Creating A Compelling Reason

It was a small book with a big promise. If you bought the book you would have all the information needed to buy and sell stocks, on your own, and make your personal fortune.

Who wouldn’t want a personal fortune? Why wouldn’t everyone buy this book? The cost of the book was minimal. Little did the author know that the path to success in selling his book had less to do with the actual content delivered, than with the advertising message used to make the sale.

The outcome is one of the clearest examples of the need for testing and the power of the “Compelling Reason.”

Two versions of the book were marketed through two direct mail packages to targeted consumers in a correctly controlled A/B split test. The direct mail packages were identical except for the cover design and title of the book as it was featured in each package.

Group A’s package featured a book with a beautiful full color cover design that had an illustrated border of high-end luxury items such as boats, expensive cars, jewels, mansions, fine wines, and even a stack of gold bars. These images surrounded the title of the book, which was The World’s Most Powerful Money Manual & Course. The title was done in a gilded gold color.

Group B’s package featured a book with a plain cover with a thick black border surrounding a solid green center (the green was similar to the color of dollars), with simple black serif type. No graphics, no illustrations. The title of the book was How To Make a Million Dollars In The Stock Market: A Step-By-Step Guide For Beginners.

The B package was a resounding success! The A package was a failure. The lessons should be obvious, but marketers continually make the same mistakes and there is far more “A” type advertising being produced than the much more effective “B” approach.

Package B won the test because it had the Compelling Reason. The formula is:
Message + Offer + Benefit = Compelling Reason.

If you want to create compelling reasons for people to respond to your advertising follow the scientific approach to marketing by following a few simple but absolute rules. They are:

The Message Must Always Be About the Customer. People want to know what’s in it for them (the benefit) much more than they want to hear about why you think your product or service is so great. Package A was about the product; package B was about the benefit to the consumer.

Keep It Simple. Don’t let your graphic designers run amuck in creating advertising. You aren’t creating art; you are communicating a message. The less design interference there is with the message the more impact your advertising will have.

Use Power Words. In marketing there are words that have a powerful effect on consumers. There are also words that leave consumers confused and disinterested. Choose your words carefully in creating your message. Tell your message with as few words as possible. The title of book A was actually an empty label that didn’t even hint at what kind of information was inside. The title of book B said exactly what was inside. Even more, it stated exactly who the book was for – beginners!

Emotion Always Beats Intellect. When you create advertising that makes consumers feel something you’ll always be more successful than if you try to get them to think about something. Emotional connections are vital to developing a customer relationship.

This is especially important if you are in the business of fund-raising. The majority of fund-raising solicitations contain paragraphs of wasted copy telling how worthy they are and about all the good deeds they perform with the donations they received. Great fundraising connects at an emotional level with the donor who wants to feel personal satisfaction.

Specifics Always Outsell Generalizations. This is one of the clearest contrasts between book A and book B. The title of book B was very specific. The title of book A was very general. Specifics are easier to understand and therefore make it easier for the consumer to make a decision.

The Only Thing Better than Everything is Something. Promise too much and your advertising is unbelievable. Promise something and your message builds trust. This is another way of understanding why specifics work better than generalizations.

The Offer is the Most Important Element. What you offer, and how you write about the offer, will determine how many people respond to your advertising. Here’s an example of how the same offer can be worded differently.

Suppose you have a product that you urgently need to sell. To get sales you are willing to cut the price in half. Which of these ways of presenting that offer to the consumer do you think will work best?

1. Save 50%!
2. Get Two for the Price of One!
3. Now! 50% Off Sale!
4. Buy One, Get One Free!
5. Half Price Sale!

The answer is at the end of the Muse.

The Compelling Reason is what author Malcolm Gladwell talks about as “the stickiness factor” in his book The Tipping Point. It is why some messages stick with us while others are forgotten as soon as they’re heard or seen.

The best way to develop your most Compelling Reason is through testing. But as media costs increase and marketing budgets get stretched thin, many companies refuse to invest in testing. That is a “penny wise and pound foolish” approach. Testing is the only way of being absolutely sure you are marketing with the most effective Compelling Reason you can create.

Malcolm Gladwell sums it up best in The Tipping Point when he says “There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible. All you have to do is find it.”

Answer to the offer:

Buy One, Get One Free always out-pulls every other way of selling at half price. The reason is the word free. Free has much more power than save. Free means you spend nothing. Save means you have to spend something. Perception is everything.

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