How to easily make an extra ￡3500 per day by making the right promise… (a new take on an old theme)

How to easily reap an extra $4900 per day by making the right promise… (a new take on an old theme)

Does that sound like a hypey promise?

That would be ironic, as I’m about to spend the next few minutes sharing how I helped a client get an average of $4900 in extra sales per day from under-performing sales pages by…

 …toning down, yet at the same time strengthening and laser-focusing his sales messages and ‘promises’.

 You see too many overcooked promises these days. You know the ones:

 “Make 6-figures doing… yadda, yadda, yadda”

“Make oodles of cash while sitting on your bee-hind doing diddly-squat all day”

“Burn all your belly fat in blah, blah weeks, days, hours, nano-seconds”

 Does anybody buy these anymore?

 Maybe. There’s possibly a 0.5 or 1% conversion rate to be had from some of these promises. If you’re lucky. And as everyone seems to be outdoing each other to make their promises less and less believable and more outrageous, things can only get worse…

 …unless you’re doing something different, that is.

What if there’s another way? (hint: there is!)

 I’m a professional freelance copywriter, specialising in tech, IT and B2B. I recently helped a client who sells IT courses to more than double his conversions on 7 of his courses. When you consider that he sells each course for, on average, $175, that’s a fair chunk of change.

 I haven’t asked him, but I think he’s pretty happy with the extra $700 per day in direct sales for each course.

 The techniques I’m about to reveal can help with lead generation too, it’s not limited to direct sales – how many $$’s would double the number of leads mean to you? 

 It’s time to move away from the hackneyed, overused, worn-out promises that are so ludicrous nobody believes them.

 Ok, maybe they’re not that bad, but if they have even a whiff of the ridiculous about them, prospects will run away clutching their credit cards tightly.

 Maybe it’s because many of us have been brainwashed into thinking that aggressive, hypey sales tactics work that you see so much of it out there. Who knows?

 Anywho – if you want to learn the subtle art of making promises your prospects can’t ignore, please read on…

So, what’s the secret?

Is it a secret? I’m not so sure. I’ve seen various interpretations in different books such as Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz and the Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Joe Sugarman, to name but two.

 But, I guess I distil it in a different way. By bringing some old ideas up-to-date or merge some psychological principles and best practices together … see what you think…

How I did it — in 5 simple steps

Step 1 – Emotionally-charge the headline

 You want to convince your prospects, right? Ok, so you need to identify what they really want. Not ‘need’, but ‘want’.

E.g. they may ‘need’ to lose weight, but what they really ‘want’ is to feel better about their bodies.

E.g. 2 – they may ‘need’ a software tool to increase their work efficiency, but what they really ‘want’ is more time to focus on parts of the job that they enjoy.

E.g. 3 – they may ‘need’ the services of an IT consultant, but what they really ‘want’ is to feel like their in a safe pair of hands and that they’re entire IT system isn’t going to go kaputt!

Learn how they speak. What their fears are. How they feel. Go to forums. Talk to them. Live for a while in their shoes. Then come back to your desk, and pour their hearts out on the page.

Write a dozen headlines that will move them emotionally. Then pick the best one.

How do you move them emotionally? Use emotional words that relate to the emotional state they’re in (or you want them to be in).

Words like these:

For curiosity – secret, forbidden, little-known, exposed, what nobody tells you about…

For urgency – quick, fast, instant, now, today, limited, don’t miss out, don’t get left behind…

For overcoming fear – easy, simple, effortless

For excitement – new, revolutionary, ground-breaking, awesome, the best yet…

For confusion – uncertain, unsure, hesitant, disillusioned, lost your faith in…

For anger – outrage, ordeal, shocking, you’ll be enraged at…

For protected – secure, safe, guaranteed, risk-free, defend

For happiness – joy, ecstatic, cheerful, satisfied, at ease

For inspiration – motivated, keen, in the zone, pumped up…

For relaxed – serene, calm, happy, comfortable, content, peaceful

Notice how I used a couple of those words in the headline for this post – ‘easily‘ (overcoming the fear of it being difficult) and ‘new‘ (generate some excitement). Did it work for you? Are you still reading?

We’re all emotional creatures, so we’re all susceptible to this stuff. Yes, even hard-nosed business-people. Just check out Prof Robert Cialdini’s excellent book ‘Influence – the psychology of persuasion’ if you don’t believe me.

Step 2 – Make the opening paragraph ROCK! 

It has to ROCK! It can’t just be ‘ho, hum, that’s mildly interesting, but I’d rather be clicking around Facebook like a hypnotised chimp’.

 NO! It has to R-O-C-K. Period. So how do you make it rock?

Again, it’s all about emotions. Decide on what emotions you’re trying to generate or elicit, then play to them. A good way to do this is by using storytelling elements. Have a narrative – look at the opening paragraph of this post, it starts with some characters – me and my client, and the problem we had to overcome – poor sales. It then goes on to give a brief glimpse of how the problem was overcome. A sense of hope that, ideally, people will relate to.

This section is designed to generate curiosity – an important point that most people miss in their opening salvo (even some ‘pro’ copywriters miss this) – always build to a crescendo of excitement, hope and curiosity. This is the holy trinity of copywriting in my (not-so-humble ?? ) opinion.

Basically – make your opening lines/paragraphs pretty-darn interesting and rousing. Write like the offer you’re going to make is a matter of life or death.

Step 3 – Reach for the heavy artillery – tungsten-tipped bullets 

I’m going to ‘fess up. I’ve bought courses and info-products in the past based on the strength of a single bullet point. If it chimes so loudly with the prospect that they can’t get it out of their head, it’s penetrated so gosh-darned deep – you’ve won them. Right there. They will buy. No more questions asked.

So, how do you write bullets that have such an impact?

Firstly, don’t leave them as an afterthought. Sometimes I write the bullets first, even before the headline. You can get a good idea as to the direction of your copy from the bullets, so this can be a good practice.

Secondly, relate them to your promise. Think – how can I distill my promise down to a handful of snappy, persuasive bullet points.

Thirdly, use this format:  * ‘benefit’ – ‘feature’

E.g.    * master a skill that saves time & effort – no need to learn multiple methods

OR     * make yourself more employable – discover the tips & tricks of an expert in the business

Step 4 – convince, convince, convince

This is the easy(ish) part. Use a combination of testimonials, FAQ’s and guarantee. But don’t forget to include your promise and use as many emotional triggers as you can – particularly in your FAQ’s.

Keep the persuasion going and get them to really believe that you can deliver on your promise. By the end of this section there should be no doubt that you can give them exactly what they want.

Step 5 – tell them what to do to get what they want

Nearly home and dry. But don’t neglect this bit. It’s so important.

You’ve got them where you want them. They’re poised. Credit card at the ready or fingers willingly about to type their email address. But, you’ve got to tell them EXACTLY what to do. No half measures here – exact instructions only.

 Also, chuck in a reminder of your promise. The golden goose that they really want. Then hit them with the call-to-action.

 For example:- “Remember, this course will make you feel great about yourself physically and mentally. To enrol, click the link below.”

And here endeth today’s lesson. Well, it’s not a lesson, more of a guide I suppose, but I hope you got something out of it.

I’m thinking of writing similar posts on B2B marketin, email marketing, article writing, whitepaper writing, etc – if you’d be interested in any of those then holler at me.

Or if you have any questions, comments, thoughts or ramblings then post them in the comments section. I love a good dialogue. Ta Ta For Now!