If you’ve ever wondered, “How do I know if the offer we’ve created is powerful enough?” Stick with me. This article is for you today.
“ Make your offer so great that only a lunatic would refuse to buy”
— Claude C. Hopkins
I’ve been thinking a lot about creating irresistible offers and this quote about offers from the great advertising pioneer, Claude Hopkins.
It’s made me think again about something I mentioned in my article “Why Your Prospects Need You to Follow-up With Them.“
In that article, I shared the fact that your prospects need you to follow-up because we all procrastinate and don’t do what we know we should. We do that because we’re scared.
Well, the reason you must create the most powerful offer you can is because you must do everything you can to inspire and motivate your prospects to take action.
Otherwise, they won’t.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m NOT telling you to trick your prospects. I’m also not telling you to manipulate them.
What I am telling you is this: If you are selling something that your prospects really need or want, then you must figure out a way to get them to take action.
How do you create an offer that gets a prospect to take action? It starts with understanding the purpose of your offer.
Let me share a story I came across with you to explain what I mean.
Your Offer is the Incentive to Take Action
In a Michigan State University study, 97% of the faculty members and staff who bet $40 that they could stay with a six-month exercise program were successful. Only 19% of a non-betting group stayed with their six-month program, however.
– MSC Health Action News, April 1993
Did you pay attention to the percentages in those two groups? They’re pretty impressive:
- 97% of the faculty and staff who bet money were successful.
- Only 19% of the faculty and staff that didn’t bet any money were successful.
That reveals an important truth that you need to remember when you’re creating your offer.
The truth you need to remember is that people are more likely to take action when they have the incentive to do so.
But here’s the thing that amateur marketers don’t realize. The most effective incentives have a positive and negative aspect to them.
Something to Gain and Something to Lose
In other words, your offer should make your prospect see and feel that they have something to gain if they take action.
And more importantly, it should also make them see and feel that they have something to lose if they don’t take action.
Why did I say, “…more importantly” when I mentioned what they’d lose? Because a sense of loss is even more important than a sense of gain.
I guarantee that the reason that 97% of the faculty and staff were successful is because they didn’t want to lose $40. It wasn’t really because they cared that much about gaining $40.
The Two Important Emotional Elements of an Irresistible Offer
That means that besides the 9 elements you need to create a powerful offer, you also need to include two important emotional elements:
- You need to clearly explain and paint a picture of what the prospect will gain – how their life will change for the better – if they take your offer.
- You need to clearly explain and paint a picture of what the prospect will lose- how their life will change for the worse– if they don’t take your offer.
Again, please don’t think I’m suggesting that you lie or exaggerate when adding these two emotional elements.
You shouldn’t do that.
In fact, you shouldn’t need to do that.
If your product or service really offers a benefit to your prospects, and if you have added things to make a powerful offer, then what they will gain or lose is real.
You just need to help them see and feel that gain or loss. The “one-two punch” of gain and loss will be a powerful incentive that will make it much more likely that your prospect will take action.
It will make the gain or loss more real to them just like the $40 bet made things real for the faculty and staff at Michigan State University.
I’m not saying that 97% of them will take action but it will be a much higher percentage than if you didn’t include these two emotional elements.
By the way, if you’d like to read Claude C, Hopkins’ classic book, Scientific Advertising, you can get free access to it in our free member’s area.
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