Say you have a great offer…
But it’s not converting...
And your marketing intuition whispers it might be because your offer is too good…
What is an online business owner to do?
Well, one of two things:
Solution #1: Try toning down your promise.
Promise incremental improvement instead of total transformation….
(“Get your next interview” not “land your dream job”.)
Reference smaller numbers….
(“7 skills you can use to earn $20/hour from home, and 3 places you can earn it in small towns, suburbs or as remote workers” instead of “build a 6-figure location independent VA business” or “7 jobs you can do at home and earn $100+ hour")
Make the solution “slower” by spreading it over a longer time frame…
(Get X result “in 3 hours” vs “in 10 minutes”)
Counterintuitively, sometimes making your claim smaller can boost conversions - especially in sceptical markets flooded with hyped claims.
Let’s illustrate how to use this tool of the trade with a real life example from the trenches.
Worked Example:
Enter FAST50 student Leila…
Using the process I teach in the course, Leila identified a red hot burning pain which Dreamy (her ideal buyer) would gladly pay to solve:
"Having a demanding job that doesn’t satisfy you because it isn’t enjoyable, doesn’t pay enough, and doesn’t give you time to be a mom.”
More importantly, Leila was able to identify a situation, which captured this burning pain on camera:
"On my son’s nth birthday, he asked me to bring him lunch at school to celebrate. I couldn’t do it because I can’t leave work during the day. I got my mom to take him Chik-Fil-A from me, but I wanted to be the one who was there to see him get it."
The Questions Worksheet helped her dig deep enough to excavate those memories.
(This worksheet gives you the exact questions to ask in pretty much every scenario imaginable to unearth copywriting gold - those deep, hidden secrets people would normally never tell you.
Imagine a worksheet like this:
If Dreamy tells you this, you need to ask him this question next...
If X happens, that’s because you ran into Psychological Barrier Y. So now you need to do Z…
If you sense you’re on the right trail but you need to explore the issue from a different angle, here are five other ways to ask the same question without sounding repetitive…)
So far so good.
That red hot pain is Point A. That’s where Dreamy is at right now.
Next, we need to understand Point B, which is where Dreamy wants to be. We need to identify what this Point B (the Dream Result) is, so we know what to promise her in our offer.
Here is the Dream Result (Point B) Leila discovered after chatting with Dreamy:
"A part-time job (up to 30 hours) working from or near home that I could work during school hours making $30,000. Then I could spend the rest of my 10-hour days working on my dream photography business. Eventually I want to work fulltime in photography."
Notice how specific that Dream Result is. It practically screams what your flagship product should be:
“Don’t know how to find a mom-friendly job in the Monster/LinkedIn era?
Introducing:
Your Career 2.0 - After the SAHM Years
A proven system to land a part-time job (up to 30 hours/wk) working from or near home during school hours to make $30,000/year"
But that’s too big a jump from “demanding job that overwhelms and doesn’t satisfy” to “mom-friendly part-time dream job”.
Dreamy is not going to look you up online and then immediately plank down $1000 for your flagship course.
She doesn’t trust you enough yet. She doesn’t believe that you can deliver such total transformation.
Heck, she probably doesn’t even believe that she herself has what it takes to do it, even if she believed in your expert ability.
Instead… you need to be a bit more strategic here.
One way to do this is to structure your product portfolio into a value ladder that takes Dreamy by the hand and leads her step by step up to your flagship offer.
So let’s build the next step down from Leila's flagship product.
Maybe this could be a smaller course that focuses on how to find (not land) a mom-friendly job in the Monster/LinkedIn era.
Next, you create an opt-in offer that naturally leads to this mini course, so it will attract serious buyers and prime them for the sale.
But what to offer as an opt-in?
After their chat, Leila realised that there were three obstacles preventing Dreamy from reaching her Dream Result of finding a mom-friendly job:
- I don’t know what’s actually out there.
- I don’t know whether I have the skills to do what is out there.
- I don’t know if I can convince anyone I have the skills.
Aha!
That sounds like the perfect problem to solve with an opt-in offer.
PROBLEM (Point A for the Opt-in Offer): “I don't know what skills are valued at $20/hr in today's market"
PROMISED RESULT (Point B for the Opt-in Offer): "I found one skill I can charge $20/hr for and 3 job types that hire for this skill."
YOUR FREEBIE (The Path from A to B): Hmm…
Maybe a list of high-paying skills that can get you hired in small towns, suburbs, or as remote workers (that is, you don’t have to commute to the city), so you don’t waste your time looking for jobs that will never pay you enough?
Leila's opt-in offer could be a kind of “swipe file” - say 7 skills and 3 different places that hire each skill. That gives us a swipe file with 21 options:
“21 Again for the SAHM: 7 skills you probably already have that can earn $20/hour from home, and 3 places you can earn it for each skill"
Now you would expect such an opt-in offer to convert like crazy.
- It addresses a problem your ideal buyer would gladly pay to solve (Point A).
- It promises them their Dream Result (Point B).
- It actually takes them from Point A to Point B.
But… it probably won’t convert.
Why?
Tune in next time to find out.
I’ll give you a hint:
It has something to do with this seesaw between drool-worthy and believable.
You see… there was one tiny detail Dreamy mentioned as a passing thought and it would break this opt-in offer.
And the sad thing?
99% of business owners would never catch that detail because they aren’t actively listening for it.
When it comes to marketing, the devil IS in the detail.
Fortunately for you, as a lawyer-turned-marketing strategist I specialise in those devilish details.
To be continued...
-Alp
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PPS: Missed a post in the series because an alien spaceship landed in your backyard? Here is the conspiracy theory so far:
