Donnie Bryant

Donnie Bryant is a direct response copywriter and marketing consultant. He helps small businesses and solo professionals connect with and convert their “should-be” clients with unusually effective marketing messages and systems.

Strategic Truth-Telling

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The world is full of phonies, deceivers and cheats. In the arenas of advertisers and salespeople, this seems to be especially true.

Empty promises, bogus guarantees and plain ol’ swindles pervade the marketplace. Most people automatically tune out a large percentage of overt advertisements. No one trusts salespeople; they are often dismissed before they even speak. (Believe me, I’ve been there.) We all know it’s true. That’s just how things are.

In spite of that fact, a profound longing exists inside of each of us: a longing to believe. Gary Bencivenga, one of the few living legends of copywriting, teaches that “Almost everyone in the world… is desperately searching for someone to believe in. Be that person, and you can write your own ticket.” The dishonest climate of the day makes the search for that kind of person difficult. Those found to be trustworthy stand to benefit immensely.

Telling the truth can be used as a powerful business and marketing strategy.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not advocating a Machiavellian view of dealing with truth. 100% honesty is the only way to business. Customers and prospects deeply desire to believe, but they have been forced into skepticism. Only one arrow can pierce the armor of doubt: TRUTH.

How Can Truth-Telling Be Used As a Marketing Strategy?

When we think of establishing our credibility and building trust, we usually picture a long-term process. And it is. Allowing events to progress naturally, it can take months or years to get where you want to be.You should never tell lies or deceive. Customers need to know you’re not going to mislead them or take advantage of them. Don’t settle for marketing that is simply credible. Actually be the company that your customers can trust.

Let’s consider another perspective. Most of my readers market their products and services using direct response methods. What is one defining characteristic of direct response marketers? We do not wait for “events to progress naturally.” We don’t wait for prospects to eventually stumble across our offers and maybe buy something. We take action to cause individuals in our target audience to respond in a particular way.

Strategic truth-telling relies on the same principle.

Rather than relying on chance and (passively) watching trust grow over time, it is possible to inject “moments of truth” into otherwise normal interactions. Build your believability factor actively, purposefully. The “que sera, sera” approach is not a viable strategy.

Let me state emphatically that integrity is not a strategy. It is a way of life.

Now for the good stuff. Let’s discuss 4 specific truth-telling techniques. You will no longer have to hope that you are gaining your audience’s trust. Take action! Implement these steps and gain control of building your believability.

1. The Preemptive Strike

Have you heard the famous story about Claude Hopkins and Schlitz Beer? How one advertising campaign that took Schlitz from 5th place to being in a dead heat with the number one brand in a few months?

Hopkins tells the tale in his book, My Life in Advertising. I won’t repeat it here, but do yourself a favor and look it up. There’s a great lesson to be taken from the narrative. The major take-away from that campaign: be the first company to “tell the facts,” and you gain supremacy in the minds of your customers and prospects.

Instead of just talking about how totally rad your product is, tell the story of why it’s so great. What do you do that makes what you do so impressive?

Is there a way you can use this concept in your own marketing? Think of some aspect of your process, one ingredient you use, or anything that you can tell your audience about that they don’t know. You don’t have to be the only company doing it. You don’t have to be the first company to do it. You just have to be the first to say it. Once you’ve said it, you own it. Anyone else to make similar claims will be seen as a copy cat.

There are so many voices screaming for the attention of the masses. And as much as businesses may think they’re being unique, nearly all advertising sounds the same on the surface. You can stand out by coming at the issue from a different angle. Give meaning to the claims you make about your product, service or brand by using this classic technique of preemption.

2. Full Disclosure

Voluntary vulnerability is startlingly effective at creating credibility. I think there are 3 reasons for that.

Firstly, no one does it. Everyone is too scared to take the risk. Plus, they’ve spent so much time trying to appear to be perfect. They can’t afford to let that illusion disappear. By being one of the rare few that will be open and honest, you position yourself as one of the rare few companies or individuals worth listening to.

Secondly, you show that you care more about the truth than about your image. Your image is how you want to appear. But reality is what really matters.

Thirdly, an emotional element comes into play. Putting yourself or your company in a position of openness is not logical (or at least it doesn’t appear to be so). The result is that the listener is almost forced to react emotionally, not just intellectually.

Everyone loves the inside scoop. Confessions are always a hot ticket. When people feel like you’ve told them something “intimate” you become more of a person than a salesperson. More of a friend. Trust flows easily in that environment.

Show that you have nothing to hide. Prove that you care more about the customer experience than about your image.

This should be an aggressive technique. Remember, we’re thinking of injecting truth deliberately for the purpose of building trust. Maybe it’s as simple as endearing yourself to your email list by telling an embarrassing personal story. You didn’t have to let anyone know about the time you were tricked into climbing into a high school locker, only to find yourself locked in and abandoned (yes, that happened to me).

Make the information interesting, but also find a way to make it relevant.

Also, admit when you’re wrong, when you don’t know the answer, or when you can’t help someone. It always pays off in the long run.

3. Flattery Will Get You Nowhere – Unless It’s Genuine

No one likes a “yes man” or a butt-kisser.

If you want to be believed, have the guts to challenge conventional wisdom or popular opinions. Speak your mind. Be confident and speak authoritatively. You do not have to agree with anyone all the time, even if they’re paying you. In fact, that’ll do more harm than good for all parties involved.

That doesn’t mean be arrogant, or purposely combative. But don’t fall for the line of thinking that says “the more I tell this client how much of a genius he is, the more business I’ll get.” Think more in terms of “the truth will make you free.”

Is it just me, or do people who always have flattering words on their lips seem to be up to no good? Either they don’t have minds of their own, or they’re sycophants. It’s hard to respect either. Don’t be that person or business.

This is less a technique to be used than it is a position to be adhered to. We’re talking about strategy. You want to set yourself up as the person who will tell the truth no matter what it costs. That’s who people will trust. People will believe in you, and that’s how you get to write your own ticket, as Bencivenga says.

I’ve had a client ask tell me that I didn’t have to agree with everything he said. His ideas were great; I wasn’t trying to be obsequious. The point is that my posture was weakened slightly by the appearance that I was just going along with whatever he said. That’s not the place you want to be in.

4. Be A Giver

You should always seek to give more than you take. Provide more value than you charge for.

You should be educating your customers, not just selling to them. Education is one of the most compelling selling tools in existence. But you should give valuable content and actionable information to your audience at least as often as you ask them to buy something from you.

Being a giver is one of the surest ways to become a trusted person or organization. Of course you need to generate revenue. Your customers understand that. But if the only time they hear from you is when you have a sales pitch, you become a nuisance. They feel as if you look at them like dollar signs instead of human beings.

If you want to build credibility, to be the person or company that others believe in, help them get what they want out of life. When you look out for the needs and desires of other people, you begin to operate on a higher level.

Blogs, newsletters and content-rich emails are popular for a reason. We live in the information age. Perhaps telling the truth has never been such an important element of business success.

Be strategic in your execution. Blogs should be focused. Create content so that visitors know what to expect and how to get what they need. Self-promotion is not an effective way to gain trust. Providing info that improves people’s lives is a great way to become a trusted expert.

You can either promote yourself, or do high-quality work that does the promoting for you. Which do you think works better?

Final Thoughts

Most business people you know let their businesses “drift downstream” and hope for the best. My hope is that you are not one of those individuals. There are some things that you can’t control (the weather, for example), but there are nearly always ways to move forward with purpose and vision. Strategic truth-telling is another way to take more control over your life and business.

Is It a Bad Idea to “Teach a Man to Fish”?

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It’s a business proverb you’ve probably heard thousand times:

“Give a man to fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you’ve fed him for a lifetime.” 

But the reality is that almost no one wants to learn to fish!

That has always been the case, but it’s increasingly true in this day and age that people want simple, turnkey solutions. We want our “fish” handed to us (preferably scaled, boned, and cooked). In fact, a lot of people scoff at the idea of doing their own work.

This isn’t a bad thing. In the business world, there’s room for both the worm-packed tackle box and the icebox filled with pre-caught fish. No matter what field you’re in, regardless of whether you specialize in delivering training, services or products, you can find a cozy be successful.

Feed Me Now!

What can we take away from thinking about this old proverb in a new way?

1) The best way to get what you want in business and in life is to help others get what they want. If your customers want smoked salmon, don’t try to sell them fish bait.

If they just want a fish for dinner, don’t try to force them learn the sport, no matter how much sense it makes or how much they’re likely to benefit in the long run. You can make the training available, but don’t press the issue.

2)  People like easy. Do everything in your power to make it easy for customers to buy from you. Remove any obstacle that may keep people from doing business with you. Make your product or training simple to use.

By the way, Karl Marx had a different take on this saying: “Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.” There’s opportunity in both selling and training; give your customers what they want and you can make money on both.

3) Most people like to think as little as possible, too. Eliminate anything confusing or hard to grasp from your marketing, sales scripts, in-store signage, etc.

Ever had to explain how much  your price is with a 30% discount?

4) Make gratification as close to instant as you can without sacrificing quality.

5) Cures carry more urgency than prevention. Consider whether what you offer is appealing to a pain that your prospects already suffer from or if you’re trying

An ounce of prevention may be worth more than a pound of cure, but the market price on the cure is substantially higher. Even at the higher price, it’s easier to sell.

6) Question everything! Not every proverb is true or universally applicable. Not every piece of advice is accurate.

Listen to voices you trust, but never stop thinking for yourself. It’s not a crime to question the experts. On the contrary, asking tough questions and challenging assumptions will often lead to breakthrough ideas and new solutions.

Why Money Matters Less Than You Think

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What if I told you that marketing is not about money?

You may be tempted to call me a heretic. You might think there was a hole in my bag of marbles. Or you might call me a hypocrite, because the service I provide my clients (and hopefully the information I freely share with people like you) helps people make money through marketing.

But I’m neither crazy nor hypocritical. Maybe I’m a heretic, since I believe some things about business that a lot of people disagree with. If you can stand a few moments of marketing heresy, please read on. I think you’ll learn a few significant lessons.

Money Is Not the Issue

Last summer, I learned something profound from a brilliant business coach who was my client. Well, I was already familiar with the principle she was teaching, but the way she explained it had a big impact on me. She told me that when prospects don’t buy from you, or clients won’t pay the kind of fees you deserve, it’s not because of a lack of money. Money is not the issue. Rather, the issue is one of priority. The client has money, but you don’t get it because he sees more value in spending it on something else.

When it’s decision making time, priorities run the show. People will always find ways to pay for what’s most important to them. If customers aren’t buying or clients are hiring, your product or service is not a major priority for them.

Eugene Schwartz taught us that you don’t create desire in your audience. What you want to do is channel their pre-existing desire toward your product. The same is true for priorities. In general, you cannot establish the priorities of your market. They are self-generated. Marketing can’t change the priorities they’ve already set. At best, you can communicate how your product will help them take care of what matters most deeply to them.

That means that your message will, by default, not appeal to everyone, as not everyone has the same priorities.

For example, Olay products and Proactiv are both designed to help people feel better about the skin on their faces. But they appeal to different groups. Olay is big on anti-aging, something most teenagers aren’t worried about yet. Proactiv helps with acne, a problem that usually becomes less common with age.

Different audiences. Different priorities. Different marketing messages. Also note that people would hate pimples and wrinkles with or without million dollar advertising campaigns.

Price Matters Less Than You Think

When there’s been a bad car accident, no one is thinking about how much the ambulance company will charge. They’re first thoughts aren’t about insurance deductibles. When life is hanging in the balance, they call 911 as fast as they can.

This is an extreme example, but it makes the point very clear. The importance of price is inversely proportional to the strength of the desire or need. The only thing that matters about the ambulance is the speed with which it can bring medical attention to the people in the car accident. This one benefit outweighs every other factor.

When your product or service fills a need that strong, price doesn’t matter much.

If one ambulance can arrive on the scene even a few minutes sooner than the next “competitor,” would you complain that their price is two times higher? Would you ask the 911 operator to send the cheapest ambulance?

If you’re having difficulty selling your product or service, it’s probably because
1) you’re not selling something people want
2) you’re not giving them a good enough reason to buy from you (showing them how your product can fulfill one or more of their priorities), or
3) you haven’t built up trust. People won’t buy from anyone they don’t trust.

Price may not be to blame. And if you are selling what people want, helping them envision their top priorities satisfied by your product, and demonstrated your trustworthiness, price may matter very little.

Marketing Is NOT About Money

Marketing and selling are not essentially about money; they are points of connection.

You have something to give to the world in terms of talents, expertise, products and/or service. Everyone has multiple needs and desires. Marketing and selling are ways you connect people in need with solutions. Everybody comes out a winner.

If you do it right, marketing has profitable results. But money should not be the cause. The difference may seem insignificant, but I assure you that it’s not.

When money is the end goal, you may be tempted to resort to deception, hype, high-pressure techniques. You could fall into desperation. You may even consider selling products that suck in order to drive revenue up.

When your goal is connecting, you focus on showing your audience that you can help them get the things they want and need in life. You can show them how your strengths can be applied to areas where they need assistance. When your customers are what really matters to you, magic happens.

Make no mistake: marketing should make money. If it doesn’t, you’re doing something wrong, and you need to fix it. But when money becomes the driving force behind it, fear and greed have a tendency to creep in.

Remember what Peter Drucker said: “The purpose of a business is to create a customer.” He didn’t say the purpose is to make money. The truth is that if you make happy customers, you’ll be in the best possible position to earn profits.

Another Angle on Storytelling

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As you may already know, storytelling can be a powerful tool in any marketer’s repertoire. Crafting and telling engaging stories is an important skill to develop. A good story can neutralize the automatic resistance that arises when people feel like someone is “selling” something by engaging their minds in a different way than ad-speak and sales pitches do.

Let’s look at this issue from a different angle. Even when you’re telling a great story about your business or personal brand, there is something important you have to deal with. Allow me to introduce the idea with a quote from Perry Marshall.

“Stories run deep. If you want to change the story you’ve been in to the story you want to be in, it’s best to just assume it’s going to take everything you’ve got. If there’s a resource that is capable of improving your story, you should avail yourself of it.”

Everyone is the protagonist of his or her own story. The story is his world and how he sees his place in it. It’s how she thinks about herself. Every day the plot progresses, characters come and go, and so forth.

The story you want to tell as a business owner, service provider, etc., doesn’t matter at all unless it intersects with your customers’ individual stories.

That’s why your selling and marketing has to be about them.

Think about it: no matter how interesting and compelling a story about lipstick may be, most men are never going to buy the product. We may enjoy the dramatic unfolding of the plot or be fascinated by the characters involved, but we’re not buying. It doesn’t impact our story as masculine individuals.

Plot Development

Every story has conflict. The main character is seeking something she wants or needs, or she’s fighting against the bad guy.

Let’s look at an example that most of us are familiar with. In the recent movie Captain America, the hero Steve Rogers starts out as less-than hero material. He’s scrawny, frail and completely unable to do the one thing he desperately wants to do: join the army and serve his country. Watching the first few scenes, you get a good grasp of the story Rogers is living in. Do you know your customers that well?

Enter Dr. Erskine, a brilliant scientist who can change the protagonist’s entire story around. He can get him into the army and give him the physical prowess to become a true force on the battlefield.

In movies and novels, magical or futuristic scientific elements, like Dr. Erskine’s technology, are often used to cause a major change and push the narrative forward. Why can’t your product or service fill that role? If you genuinely solve problems, create opportunities and improve people’s lives, you can enter your customers’ story right at that point of need.

The magic is that you’re helping people get something they’re struggling without, or helping them eliminate issues they can’t handle by themselves.

Eucatastrophe

Eucatastrophe is a term coined by J.R.R. Tolkien. He used the word to describe a “sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears.” It is a fortuitous event which leads to the hero overcoming the conflict in the story, leading to the happy ending he always had in mind.

Your business can be a eucatastrophe in the story of your target audience. You can be the person or team who helps them attain the things they’ve been dreaming of. Those dreams may seem impossible, but you can enter their stories and bring the untouchable within reach.

Here are a few ideas to keep in mind.

1) You are never the hero of the story. You’re the “plot device” that empowers the hero (your customer) to get to “happily ever after.”

2) Yes, I’m going to keep saying this: you have to know your audience. You have to know who needs what you’ve got.

The better acquainted you are with their pains and aspirations, the more equipped you’ll be to enter their story at the appropriate point and provide awesome results when you get there.

3) Don’t be an uninvited guest in the story. In Captain America, Dr. Erskine didn’t kidnap Rogers and perform his experiments. He gave him the option. Of course he’d say “yes” because the offer was exactly what he was already hoping for.

Even if something is good for people, forcing it on people won’t work well. Offer your product or services in a way that enables those who want what you’re selling to come to you.

4) Dr. Erskine also used a weeding-out process to select the right candidate to become his super-soldier. He didn’t want to work with just anyone.

To protect your story (and sanity), be selective about who you target and work with. You may have to turn down deals and reject clients. Set your standards and stick to them.

Satanic Sales Pitches

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Does your sales pitch sound like something Satan would say?

In Isaiah 14, we’re given a glimpse of the mind of Lucifer as he plots the failed takeover attempt that got him booted from heaven.

One thing you’ll noticed is that every sentence is I-centered; “I’m this, I’m that, I’m going to do this,” etc.

You see this same kind of conversation (maybe monologue is a more accurate term) here on earth.

How does that compare with how you sell/market to your potential customers?

Read more

Cognitive Biases: Overcoming Your Prospect’s Hardwired Resistance, Pt. 2

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In Parts 1, of this we talked about how you can write copy for your website that overcomes the skepticism, inertia and reactance that naturally work against your sales message.

Another set of psychological phenomenon applicable to business and marketing is in the realm of cognitive biases.

The brain is not — and cannot be — completely objective in perceiving information. You can become a much more effective communicator and persuader by understanding the angles and spins that our minds apply to every bit of information we consume.

Let’s examine how cognitive biases and think about ethical ways we can use the brain’s predispositions to strengthen our marketing messages.

Confirmation Bias

We are wired to look for evidence that supports what we already believe to be true. We tend to interpret data in ways that agree with our positions. We value people who are on our side of an issue or debate – we have an automatic kinship with them.

The opposite is also true. We tend to reject information that contradicts our opinions. That’s known as the Semmelweis reflex. In fact, information that disagrees with our preconceptions has been shown to strengthen our original beliefs. That’s called the backfire effect.

Our brains need consistency and predictability, so we automatically find ways to support the paradigms we hold. Information that contradicts our ideas about the world is often discarded out of hand.

That’s why it’s difficult for a Democrat to become a Republican, or a Yankees fan to start rooting for the Red Sox.

You need to present your product or service and your message in a way that agrees with what your audience already believes. Confirm their suspicions about themselves and the world around them.

Normalcy Bias

You have to relate to the members of your audience right where they are. People have a hard time spending money on solutions for issues that haven’t “hit home” for them yet. We’re inclined to think:

“That could never happen here…”

“I’ll never be in that situation…”

Even if we logically understand the possibility, we don’t feel the need commit to anything that seems far removed from our everyday experience. Our brains can’t contemplate every conceivable occurrence that might come to pass in our lifetime. So the status quo becomes our default mental setting and we don’t give much thought to other scenarios.

You’ve probably noticed how hard it can be to convince people that danger may be on the horizon if it’s outside their personal “normal.” That’s one of the reasons disasters like Hurricane Katrina wreak as much havoc as they do. That same bias is present in all of your customers.

Are you selling a vaccine or a pain killer? Ibuprofen is almost always easier to sell than flu shots.

Knowledge Bias

People tend to choose the option they know best instead of the best available option. (This is another reason why “building a better mousetrap” doesn’t guarantee people will beat a path to you door.)

This raises 2 important questions:
1) Are you building valued relationships with your audience
2) Are you providing enough information as your prospects need to feel confident in choosing you?

You can see how important transparency, honesty and credibility are. This cognitive predisposition is the one of the psychological reasons behind the Know-Like-Trust concept most of us have heard about a million times.

In Jack Trout and Al Ries’ 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Law #1 says that it’s better to be first than it is to be better. Law #3 states that it’s better to be first in mind than first in the market.

How well-known are you in your arena? What can you do to improve that?

Selective Perception

This is all about framing your message properly.

When you properly set expectations in the mind of your potential clients, you affect their how they perceive the topic you’re discussing. You can make them see what you want them to see, just like a magician…

Education is a wonderful selling tool. You can use it to shape your prospects’ opinions about how to shop in your industry, which gives you the upper hand over all of your competitors.

When people we trust share information with us about something, it has a huge impact on how we experience that thing in the future. For example, when I was young, my mother told me that I didn’t like cranberry sauce, even though I don’t remember having tasted them before. I can’t tell you how many years I missed out on eating them, without ever trying them for myself.

When we’re not experts on a particular subject, we usually take what the “real experts” have to say at face value (unless it contradicts our current worldview). They define how we think about that topic. Parents, doctors, mentors, etc. have tremendous influence because of this fact.

So, how are you framing your marketing conversations? What expectations are you setting?

Marketing Ideas that Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity

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A few days ago, I heard someone complaining that all advertisers do is take advantage of consumers by manipulating them. They gain marketshare by telling bigger lies in louder voices than their competitors. But is that what advertising is about? Is that what business is about?

I argue that there is such a thing as truth in advertising. Advertising and lying are two different things in my book.

Moreover, marketing can actually make the world a better place. That’s how it ought to be used.

Taking inspiration from the instant viral hit “21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity,” I wrote this month’s newsletter on the topic of how doing good is good for business.

Check it out below.

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Doing good is good for business.

Not everyone believes that. I’ve had several discussions with people who think marketing is inherently evil and that entrepreneurs are generally dishonest and greedy. Maybe you’ve had similar conversations.

As I’m sure you know, you don’t have to be one of the bad guys to be successful in business.

With that in mind, this issue was inspired by the instantly viral article “21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity.” I normally wouldn’t ask you to stop listening while I’m talking (or reading while I’m typing) but you should strongly consider taking a few minutes to check out that article if you haven’t already done so. It’s just photos and captions, so it’ll only take a moment. Everything I say will make more sense if you do.

Let’s look at 3 instances of altruism in action from the article. Although I’m not sure any of these were meant to be marketing ideas, the insights we gain can have a dramatic impact on your business.

An Amazing First Impression

marketing first impression

When you look at the “21 Pictures” article, the caption under this image tells us that the owner of the dry cleaner who put on this “promotion” estimates that it cost $32,000 to help around 2,000 unemployed people in his community.

You know what I call that (other than “nice”)? An irresistible front-end offer.

Dry cleaners provide a service their customers need time after time. If they treat their customers right, they can form lifelong relationships. Free dry cleaning during a time of need is an incredible way to get the ball rolling. Where do you think these people had their suits cleaned in the future? How many other people did they tell about their experience? How much PR did this effort garner?

Think about it like this: this cleaner bought leads for $16 apiece.  Last time I went to the dry cleaners, I spent $45. Does that sound like a good investment?

Application:
1) Do you have an irresistible introductory offer? One so good that it’s virtually impossible to turn down?

In a previous newsletter, I mentioned how Gillette sent me a Mach 3 razor in the mail for my 18th birthday. I’ve been happily buying expensive blades from them for over a decade now.

Square (http://www.squareup.com) is giving away free mobile credit card readers. They make a small upfront loss to gain 2.75% of every transaction they process in the future.

Book of the Month Club will give you 4 books for $1, knowing you’re likely to buy plenty of books from them in the future.

2) Have you developed a profitable back-end to capitalize on the flood of leads/buyers coming in? In almost every industry, this is where the real money is made. Your current customers are your most valuable asset. Are you making the most of the opportunity to serve them in a way that’s mutually beneficial and profitable?

3) Are you specific in who you’re targeting with your marketing? Are you offers tailor-made for your ideal customers? This dry cleaner is appealed to a specific audience with a very powerful felt need. He saw a way to make their lives easier and improve their ability to make future purchases (by helping them look good on job interviews).

Serve a Starving Crowd. Literally.

social responsibility

Do you believe that the more you give, the more you get back?

If nothing else, this Subway location is helping people in a way that’s tax deductible. But chances are that plenty of customers notice this sign from day to day. This weekly act of kindness must build a lot of good will. Customers feel good about supporting businesses that are doing good in the community.

It pays off to treat people like human beings instead of walking wallets.

Application:
1) What are you doing to prove that you care? Are you using your talents and resources to meet a real need? Focusing on others rather than obsessively looking at your own business is essential to running a successful business.

A Truly Personal Touch

customer experience

Personal connection goes a long way in today’s “social economy.”  Not only do you want to treat people like people (as mentioned above), but you want to show your own human side, as well. This commercial from Ally Bank illustrates the point wonderfully.

These pictures show the correspondence between a 3-year old and the customer manager at a supermarket. Check out the way the manager responded to the letter. The fact that he responded at all is noteworthy, and he took the time to write a personal letter. Read the language he used. It’s not corporate-speak; it’s perfect for talking to a toddler.

A £3 gift card is a tiny investment to give a little girl an unforgettable experience. You can almost guarantee Sainsbury’s will hold a special place in her heart for the rest of her life (which will probably be a long, long time). Her parents, too.

On top of that, gift cards are notorious for putting extra money in retailers’ pockets. It’s hard to find an exact statistic, but the majority of consumers spend more than gift card is worth. They’d rather spend more than waste any of the cards value.

Application:
1) Are you showing your customers how much you appreciate them? What can you do to improve in that area?

2) Can you add even more personal touches to your marketing? Maybe do one thing per week that’s not automated to add value to your valued customers (or perhaps ones you’d like to “reactivate.”)

3) Do your marketing materials, including your website, show off your personality? Do you seem like a person/group of people or a corporate machine?

4) Is there a way to utlize gift cards or pre-punched reward cards to entice customers to come back and buy from you again?

7 Defensive Copywriting Strategies

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In Scientific Advertising, Claude Hopkins teaches us that “any … attempt to sell, if apparent, creates sales resistance.” This is as true for copywriters as it is for door-to-door salespeople. If you’ve written sales copy, you’re already familiar with the truth of this principle.

To circumvent this resistance, you have to take a different approach. Applying the defensive perspective makes a lot of sense.

Here are 7 defensive copywriting strategies that will help overcome obstacles to closing the deal. They may even prevent those hurdles from entering your readers’ minds.

1) Express genuine interest in and empathy for your prospects’ desires/needs. This can be challenging. You may have to edit until you get the tone and language just right, but it’s possible.

This goes a long way to removing the resistance to being sold. Your reader feels valued by you; you think of him as a person, not a customer. Major distinction.

Read the other 6 tips on ProCopyTips.

Bypassing Your Prospect’s Hardwired Resistance

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In his 2003 book Resistance and Persuasion, Dr. Eric Knowles explores the psychological reasons people to say “no.” Understanding why your website’s visitors tell you “no thanks” can go a long way in helping you change more of their responses to “yes, please.”

Dr. Knowles talked about 3 main root causes for the natural resistance to the sales process: skepticism/distrust, inertia and reactance. Today, we’ll analyze skepticism in more detail to see how you can neutralize it and increase your site’s conversion rate and profitability.

Skepticism – Resistance to your offer

People are trained from a young age to think that “if it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.” Nowhere is this more applicable than in business and marketing.

Does the copy on your website make hard-to-believe claims? Maybe you have to make bold statements because your product or service is just that good. Why should you be penalized for having an incredibly great selling proposition?

You overcome skepticism with evidence. Can you back up the claims you make with proof? Do you have testimonials of satisfied customers whose lives you’ve changed? Can you give statistics from authoritative sources that give credence to your statements? Can you demonstrate that you’re telling the truth with pictures or video?

Don’t hold back on the proof! The more evidence you can show that your claims are 100% legitimate, the less room you leave for skepticism.

Want to do even better? Offer a free trial or sample of your offering. It’s hard for people to argue with results they’ve experienced for themselves.

(Just a thought: if you can’t confidently offer a free trial of your product or service because you’re nervous the customer won’t make the final purchase, maybe you need to improve it until you know that if they try it, they’ll buy it.)

A major reason people hesitate to pull the trigger on a purchase is the fear of feeling ripped-off or disappointed when they finally get what they ordered. You can effectively alleviate that fear by offering strong guarantees and/or service after the sale. When they know they can get their money back if things don’t go the way they hope, making the decision gets a lot easier.

Another mistake many businesses make is sounding just like everyone else in their field. If your website looks the same as your competitors, if your copy says the same things in the same “voice,” your potential customers are very likely to think of you as the knock-off of the sites they’ve already seen. When everyone looks the same, everyone is seen as a commodity.  But worse than that, everyone sounds fake and insincere.  Distrust is a conversion killer.

Use specific language to show readers how well you know them, how well you understand their needs and how experienced you are in delivering solutions for those needs. Speak directly to your audience in language that resonates with them.

Don’t try to talk to everyone. Generic language almost always misses the mark.

Inertia – Resistance to change

If you’ve lived on this planet for more than 10 years, you know how difficult it can be to convince people to change their established routines. People like to do things the way they’ve always done them (even when they know there’s a better way). Studies show that our brains go out of their way to form habits, then “reward” us with happy hormones when we maintain them.

It’s Newton’s First Law of Motion applied to human behavior; bodies in motion stay in motion. We tend to keep doing what we’re currently doing, and it’s hard to start something new.

Habits are hard to break. And there’s a sense of comfortable familiarity and security that come from keeping things the same. So we resist change.

As marketers and salespeople, we often think the way to make our propositions more compelling is to increase the perceived payoff customers will get when they buy from us. That’s why we pile hundreds of dollars of bonuses on top of our offers. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; giving more value is always a good idea.

What we don’t realize is that habits are their own payoffs. That’s part of the reason people get set in their ways.

Alan Weber is quoted as saying “Real change happens, when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing.” The same is true when it comes to selling your product or service from your website. You may have difficulty demonstrating that the payoff of using your product (which they haven’t felt yet) is greater than the payoff associated with their current product or lack thereof (which they’re currently enjoying).

Consider trying another route. Instead of focusing on the payoff of taking action on your offer, show your visitors how much it costs them to keep doing things the same way. What do they lose by continuing on the path they’re currently taking?

According to Weber, change happens when that reality hits home. Then your prospects can replace their old purchasing habits with better ones – yours!

Reactance – Resistance to persuasion itself

Jeffrey Gitomer wrote in The Sales Bible, “People don’t like to be sold but they love to buy.” When you look at your own experience, you can see the truth in this statement.

Of course, that fact is one of your biggest challenges as an online marketer. People want to buy things to satisfy their desires and remove unpleasant aspects of their lives. They just don’t want to feel like they’re being “sold.”

Claude Hopkins wrote that “Any apparent effort to sell creates corresponding resistance.” It’s an instinctive reaction. Instinctively, our brains think “Hey! This guy is trying to benefit at my expense. Well, he’s not gonna get me!”

A customer’s sales resistance is related to a psychological phenomenon called reactance. In layman’s terms (as per Wikipedia), reactance is a person’s subconscious rebellion against what he thinks someone else wants him to do.

We see the other person’s will as a threat to our freedom to decide and act as we please.

When a salesperson asks “how can I help you?” you don’t believe her true intention is to help you, do you? You think she wants to help herself. You imagine that she’s going to do everything in her power to make you purchase what she wants to sell you, not necessarily what you want to buy.

You’re sure she’ll try to make you buy now; you want to make up your mind in your own time.

People want to operate on our own terms, not those of a salesperson (or anyone else). So we resist.

You neutralize reactance by not appearing to sell. You hear a lot of talk about push vs. pull marketing regularly. That’s largely what this issue boils down to.

Have you ever noticed that commercials on TV are louder than the program you tuned in to watch? Obviously, that’s an attempt by the advertisers to get your attention, and it works. You can’t ignore the blaring sound. But is that a good thing? Most would agree that it’s not.

No one likes to be pressured and no one likes to be shouted at. It may grab your attention, but it’s also irritating and puts you in a negative mood. That defeats the purpose of your message.

Don’t “shout” your sales message. Hard-selling is counterproductive. Instead, seduce. Give your visitors reasons to listen. Make them want to know more about what you’re talking about.

Engage your readers by talking about topics that are truly important to them. Tell interesting stories. Create a sense of curiosity. And really communicate what’s in it for them. When you start sounding like someone who just wants to sell something, you’re in a heap of trouble.

Warning! (Are Your Ads Missing This Element?)

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Have you ever noticed the similarity between the French word “avertissement” and our English “advertisement”?

Same word origin. Avertissement literally means “warning.”

In many ways, an advertisement should be a warning to those who see/hear it. Do your ads have the same sense of urgency that “Danger: Electric Shock” signs carry? They should.

Your target audience needs to 1) notice your message, and 2) take action to avoid the danger ahead. That also means that your marketing should address actual danger, or problems. Many of the teachers of advertising and marketing will tell you never to use negative headlines. Pure horse-manure! Even if you take a positive approach to delivering your message, you should be presenting the positive aspects of not getting electrocuted.

If what you’re selling is worth its salt, there is a real danger for anyone who doesn’t buy from you. The danger of getting ripped-off… …of paying too much… …getting less… …or missing out on the happiness they might have if they did buy from you. Keep the French roots of the word advertisement in the forefront of your thinking when you’re promoting your products and services. It’s your responsibility to protect your customers from the dangers that accompany not buying from you! If your product or service isn’t valuable enough to warrant a warning to make sure the target audience buys, maybe you shouldn’t be selling it.