From the desk of Razvan Rogoz,
I’ve noticed an interesting trend. Online marketing follows the same approach as the movie industry. You see, there is a basic rule in movie making. The bigger your audience is, the more you will earn. So movies are made to have a mass appeal. This can be done by reducing violence (therefore having a lower rating) but generally, appealing to the lowest common dominator.
This is why you don’t see a lot of complex movies nowadays. The people who want complex, thought provoking movies are maybe 10% of the entire audience. The other 90% prefers pure emotion and to have fun, instead to ask questions. Plus, a ticket is a ticket and everyone pays the same. All things being equal, nine million people watching a movie filled with cliches and where you have to leave your brain at the door is nine times better than one million people watching a complex, philosophical movie.
Marketers are doing the same. If there are 100.000 people who want a basic concept and 10.000 who want an advanced concept, most marketers appeal to the bigger number. Yet, there is a problem. The 10.000 that are looking for something better are generally worth more from a dollar value than the other 100.000 combined. As opposed to music and movies, online marketing tools and educations are not commodities but rather specific tools to help specific problems. And if you go to a college graduate trying to sell him a book on how to do basic calculus … chances are he’s not going to be interested. On the other hand, if you go to a kid who needs to learn to do basic calculus, he may be interested but he can’t afford the book because he’s a kid.
So is with most online marketing. The largest pool of people need basic, introductory information but are not earning any profits nor do they have that much disposable income in order to invest. This is not a problem if you’re selling low ticket but let me ask you this – is it easy to sell a $997 course to someone who never earned a dime online? Or should you sell this $997 course to someone who makes this money in a day?
There is a close relationship between market sophistication, the amount they’re willing to invest and the size. And the same is true about proof in copywriting.
If you look at more sales letters nowadays in a critical manner, you’ll notice a massive lack of proof. This comes in contrast with what most copywriting books say about the topic. They put so much emphasis on proof that it feels like your copy must become an airtight legal case. Yet, most VSLs make no sense when analyzed carefully.
They are full of contradictions, suspension of disbelief and so on. There are a few copywriting gurus that even admitted to this and said that the sale is made on an emotional level, not a logical one.
And yes, I agree. The sale is made using emotions and when emotions are engaged, you can get away with a lot. Yet, what most copywriters fail to say is that this tends to be for mass product, unsophisticated products. It is the device that allows you to generate your own electricity or stuff like that – that plays on people’s frustrations and desires. BitCoin is another example. I’ve never seen as much unsubstantiated hype as with BC. It is similar to the tulip mania a long time ago.
But you know what? Those ads selling BC and BC tools and BC courses and opportunities are not directed at analysts working on Wall Street or lecturers in the topics of economics. They are directed to people who know almost nothing about trading, can’t read a chart, have no idea what a P&L statement is and don’t even know what compounded interest means.
They’re amateurs with zero experience. They believe the claims because honestly, they don’t have the knowledge to know otherwise. If you make the same claims to someone with twenty years of experience, you’d better show tons of proof that this is true. If you say that BC will always rise and it is not a bubble, you’d better talk in his language and show tangible, logical proof that this is true.
Now I’m not saying that all people buying BC have no idea what they’re doing. I know for a fact that there are many very sophisticated investors who know very well what they’re doing. Yet, 80% at least are amateurs who sensed a way to get rich fast and invested their money without any prior research. Ignorance is bliss sometimes. This made the asset grow in value which attracted more get rich quick seekers. This is how a bubble is made. Many people putting their money in without a real foundation to sustain that value.
Or let’s take an IT expert. If you sell a computer to my aunt, she knows nothing about computers. You can tell her anything you want and if you say it will be good, she’ll buy it. For her 4 GB of RAM or 64 GB of RAM is exactly the same thing. What if you try to sell this to a computer enthusiast who built computer his all life? Can you fool him with “this is the best processor ever, it can play any game in existence”?. No. You need charts and benchmarks and quotes from authority figures.
Let’s say you are selling an online marketing product. If you’re selling to a complete amateur you can say “yes, this is going to make you a million dollars”. Lacking any knowledge of the field or on judging this to be true or false (as a filter), he may as well accept it. If you sell to someone who has been doing this for ten years, then you need to build a complete logical case that proves that the million dollar claim is true.
The more experienced one is in one field, the more proof he needs to see attached to your claims in order to accept them and the less likely he is to take them for granted.
It took me a long time to understand this. My mistake was that I learned copywriting from the people that are very good at this. One example is Clayton Makepeace. He was amongst the first people I’ve studied. He wrote promotions for financial publishers, promotions that would cost million of dollars to mail. This means that these packages were overkill. They were refined to perfection and since the market was sophisticated, part time investors, entrepreneurs or career professionals, they were very heavy on proof.
So for a long time, I’ve thought that I must be heavy on proof on every letter I write. This proved false. The average Joe has not developed the type of critical thinking to warrant that type or proof. If anything, it puts him into an analytical mindset and pulls him out of the emotional one. Yes, when selling to an unsophisticated marketplace, having too much proof can actually unsell someone. It’s better to just “act a fool” and assume that everything you say is taken for granted than trying to answer questions that were never asked by your prospect.
Keep this in mind. The more your prospect knows about your field, the easier it is for him to debunk any claim you make. If this happens, you lose the sale. So use proof like an armor against his skepticism. However, if he is unlikely to be skeptical, then adding that armor will just draw unwanted attention. It’s a balancing act.
Are you interested in discovering how I can help your business or how we can apply these concepts to your own venture? Then let’s have a talk. For a limited time, I’m giving away complementary 30 minute calls. In these sessions, we’ll discuss ways in which we can maximize your customer value, boost your conversion, achieve more sales and increase any other relevant metrics in your business.
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Best regards,
Razvan Rogoz
The Business & Self-Improvement Copywriter
Click Here For Your Complimentary 30 Minute Call!
Best regards,
Razvan Rogoz