There are two kinds of people in your audience you need to especially consider when you write copy and collect testimonials.
1) The Skeptic. The guy who ain’t going to believe a thing unless he actually walks on the water for himself.
2) The Hopeful. The guy who is yearning so badly for a solution to his ugly, horrible, desperate problem that he’s hungry and thirsty for salvation in any form.
Sometimes these two kinds of people are the same person. When we roll those two guys into one, we have someone who looks at your testimonials with a jaundiced eye, checking for any sign that somebody’s making something up.
- Do these ring true?
- Do they sound like real people?
- Do they all sound like the same guy wrote them?
- If I wanted to check these people out would I ever be able to?
He asks all those questions.
But… once he gets an affirmative answer to those questions, he can’t unglue himself from your sales page. He’s been looking, hunting, searching, fantasizing for so long… he reads testimonial after testimonial, drinking in the hope.
He places the order almost feeling as though his problem will begin solving itself almost as soon as the transaction is approved.
And then he can’t wait to get it, open it, read it, devour it.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to provide so much proof, so much tangible evidence of the power of your solution – and so much anticipation – that this guy feels a wave of satisfaction flowing through his body as soon as he gets done placing the order on your website.
Perry Marshall
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
22 Comments on “The Skeptical and the Hopeful”
Perry,
As always, very interesting and helpful post. I definitely fall in “the skeptic” category.
But the point you are making – to have satisfied customers ‘sell’ for you with their testimonials – is the great power and the tip to always remember.
Thank you,
Marianna
Good lesson. I believe all prospects approach a product with a certain amount of hope and fear. We hope the product will solve our problem/ produce the results we want.
But we bring all sorts of fear to the table. We think it won’t work, won’t work for us, that it will be too difficult to implement, that we could find the same product/service cheaper and a host of related fears.
As marketers, we must answer both the hope and the fear question. What solution is the prospect looking for? What will cause the prospect not to buy my product? Failure to answer these questions results in “no sale.”
Many marketers are afraid to raise the objections that a prospect may have. Actually it builds trust to bring up the objections … and trust lowers the buying resistance.
Good article.
Your reason for posting this puzzles me in view of the recent FTC ruling that essentially kills the use of testimonials. Do you not feel that these regulations are as stringent as they appear to be?
My take on the FTC: http://www.perrymarshall.com/federal-trade-commission-testimonials/
You have analysed the audience well. I am new to it and am both skeptical and hopeful. Skeptical as there is so much info and you get lost and confused. Sometimes dumb. Hopeful when you are looking for a solution and you see words and paragraphs that make you believe that your problems are solved.
My experience has been that no one model or solution or product is perfect. You need to solve the puzzle from so much information available.
Long time since I bought your very first version of Adword Guide Perry, it still stands out as one of the few products I have ever purchased that did exactly what it said on the tin.
Your article today is about getting more than 1% of visitors to convert. If 1% know what they want and trust your basic pitch then that is a base line. If you do everything that you possibly can to brow beat (cruel description but we do don’t we?) the doubtful, the waverers, the ditherers the dubious, the thrice bitten etc,etc then we get up to the 2% and the 3% maybe the heady heights of the 4% and you make much bigger money.
Buyers Remorse is not remorse it is regret.
Regret at having been in the Needy and Greedy and having been sold the same old smelly pile of…….. by those who have no care, no conscience and no moral compass. You all know who they are. They hang around in groups back slapping each other in their affiliate ghetto’s laughing at the results of their sophisticated manipulation of people’s emotions. The only remorse is that felt when these guys get hit with a chargeback! How dare customers ask for MY money back they whine.
Folks, if these guys knew anything worth knowing they would be quietly getting down to doing it not shouting about it from the roof tops. They are the sellers of shovels at the gold rush.
Yep, it takes a lot of shoving and nudging to get one more buyer to the cash register but if your product is good then you have done a fine thing. If your product is bad then you have just added a little more misery to the world and a curse on your house!
And lastly rememeber the gurus mantra- honesty and sincerity….when you can fake those you have got it made.
I used to be a hopeful until I maxed out my credit cards :-( Now I’m focused one niche online which I hope to be a specialist in within the next 4 years. Any email from a guru or whoever that does not add to my core specialisation is immediately deleted. I believe most people don’t know the power of great copy. Unfortunately a few who know abuse the power of copy and enslave masses of ‘hopefuls’ into exchanging their hard earned cash for shallow dreams.
Joe said: “I am the hopeful one. But, after my experience of purchasing the “magic pill”. I learn a lot about ethics.”
I spent 25 years+ in the car biz. I stopped drinking 20 years ago and those horrible 12 step people told me I couldn’t lie anymore! Well, how the Hell was I going to sell cars without lying? I was sure it could not be done. As a test, I ‘sacrificed’ a sale and instead of telling a customer what I knew he wanted to hear, I told the truth. In my head, I knew that blew the sale. He bought the car.
Every time that in my head I KNOW I have to bend my ethics to make money or save face or whatever it is that is on the line, my experience has shown that NOT doing what I ‘thought’ I needed to do to succeed has produced a result BETTER than I had envisioned achieving by lying or mis-leading.
Even after 20 years, it is sometimes a struggle to ‘do or say the right thing’. Lol. So try not to judge others too harshly. It is damn hard enough trying to keep my own ‘house in order’. Lol.
(Perry is not a 12 step fan and I understand that. ‘Well’ people don’t usually spend a lot of time in church basements by choice. Many are ‘sick’ and most will at some point always go back to that. The trick is sort of like the trick in internet marketing; stick with winners that ‘do’ moral things. There is enough around in both categories to give you plenty of choice.
I used to be hopeful. Then I ran into ‘Internet Marketing’.
Then I found someone I could trust. Then another. Both sell Adwords info. I manage 1 account for a mere $1500 a month and it performed 4,000% better than the last guy that managed it before I ran into Perry.
Slowly I’ve learned others that I can trust. I have also learned not to always buy a service recommended by someone I trust because even though it may be a great fit for them, it may not be for me. (I am not trying to be anyone but me & the motivation of the service provider does matter to me even though it probably shouldn’t.)
I stick around here because I like the company and love the emails! & sometimes something like the triangle comes along that applies not just to Adwords or even really to just marketing, but to everything a person does if they are willing to focus on the similarities instead of the differences.
But I’ve been ‘got’ and I have had others ‘get’ me by design, so I suspect I am a bit more skeptical now. I sort of fall into both categories. Except I now have a plan and am implementing it so I don’t feel as desperate as I used to.
Moral dilemmas still assail me; but I have also learned that not sticking to my personal boundaries is a whole lot more dangerous than doing things I think will help my self & my family that don’t sit right with me. (& so far sticking to my guns hasn’t cost me anything except interaction with a few people I don’t really want to interact with anyway.)
Buyer’s remorse? Good point’s Stephen & then there is selling emotionally and justifying logically. A really good product lends itself to both. Follow up and help are great buyer’s remorse killers. Forced continuity isn’t. Lol.
As usual, this place over delivers and I’d love a look at the server logs because there is so much content here out in the open I am sure you have a lot of lurkers. A person knows what to expect when they do buy something here; ‘more than they thought they would get.’ Every time!
Once again, thanks Perry.
I would like to say I am a “hopeful”, but through all my dealings online [with ‘those’ mentioned above] I have become very ‘skeptical’.
I am one of your avid followers, so, just maybe I can be changed back…
Great close with the “Mission Impossible” theme…
Bit below the belt! The composite sounds just like me.
As a contractor, there is absolutely nothing better than Angie’s List! We have received hundreds of report cards over the years about our kitchen remodeling. People love reading these reports, even when someone has been a little rough on us, we reply with honesty and humility because we do make mistakes. We protect the privacy of our referrals, and prospects can easily see 100’s of testomonials. Angie’s List is our number one lead source!
Though I’m a professional provider of attitude and leadership skills, I remain a sceptic and (therefore) novice when it comes to marketing – to my detriment – therefore to those I wish to serve. Your post “The sceptical and the hopefull” is golden for me, and therefore my potential clients. Thank you.
P.S. I really appreciate your service. You’ve helped me to narrow my focus in the still bewildering online world.
Perry,
Fantastic article. You are spot on! Put yourself in the shoes of the customer and then answer all the questions you have… perfect.
Peter
what about after the sale? buyer’s remorse?
Karen,
If they’re going to have buyer’s remorse after they buy from you, then… why are you selling it?
Perry
I think Karen has a good point. The cognitive dissonance that takes place prior to the purchase will often continue afterward.
Perry, I know you are very aware of this, so maybe it would be good to comment on ways of affirming the new customer’s purchase, like providing a channel for them to dialog and voice any questions or concerns, offering some kind of support or way to get help, creating some type of “wow” experience for them shortly after purchasing, etc.
It’s interesting that Frank Kern and John Reese did a video with Tony Robbins recently about a similar issue they face when customers buy their products and do very little or nothing with them afterward. I believe scarcity is a big part of their problem and am not a fan of this tactic. Here you have situation where the creators of such products really believe in what they provide, attach scarcity, and probably have many new customers who suffer from buyer’s remorse. So, I think this issue can be a bit more complex.
Also, how many marketers are out there that really believe in what they are selling, while their product really isn’t that good? Sometimes it’s a simple case of denial, where a seller or business has good intentions but is not in tune with how ineffective their product or system really is. Obviously, this will end up fueling buyer’s remorse.
Finally, I think it’s worth mentioning that such dissonance can exist in the seller’s head, too. Doubts can arise like, “Is my product really that effective or useful?”, even for a really good product, and this can also get in the way. (I admit that I can suffer from this from time to time in my own business. Fortunately, positive feedback often helps to alleviate it.)
Scarcity is a powerful persuasion tool.
Lot of gurus use it very well. Often, they use for wrong purpose. They create fear and make you feel that if you don’t buy and you are missing out. It create a “caste class” mentality.
I trust Perry Marshall although he use scarcity. Perry Marshall is man of ethics and honesty. You can go to his product page and you will not see him running any scarcity.
The only time he runs scarcity is for his bobsled or 4-man intensive product. It make sense. There is a deadline to meet. The usage of scarcity is a way to get the ball rolling. Yet, his product running on scarcity have lot of benefit to offer and you will get great value out of it.
Scarcity is a powerful psychological button. You can make or destroy someone’s life with this. It is how you use it.
Here you are comparing those that use scarcity: Frank Kern with those that are called “honest” but do not use it [much] like Perry.
The key question is not debate but results. Who makes millions and the greatest results? Undoubtedly Frank Kern. This is why Robbins chose to interview him and not Perry.
I very much like Perry too. I devour everything he has. But if Frank talks I eat. Perry is GREAT AND GREAT: I recommend him all the time.
Summary: both are great. Scarcity produces results. Results are the key thing. So is consistentcy, but Frank is that too.
I am the hopeful one. But, after my experience of purchasing the “magic pill”. I learn a lot about ethics. Unfortunately, I devour testimonials, and the body of sales letter and believe it is geniune product. When I purchased and the product turn out to be shabby.
It saddened me that gurus who I respected promoted the flawed product just to become richer. Those are gurus that don’t have conscience of our struggling and desire to excel. Those gurus soon will be lash with bad rap. The gurus gain and we lose.
Now my buying temperature is very cautious. I take time to research. I ask myself, “Do I really need this?” If yes, “Why”? Maybe read your kool-aid post before I purchase :)
YESSIR!
This is persuasion at its finest …
Opening the sale, providing unquestionable proof, closing the sale.
That’s about it :)
Later,
Caleb
I think I fall into the hopeful category. I might be, could be, and maybe should be gullible as you are. My internet marketing library proves it.