While millions of techno-wizards waved their digital wands to create “marketing” plans over the last several years, a smaller number were using proven principles and solid growth strategies to build their businesses.
Now with the digital landscape leveling out and ad costs going up, the digital gals and guys are left wondering what to do next.
But for the marketing pros who can truly pack a punch in their business – which I’ll tell you more about in this post – the business growth comes easy (or at least… easier) than slinging bits and bytes to battle rising digital ad costs in the digital space and hyper-competition in their industry.
Indeed, some have said these simple techniques make it too easy!
For owners in business over 5 years, the techniques you’re about to read about will seem basic. So basic, you may be tempted to believe you’ve mastered it already, yet millions of entrepreneurs still struggle with it.
It’s this struggle that leads to online debates about product-market fit. Entrepreneurs think their service is a good idea, but the market doesn’t. This idea is the linchpin of the entire debate.
The topic I’m talking about is this – Strengthening the promise you make to your marketplace, which is sometimes called the offer.
The formula for the customer promise is simple: You get X when you buy Y.
And this overlooked area of improvement is often a simple lever for improving your results and close more deals. Many times, taking your promise from lackluster to sparkling takes your results from lukewarm to scorching in just a few weeks.
That’s why knowing these techniques are so important.
Your job becomes so much easier when you make your promise stronger. Instead of spending millions on a new campaign, you can spark your growth with a stronger promise and attract more of the market without burning through valuable ad dollars.
There are several ways to make your promise stronger, but before you read on, please know that I’m not talking about adding hype, or bigger claims… and I’m not talking about giving away your product for free or with discounts.
Unfiltered discounts bring mixed results. Adding hype has a negative effect. Honestly, over-hyping will likely bring you fewer customers, not more.
You’ll be far more successful—and more prosperous long-term—if you seek to improve your promise with your customers, and you strengthen it with the tools that you’ll learn in this post.
It’s not always easy to make these changes, but if you do, you’ll have an edge in your business dealings, and develop a stronger pull from the prospects you serve best – which means that your reputation improves over time, since you’re working with the most qualified people in your industry.
So what are these factors that make such a powerful change in your marketplace promise?
The Road To Your Business Future
Runs Through This War Zone
Before I give you the three promise enhancers, let me share with you this trend.
Over the past several decades, every area of running your business has gotten tougher.
Some of it is the chaos of the economy. Some of it is the complexity of the web. Some of it is creation and destruction of businesses from shifting demand.
But a large portion of it is because today’s consumers and buyers of your product have become skeptical and indifferent to what you are offering.
And that means that despite your best efforts to offer value with your service, if your promise isn’t as strong as it could be, then growth over time will remain flat.
So if you want a way to cut through this war zone of skepticism, you’ll need to do several things, including making your promise as powerful as it can be.
You see, after your customer’s wants and needs, your promise is the second most important step in customer buying.
The ideal promise has three elements: It’s unique, it’s compelling, and it’s credible.
Here’s why your promise needs each of these three components:
If your promise does not stand apart in the market then there is no incentive for a customer to pick your company over other options in the market. If a legitimate difference does exist between you and your competitors’ promises, your promise should spell it out clearly and plainly.
Otherwise, there is no differentiation in the mind of the customer.
To make a difference in your customers mind, you must make a difference in your promise.
And there’s one last thing before we dive into the three ways to make your promise stand out in a crowd.
If you are the owner of the company, that means that it’s your job, not your copywriter’s or
ad agency’s, to come up with a bulletproof promise, one with a clear-cut, unique, immediately
understandable, and highly desirable offer to the marketplace.
It means that if your “killer new campaign” bringing new blockbluster new sales is only stacking up bigger claims and hype, you’re already in big trouble.
It means that if you’re settling for a “ho-hum” product promise and hoping that the market will award you with a constant stream of “YES!” from a gifted copywriter using clever word-smithing, you’re in for a tough time.
Your promise is the million-dollar drug, your copy campaigns are the delivery mechanism that injects the desire, excitement, benefits, and usefulness of your promise into the buyer’s bloodstream.
Remember that most consumers see 2,000 to 5,000 marketing messages a day. While a killer campaign can bring you a few sales, she or he can’t make the market flock to your door with interest and vigor.
Only you and your product promise can do that.
Ways To Make Your Promise Stronger – Number One
The easiest way to improve your promise is to improve your credibility. This can be done by adding results and testimonials from your current customers.
Results come in many forms but the demonstration is the strongest.
Demonstrations
A demo proves your promise simply because you’re walking your prospect through the product. You can demo the product face-to-face or allow them to try it out for themselves. Demos work incredibly well at proving your point.
With a demonstration, you are removing much of the skepticism from the buyer’s mind. If you can show them first hand how it works, then there’s less room for them to doubt how it helps.
Demos are common in software products, but demonstrations exist in other industries as well. For example, photographs and videos are excellent ways to demonstrate your service.
Before and after shots are easy to pull off with a cell phone camera. Snap a photo before you start and then after your company has worked its magic.
Even giant companies with long lead cycles use demonstrations. When it was launching new processors and components, Intel would track down early design wins from customers, which then acted as a form of proof for future customers.
To add greater credibility to your promise, add a demonstration.
Provide Testimonials
Testimonials, if you have them, should be included in every marketing message you deliver, either online or in-person.
Testimonials are a form of social proof that show skeptical customers you have performed well in the past.
Testimonials can come from customer quotes, written about your service after they have used your company. Surveys also offer a way to gather responses from customers, which can be re-purposed into testimonials (with their permission).
Video testimonials are wonderful tools also, if you can get them. Grab your phone and record a video of happy customers saying wonderful things about you. If you have a business page on social page, you can even use screenshots from your review sections of your business page.
This works in both in B2B and in consumer businesses.
It is the easiest and most effective way to add credible to your promise and make the buying process easier.
For some markets, especially local markets, testimonials are powerful tools. You can out-perform your competition simply by including them on your website and promotional pieces.
Moving on.
Ways To Make Your Promise Stronger – Number Two
Years ago, I was sitting in a seminar in Atlanta listening to some pro copywriters talk about marketing, copywriting, and growing your business using words.
Speaking at the event were some copywriters whose names you’d know, as well as some not as well known, but respected by insiders. And even a writer or two that few had heard of, because they were quietly doing their own thing, minding their own business while making plenty of money outside of the spotlight.
It was two days packed with lessons and insight.
Right before lunch on day one, one of the copy legends takes the podium. Twenty minutes in, he asks the audience, “What’s the most important radio station for marketers to listen to?”
Silence. The audience was stumped.
He leaned forward, cupped his hand behind his ear, and asked again, “What’s the most important radio station for marketers to listen to?”
Crickets. Now everyone was confused.
Finally he said, It’s “WIIFM”
The audience stayed quiet. No-one got the joke.
Now, strained jokes aside, this radio call sign metaphor is the heuristic for the second way to boost your promise.
WIIFM stands for “What’s In It For Me?” and it’s a shortcut way to say this: Customers don’t buy products; they buy what a product does for them.
In other words, customers buy based on their perception of how a product will benefit them. Your promise must offer a compelling benefit. If the promise is not compelling, you won’t make the sales that you deserve to make.
So when you are crafting your messages and campaigns, make sure you spell out the benefits of your service to the buyer. It’s what makes your service compelling.
This is Marketing 101, but it’s still overlooked.
And don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your customer already knows the benefits. In today’s overloaded media landscape, you must be clear and complete every time in every message. If the customer can’t instantly see how you help them in a compelling way, they’ll scroll past or click away.
Issues with compelling benefits can sometimes mean that you haven’t studied your customer enough or you need improvements to your service. So an easy first step is to spend some more time talking with your customer.
Another way we’ve tried is this.
Load up your sample messages in your favorite social media account, and then run several $5 tests with different messages. Push out several messages and then count the clicks to see which one of the messages resonates the most with your audience.
This test allow you to find which message resonates most with your customer. You then run with the winning message.
Ways To Make Your Promise Stronger – Number Three
So, with two of the three covered, let’s move to making your promise unique.
You will instantly see boost in conversions from adding the first two elements to your promise.
Making your promise more compelling and credible means that more of the market will connect with your promise, and you can get deals done faster.
Now, in this section, we answer an important question that will give you a competitive advantage for years to come…
What changes can give you BOTH powerful attraction AND protection
against existing and new competitors entering your market?
Making your promise truly unique – in a manner that only you can offer – is the easiest way to shut down any competitor in the industry.
Adding credibility builds your authority, making your promise compelling ups your attraction, but it’s making your promise unique that creates an almost indefensible position in your industry.
I use the phrase ‘almost indefensible’ because for the true power of this to have effect, you must find a unique angle that only you and your company can offer.
An easy way to see this first-hand is to review print publications in your industry or local area.
Open up any newspaper or trade magazine, and you’ll see dozens of ads across hundreds of pages that offer no unique promise.
But imagine if you were in those journals, and your promise WAS unique, well then you would stand out like a shooting star against the darkened night sky.
Because you’ve made your promise unique to you, others in industry can’t follow you. You and you alone will have the honor of a unique promise.
One easy way to find a unique angle – Review your competition and then ask – What are they NOT offering that customers would value?
Providing a dramatically different promise, even if your product is similar to the products offered by your competition, forces the customer to consider what you’re offering in more detail.
We know from brain science that the human brain loves novelty, so if you see a dozen companies with the same promise, then you will pay attention to the one that’s different.
If your promise sounds the same as your competitors promises, your offer gets lumped together with your competitors’ offers.
Building a solid position in your industry is easy when you have a unique promise.
Now! You Are In Great Shape For
Deals, Sales, And Conversion Rates To
Happen Faster… and Easier Than Before
These 3 tips are powerful tools that you can use to lift a poor performing sales campaign from a so-so one into a record breaker.
But they are much more than powerful tools.
They give you clarity and power in your marketplace which will cause your message to cut through the clutter surrounding the customers in your industry. Using these three tools in your marketing will act as a spotlight in your marketing, sending up a bright signal that only the most interested and qualifying buyers will see.
You’ll find that when all three elements are included in all of your messaging, you will never be short of leads or deal flow.
Indeed, making your promise more compelling, unique, and credible will make you distinct in the overcrowded marketplace by elevating you above the armies of lackluster companies that are trying to be everything to everybody, only to wind up meaning nothing special to no one.
These tools are the surest way I know to attract and bond with your target buyers, your key prospects, and the decision makers most likely to become your best customers and clients.
You’ll find these 3 additional incredibly powerful. It’s like gaining another 20% to 30% of deal flow from your current campaigns without spending more on ad dollars, since you’ll have more people interested in your campaigns, and more of them are likely to do business with you.
But remember the warnings at the start. The key to all of this is that the changes must matter to your customer, otherwise your promises will pass by your audience like two ships passing in the night.
So be sure you talk to customers while you make these changes… you’ll be glad you did!
Good luck and get to it!