Too good to be true can cost you

[Rob Toth]

No surprise here: it's a skeptic nation out there.

So if you're new gadget or e-book or overall offer starts sounding too good... expect that it may cost you sales.

Tying into that... if your offer can do pretty much everything for your prospect including their dishes and their kids' homework all while automatically earning money for them online... expect that too will cost you sales.

Because there's a portion of any market that feels they have a general understanding of what benefits and bells and whistles they should be getting for their money from similar products. And they have a "reality threshold".. if you push beyond that, they may question "what's the catch?" or claim it's BS.

Case in point... when Colgate Total launched in North America, they took over Crest's market leader position of 3 decades in 1 month. Because they eliminated the pitch for the dozen and one benefits of their formula and focused on "long lasting protection, lasts 12 hours" ... and they changed the more technical name of Colgate Gum Protection to Colgate Total which suggest all encompassing.

However, when they originally launched the SAME EXACT product in other markets (markets where they previously held a stronger market share than in north america) but they did it with the Colgate Gum Protection name and they did it while hitting on the dozen new advanced protection and benefits of their toothpaste vs. Crest, the product flopped.

I had an offer a while back that saw 14% conversions... yes, particularly high. The offer was solid. But I had emails come in asking "what's the catch", "will I be added to some membership" etc. I was losing part of my sales because the offer looked too good.

Similarly, take a look at some of the most amazing and CONFUSING sounding software products and other scripts that get released in the IM world... you know they are powerful, you know they can do a thousand and one things... but you can immediately figure out which of those 1001 cool things applies to you and you may question whether the product can actually deliver on its promises...

This is just a bit of food for thought.

If you have a product that offers 40 amazing benefits... consider created niched sales offers for each (or bundles) of those benefits. Instead of confusing or scaring away a prospect with too many bells and whistles, have landing pages and sales funnels that focus on just X or X and Y benefit vs. all 40.

That's not necessarily the way to go for every product and every launch... but certainly worth keeping in mind especially if you're bringing something very new or advanced to the audience.

[Andy Havens]

Hi Rob.

Some excellent points here - why am I not surprised? ;-)

If I skiimmed too fast and over one you covered already, my apologies but one common technique in copywriting is to trot out some of your faults yourself. This also makes you more credible in the eyes of the reader.

One thing I often urge marketers whenever I can is to plainly state what your product DOES. This is especially true of software develpers. For example:

I have a product proven to increase sales 700% or more.

It's easy to use.

It improves sales for any product with a viable market.

It will NOT improve the product itself - nor will it make a lousy product into something it is not.

Used over time and you can easily double, triple or quadruple your sales.

Buy now.


So great it does all that - what IS the product?

If you haven't guessed, I just described a split testing script.

I can't count how many sales pages I've read or even products I've bought (so call me a sucker) promising to wisk me off to paradise at the touch of a button only to find out it's something I already own. What can be worse than that? I'll tell you what...

Looking all over for a solution to a problem for days, weeks or months only to find out the solution was riight under my nose all the time - and quite affordable at that. So why didn't I buy it? Because whoever wrote the copy, while possibly crafting a masterful piece, failed to simply state what the product is or does and therefore I glossed over it.

More and more I think the "too good to be true" style comes back to bite marketers in more ways than one.

I see Rob's post here as a call to come back to credible copy offering good value - real value and shy away from gimmicks and hyped up promises of a wild ride but failing to mention the crash and burn ending.

Andy

[Rob Toth]

>> my apologies but one common technique in copywriting is to trot out some of your faults yourself. This also makes you more credible in the eyes of the reader.

Great point. And I doubt I mentioned it.

That's also why even a sale and fear of loss strategy should be accompanied by a "reason" ... ie: old inventory blow out sale, Father's Day sale, Rainy Tuesdays Half Off Soup Day, mis-matched mattresses sale, etc




>> while possibly crafting a masterful piece, failed to simply state what the product is or does and therefore I glossed over it.

I use exit surveys (ie: when the visitor is leaving) regularly on new sites but I even do this on affiliate-pitch pages to find out why they didn't join as an affiliate.

The answers you get from the majority of these polls is nearly always "I don't get it" (or variations of that). If it's a software, you'll get "looks great, but I don't understand how it will work", if it's an affiliate programs "sounds good, but don't know how I would make money with this".

Of course, that's when I go back and dumb it down even further. Point is, the "how" needs to be clarified.


I guess my point was to consider your product vs. your market's needs.

If you're selling a Swiss army knife that has 15 gizmos and functions... sure, pitch all of them. It's a low ticket item and each function is easy to understand. The end user knows that they're about to buy a widget that does 15 things.

However, if it's a vitamin that cures baldness, eliminates colds forever, clears up the skin and gives you good breath all in one... the claims are too good to be true and the benefits would serve better being pitched individually (ie: pitch the product as a baldness cure to balding men, the eliminates cold forever to parents and elderly, etc).

The "this thing does everything" approach isn't always the wisest. And, as Andy highlighted, even if you choose to go that route ... it make sense to insert a negative.

Think of the Buckley's slogan (which is SOOOO great!): "Tastes aweful but it works!".

It's medicine. We KNOW it will likely taste aweful. Don't lie to me and try to tell me how delicious the medicine is.. tell me it works. So by out-right stating to the public that their product is disgusting but then following it up with "it works", it gets the prospect nodding in agreement because now they can believe your claims. They are already on board and agree with you on the fact that it taste aweful, so your ad was obviously telling the truth... therefore, the second part of your ad must also be true and your product probably works.

I heard Markus Frind of PlentyOfFish.com reference his site as the ugliest dating site in the world ... and then follows it up with "but it's also the largest free dating site in the world with the most profiles"

anyways... I'm on a rant now. Thanks Andy for the discussion!