Do your eyes roll whenever you get yet another email or see yet another ad claiming they can “bring you a flood of clients”, “double your conversion” or “take your business to the next level” (I’m not even sure what that last one means, but I see it a lot).
Me too.
One of the side effects of being subjected to so much more advertising than before is that we’ve grown immune to it. In fact, I’d go so far to say that we’ve grown allergic to it.
Whenever I see an ad, or hear someone making a claim about the wonderful results I’m going to get from their product or service my immediate reaction nowadays is just to disbelieve it. The bigger the claims, the more suspicious I get.
And I’ve seen it from the other side too. I’ve written emails and sales letters where I’ve meticulously crafted benefits statements to describe the wonderful things people would get if they bought the product or service. Only for them to be outperformed by simple, descriptive text saying “here’s what it is, here’s what you’ll get from it, here’s how to buy it”.
Cynicism and suspicion are the kryptonite of traditional benefits-driven sales copy.
So what can you do instead?
There’s a terrible temptation when you see how much your competitors are hyping their offerings to do the same yourself or try to “one up” them. But I’m finding that, in the main, my potential clients respond better to simplicity and straightforward descriptions.
That’s not to say you don’t talk about the benefits. But don’t use hype-filled language.
Better yet: demonstrate rather than claim.
Give examples of what they’ll get rather than telling them how amazing it will be. Rather than saying they’ll get a “flood of new customers”, tell them about how John the plumber got 27 new enquiries in 5 days as a result of the marketing you did for him.
And there’s one specific technique that seems to work well to highlight benefits without raising defenses. It’s to tell stories.
By illustrating your points with an interesting story you get your readers or listeners into “pay attention” mode rather than “shields up” mode.
I give some examples of how to do this in face to face discussions in my Selling with Stories article.
Or for a real masterclass in using stories to build deep client connections and cut through resistance, join me this Thursday for a free webinar with copywriter Daniel Levis who’s made a real art out of “selling more by selling less”.
Register for Free Sell More By Selling Less Webinar
See you on the webinar!
hmmm interesting food for thought. I think hyping works better in the US than the UK judging from what I see online. It may be a cultural thing.
I agree with the cynicism 100% and the storytelling.Thanks for the reminder.