Incorporating Proof and Believability
When your prospect reads your ad, you want to make sure he
believes any claims you make about your product or service. Because
if there’s any doubt in his mind, he won’t bite, no matter how sweet
the deal. In fact, the “too good to be true” mentality will virtually
guarantee a lost sale…even if it is all true.
So what can you do to increase the perception of believability?
Because after all, it’s the perception you need to address up front.
But of course you also must make sure your copy is accurate and
truthful.
Here are some tried and tested methods that will help:
• If you’re dealing with existing customers who already know you
deliver as promised, emphasize that trust. Don’t leave it up to
them to figure it out. Make them stop, cock their heads, and
say, “Oh, yeah. The ABC Company has never done me wrong
before. I can trust them.”
• Include testimonials of satisfied customers. Be sure to put full
names and locations, where possible. Remember, “A.S.” is a lot

less believable than “Andy Sherman, Voorhees, NJ.” If you can
also include a picture of the customer and/or a professional
title, that’s even better. It doesn’t matter that your testimonials
aren’t from somebody famous or that your prospect does not
know these people personally. If you have enough compelling
testimonials, and they’re believable, you’re much better off
than not including them at all.
• Pepper your copy with facts and research findings to support
your claims. Be sure to credit all sources, even if the fact is
common knowledge, because a neutral source goes a long way
towards credibility.
• For a direct mail letter or certain space ads where the copy is in
the form of a letter from a specific individual, including a
picture of that person helps. But unlike “traditional” real estate
letters and other similar ads, I’d put the picture at the end near
your signature, or midway through the copy, rather than at the
top where it will detract from your headline. And…if your sales
letter is from a specific individual, be sure to include his
credentials to establish him as an expert in his field (relating to
your product or service, of course).
• If applicable, cite any awards or third-party reviews the product
or service has received.
• If you’ve sold a lot of widgets, tell them. It’s the old “10 million
people can’t be wrong” adage (they can be, but your prospect
will likely take your side on the matter).
• Include a GREAT return policy and stand by it! This is just good
business policy. Many times, offering a double refund
guarantee for certain products will result in higher profits. Yes,
you’ll dish out more refunds, but if you sell three times as many
widgets as before, and only have to refund twice as much as
before, it may be worth it, depending on your offer and return
on investment. Crunch the numbers and see what makes
sense. More importantly, test! Make them think, “Gee, they

wouldn’t be so generous with returns if they didn’t stand
behind their product!”
• If you can swing it, adding a celebrity endorsement will always
help to establish credibility. Heck, if ‘ol honest Abe Lincoln
recommended your product and backs up your claims, it must
be true! Ok, you get the idea, though.
• When it makes sense, use 3rd party testimonials. What are 3rd
party testimonials? Here’s some examples from some Web site
copy I wrote when there weren’t many customer testimonials
available yet:
“Spyware, without question, is on an exponential
rise over the last six months.”
- Alfred Huger, Senior Director of Engineering,
Symantec Security Response (maker of Norton
security software)
“Simply clicking on a banner ad can install
spyware.”
- Dave Methvin, Chief Technology Officer, PC Pitstop
A deployment method is to “trick users into
consenting to a software download they think they
absolutely need”
- Paul Bryan, Director, Security And Technology Unit,
Microsoft
Do you see what I did?
I took quotes from experts in their respective fields and turned
them to my side. But…be sure to get their consent or
permission from the copyright holder if there’s ever any
question about copyrighted materials as your source.
Note that I also pushed an emotional hot button: fear.

It’s been proven that people will generally do more to avoid
pain than to obtain pleasure. So why not use that tidbit of info
to your advantage?
• Reveal a flaw about your product. This helps alleviate the “too
good to be true” syndrome. You reveal a flaw that isn’t really a
flaw. Or reveal a flaw that is minor, just to show that you’re
being “up front” about your product’s shortcomings.
Example:
“You’re probably thinking right now that this tennis racket is a
miracle worker—and it is. But I must tell you that it has one
little…shortcoming.
My racket takes about 2 weeks to get used to. In fact, when you first
start using it, your game will actually get worse. But if you can just
ride it out, you’ll see a tremendous improvement in your volleys, net
play, serves, …” And so on.
There’s a tendency to think, with all of the ads that we are
bombarded with today that every advertiser is always putting
his best foot forward, so to speak. And I think that line of
reasoning is accurate, to a point.
But isn’t it refreshing when someone stands out from the crowd
and is honest? In other words, your reader will start to
subconsciously believe that you are revealing all of the flaws,
even though your best foot still stands forward.
• Use “lift notes.” These are a brief note or letter from a person
of authority. Not necessary a celebrity, although that can add
credibility, too. A person of authority is someone well
recognized in their field (which is related to your product) that
they are qualified to talk about. Lift notes may be distributed as
inserts, a separate page altogether, or even as part of the copy

itself. As always, test!
• If you are limiting the offer with a deadline “order by” date, be
sure the deadline is real and does not change. Deadline dates
that change every day are sure to reduce credibility. The
prospect will suspect, “if his deadline date keeps changing, he’s
not telling the truth about it…I wonder what else he’s not
telling the truth about.”
• Avoid baseless “hype.” I discussed that in my previous tip.
Enough said.
The Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Also known as the unique selling position, the USP is often one of the
most oft-misunderstood elements of a good sales letter. It’s what
separates your product or service from your competitors. Let’s take a
quick look at some unique selling propositions for a product itself:
1) Lowest Price – If you’ve got the corner marketed on budget
prices, flaunt it. Wal-Mart has made this USP famous lately, but
it’s not new to them. In fact, selling for cheaper has been
around as long as capitalism itself. Personally, I’m not crazy
about price wars, because someone can always come along
and sell for cheaper. Then it’s time for a new strategy…
2) Superior Quality – If it outperforms your competitor’s product
or is made with higher quality materials, it’s a good bet that
you could use this fact to your advantage. For example,
compare Breyers Ice Cream to their competitor’s. From the
packaging to the wholesome superior ingredients, the quality is
evident. It may cost a little more than their competitor’s ice
cream, but for their market, it sells.
3) Superior Service – If you offer superior service over your
competitor’s, people will buy from you instead. This is

especially true with certain markets that are all about service:
long-distance, Internet service providers, cable television, etc.
4) Exclusive Rights – My favorite! If you can legitimately claim
that your product is protected by a patent or copyright,
licensing agreement, etc., then you have a winner for exclusive
rights. If you have a patent, even the President of the U.S.
must buy it from you.
Ok, what if your product or service is no different than your
competitor’s? I would disagree, because there are always differences.
The trick is to turn them into a positive advantage for you. You want
to put your “best foot forward.” So what can we do in this scenario?
One way is to present something that your company has devised
internally that no other company does. Look, there’s a reason why
computer store “A” offers to beat their competitor’s price for the
same product by X%. If you look closely, the two packages are never
exactly the same. Company “B” offers a free scanner, while company
“A” offers a free printer. Or some other difference. They are
comparing apples to oranges. So unless you find a company with the
exact same package (you won’t…they’ve seen to that), you won’t be
able to cash in.
But what if you truly have the same widget for sale as the guy up the
road?
Unless your prospect knows the inner workings of both your and your
competitor’s product, including the manufacturing process, customer
service, and everything in-between, then you have a little potential
creative licensing here. But you must be truthful.
For example, if I tell my readers that my product is bathed in steam
to ensure purity and cleanliness (like the cans and bottles in most
beer manufacturing processes), it doesn’t matter that Joe’s Beer up
the road does the same thing. That fact that Joe doesn’t advertise
this fact makes it a USP in your prospect’s eyes.

Want some more USP examples?
• We are the only car repair shop that will buy your car if you are
not 100 percent satisfied with our work.
• Delivered in 30 minutes or it’s on us!
• No other furniture company will pay for your shipping.
• Our recipe is so secret, only three people in the world know it!
As with most ways to boost copy response, research is the key with
your USP. Sometimes your USP is obvious, for example if you have a
patent. Other times you must do a little legwork to discover it (or
shape it to your target market).
Here’s where a little persistence and in-person selling really pays off.
Let me give you an example to illustrate what I mean:
Suppose your company sells beanbag chairs for kids. So you, being
the wise marketer that you are, decide to sell these beanbags in
person to prospects before writing your copy. After completing
twenty different pitches for your product, you discover that 75
percent of those you visited asked if the chair would eventually leak.
Since the chairs are for kids, it’s only logical that parents would be
concerned about their youngster jumping on it, rolling on it, and
doing all things possible to break the seam and “spill the beans.”
So when you write your copy, you make sure you address that issue:
“You can rest assure that our super-strong beanbag chairs are triplestitched
for guaranteed leak-proof performance. No other company
will make this guarantee about their beanbag chairs!”


The Headline
If you’re going to make a single change to boost your response rate
the most, focus on your headline (you do have one, don’t you?).
Why? Because five times as many people read your headline than
your copy. Quite simply, a headline is…an ad for your ad. People
won’t stop their busy lives to read your copy unless you give them a
good reason to do so. So a good headline promises some news and a
benefit.
Perhaps you’re thinking, “What’s this about news, you say?”
Think about the last time you browsed through your local newspaper.
You checked out the articles, one by one, and occasionally an ad may
have caught your eye. Which ads were the ones most likely to catch
your eye?
The ones that looked like an article, of course.
The ones with the headline that promised news.
The ones with fonts and type that closely resembled the fonts and
type used in articles.
The ones that were placed where articles were placed (as opposed to
being placed on a full page of ads, for example).
And the ones with the most compelling headlines that convinced you
it’s worth a few minutes to read the copy.
The headline is that powerful and that important.
I’ve seen many ads over the years that didn’t even have a headline.
And that’s just silly. It’s the equivalent of flushing good money spent
on advertising right down the toilet.

Why? Because your response can increase dramatically by not only
adding a headline, but by making that headline almost impossible to
resist for your target market.
And those last three words are important. Your target market.
For example, take a look at the following headline:
Announcing…New High-Tech Gloves Protect
Wearer Against Hazardous Waste
News, and a benefit.
Will that headline appeal to everyone?
No, and you don’t care about everyone.
But for someone who handles hazardous waste, they would sure
appreciate knowing about this little gem.
That’s your target market, and it’s your job to get them to read your
ad. Your headline is the way you do that.
Ok, now where do you find great headlines?
You look at other successful ads (especially direct response) that
have stood the test of time. You look for ads that run regularly in
magazines and other publications. How do you know they’re good?
Because if they didn’t do their job, the advertiser wouldn’t keep
running them again and again.
You get on the mailing lists of the big direct response companies like
Agora and Boardroom and save their direct mail packages.
You read the National Enquirer.

Huh? You heard that correctly.
The National Enquirer has some of the best headlines in the
business.
Pick up a recent issue and you’ll see what I mean. Ok, now how
could you adapt some of those headlines to your own product or
service?
Your headline should create a sense of urgency. It should be as
specific as possible (i.e. say $1,007,274.23 instead of “a million
dollars”).
The headline appearance is also very important. Make sure the type
used is bold and large, and different from the type used in the copy.
Generally, longer headlines tend to out pull shorter ones, even when
targeting more “conservative” prospects.