How to make your offers more believable

Here's a simple bit of advice that might help you in your marketing. It's a principle most seasoned marketers have been exposed to but many still don't apply it.

A friend called and asked me to take a look at his squeeze page and suggest any changes I thought might help him get more click throughs for his free offer in exchange for a sign-up to his email list.

I suggested four very simple changes, two of which relate to this same idea . . . and that is . . .

"The attraction of the specific." You may have heard about this principle before, but if you're fairly new to IM maybe this will be helpful.

His squeeze copy claimed he had generated "over 20 new clients" to his paid service. I asked him what the exact number really was and he replied 21. So I suggested he use the specific number 21 instead of saying "over 20 new clients." I also suggested each time he ran a new campaign in a different venue he update the number of new clients to exactly what that number was (of course the reason behind the update is so that anyone seeing more than one of his ads will see his numbers growing over time.)

The second change I suggested he might try was to list, as simple but specific bullet points, the six most important benefits of his method that the subscriber would learn. His present copy contained a more generic short paragraph about why the prospect should join his list right now. It was a hard-hitting summary of all the "whys" ... but it was not specific to exactly how the prospect would gain direct benefit from clicking through the squeeze page and gaining the freebie.

The two other suggestions I made were to add a high quality image of his free report and to reduce the size of his page a little so that no scrolling was necessary in order to "see" the entire offer (everything "above the fold")- both are typically sound advice for most any squeeze page.

A month or so after our exchange my buddy offered that his opt-in rate had jumped significantly. I told him to not stop testing his squeeze pages, his offers, and his web site copy and design and from this point forward, to test just one variable at a time against the control version.

There are lots of ways to apply the principle of "the attraction of the specific" in your marketing ... and it goes beyond just copywriting. Just understand that if you are specific you are more believable, more open, more "seamless" and (importantly) more willing to tell the exact truth than if you speak in generalities. Prospects are attracted to specifics.

But here's one caution. Always be truthful about the specifics you offer. Using a "false specific" ... like "my super duper system has generated $879,233.91 for my clients that have implemented it" ... just sounds suspect and hypey, doesn't it? Some things, like reports of exact income generated by others or the exact number of people that have benefited from your help, are almost impossible to nail down. I those cases, don't exaggerate or make up specifics ... if you don't know what the specifics are, couch your benefits in a different manner.

I hope this bit of advice might help some of you in your Internet marketing.

Steve