimonials, and they’re believable, you’re much better off than not including them at all.

  I also try to get my clients to include even more information about the people who’ve given them testimonials, whenever it helps to advance the sale. For example, if you’re selling a book to grandparents about their grandchildren, do you think including the following will help?

  “[Testimonial]”
  - Gertrude Wilson
    Atlanta, GA
    Grandmother of 9

• Pepper your copy with facts and research findings to support your claims. Be sure to credit all sources, even if the fact is common knowledge, because a neutral source goes a long way towards credibility.

• For a direct mail letter or certain space ads where the copy is in the form of a letter from a specific individual, including a picture of that person helps. And…if your sales letter is from a specific individual, be sure to include his credentials to establish him as an expert in his field (relating to your product or service, of course).

• If applicable, cite any awards or third-party reviews the product or service has received.

• If you’ve sold a lot of widgets, tell them. It’s the old “10 million people can’t be wrong” adage (they can be, but your prospect will likely side with “social proof” on the matter).

• Include a GREAT return policy and stand by it! This is just good business policy. Many times, offering a double refund guarantee for certain products will result in higher profits. Yes, you’ll dish out more refunds, but if you sell three times as many widgets as before, and only have to refund twice as much as before, it may be worth it, depending on your offer and return on investment. Crunch the numbers and see what makes sense. More importantly, test! Make them think, “Gee, they wouldn’t be so generous with returns if they didn’t stand behind their product!”

• If you can swing it, adding a celebrity endorsement will always help to establish credibility. Heck, if ‘ol honest Abe Lincoln recommended your product and backs up your claims, it must be true! Ok, you get the idea, though. And what you really want is a celebrity that they know and trust.

• When it makes sense, use 3rd party testimonials. What are 3rd party testimonials? Here’s some examples from some Web site copy I wrote when there weren’t many customer testimonials available yet:

  “Spyware, without question, is on an exponential rise over the last six months.”
  - Alfred Huger, Senior Director of Engineering, Symantec Security Response (maker of Norton security software)

  “Simply clicking on a banner ad can install spyware.”
  - Dave Methvin, Chief Technology Officer, PC Pitstop

  A deployment method is to “trick users into consenting to a software download they think they absolutely need”
  - Paul Bryan, Director, Security And Technology Unit, Microsoft

  Do you see what I did? I took quotes from experts in their respective fields and turned them to my side. But…be sure to get their consent or permission from the copyright holder if there’s ever any question about copyrighted materials as your source. Note that I also pushed an emotional hot button: fear. It’s been proven that people will generally do more to avoid pain than to obtain pleasure. So why not use that tidbit of info to your advantage?

• Reveal a flaw about your product. This helps alleviate the “too good to be true” syndrome. You reveal a flaw that isn’t really a flaw. Or reveal a flaw that is minor, just to show that you’re being “up front” about your product’s shortcomings. This is called “admission of flaw,” and it can go a long way towards building your credibility. Think about it. How often do you see advertisers telling you upfront there is a “problem” with their product?

  It reminds me of the old “what is your greatest weakness” question some job interviewers throw at you. The idea is to turn the weakness into a strength. Or at least present a weakness that really isn’t so bad. “I suppose I sometimes push my staff too hard to deliver.” Or how about this one: “I sometimes pay too much attention to details.” Talk about turning a negative into a positive!

  Well, your sales copy can’t be so blatantly obvious at what you’re doing. In fact, even those interview questions are so well-known now that using them in an actual interview won’t help you anymore. Kind of like sales copy. What worked yesterday won’t necessarily work today. But I’m getting off topic.

  What you need is to be genuine. Here’s an example of how you might employ that in your copy:

  “You’re probably thinking right now that this tennis racket is a miracle worker—and it is. But I must tell you that it has one little…shortcoming.

  My racket takes about 2 weeks to get used to. In fact, when you first start using it, your game will actually get worse. But if you can just ride it out, you’ll see a tremendous improvement in your volleys, net play, serves, …” And so on.

  There’s a tendency to think, with all of the ads that we are bombarded with today, that every advertiser is always putting his best foot forward, so to speak. And I think that line of reasoning is accurate, to a point. But isn’t it refreshing when someone stands out from the crowd and is honest? In other words, your reader will start to subconsciously believe that you are revealing all of the flaws, even though your best foot still stands forward.

• Use a lift letter or “lift notes.” These are a brief note or letter from a person of authority. Not necessary a celebrity, although that can add credibility, too. A person of authority is someone well recognized in their field (which is related to your product) that they are qualified to talk about. Lift notes may be distributed offline as inserts, a separate page altogether, or even as part of the copy itself.

  A clever way to use the power of lift notes online is to display them as a sidebar near the top of the sales letter. A powerful testimonial or case study almost always does well like this if it comes from an industry expert that they know and trust.

  For example, here’s an example from my recent Copywriters Toolkit pre-launch squeeze page. In this case I used my Interactive Johnson Box, but notice I lead with a powerful testimonial from world-class copywriter Michel Fortin, which acts as a “lift letter” in its own right. Even better would be if that person of authority endorsed your product or service right there.

• If you are limiting the offer with a deadline “order by” date, be sure the deadline is real and does not change. Deadline dates that change every day are sure to reduce credibility. The prospect will suspect, “If his deadline date keeps changing, he’s not telling the truth about it…I wonder what else he’s not telling the truth about.”

• Avoid baseless “hype.” Go sparingly on the adjectives and adverbs. Let the verbs do the selling. Obviously the verbs you choose need to convey images of action. Action that conveys the message you’re trying to deliver. That’s another topic in its own right, and perhaps I’ll revisit it at some point.

In fact, I can’t possibly include everything I wanted here. So I’m going to break this article into two parts for now. This article is pretty straightforward, and reveals some basic common sense (but you’d be surprised by how many don’t even do this).

How ’bout next time we get into some stuff that you don’t see touted everywhere?

Ok, it’s official. Next time I’m going to talk about some sneaky advanced techniques you can use to build your proof and credibility.

That proof will almost always lead to more sales. Or more opt-ins. Whatever your goal is in your copy.

For some reason, I don’t see this next advanced technique used very often by copywriters other than the “A” ones. It’s a shame, too, because it’s not that difficult to grasp. But I’ve gone on long enough here. Stay tuned…

NOTE: The above tips were taken (and elaborated upon) from my white paper, “10 Ways To Write More Effective Ads“. You can grab your copy for free here.

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