How to Be the Most Believable Marketer in Your Industry

A short while ago, I wrote a post discussing one of three key marketing principles discovered and well-documented by the Eureka! Ranch (Overt Benefit). I’ve gotten a lot of feedback since, and thought it would be worthwhile to complete my review of all three principles as we should all have them at the forefront of our minds as we undertake our work.

The second principle speaks to the skepticism that all of us feel when confronted with marketing.  Let’s face it… life experience has taught us to believe little of what we hear from marketers.

For this reason, strong statements of benefits – no matter how compelling – fail to move people to action without the help of REAL reasons to believe what you’re saying.

The benefit is what your offering.  The reason to believe is HOW you’re going to make good on the promise.  We simply have to provide both.

As I watch the marketplace today, I find that this issue – the real reason to believe is the greatest weakness of new business concepts.

To convert the excitement ignited by the overt benefit into actual sales, people demand that we provide persuasive credibility and evidence that we (or our product/service) will perform as promised.  With customer confidence at an all-time low, giving compelling reasons to believe a marketing message is AS IMPORTANT as providing an overt benefit.

When communicating benefits, you may recall that there is a negative correlation between the number of benefits featured and the impact of the message.  More is NOT better.

Not so with providing reasons to believe. In fact, as a rule, more reasons to believe are better than fewer as is evidenced by successful infomercials.  Think about it. The best infomercials (the ones you see over and over) dedicate more than half of their time to reasons to believe (as opposed to communicating features and benefits).

I have mentioned the Proactiv skin care product line before. You lose count of the “unpaid” celebrity testimonials after a while.

How do you communicate your reasons to believe?

According to the research done at the Ranch, there are five proven strategies to communicating real reason to believe.  With one exception they are all equal in their effectiveness:

Strategy

• Kitchen logic     (42% probability of success)
• Personal experience (45% probability of success)
• Pedigree (41% probability of success)
• Testimonial (41% probability of success)
• Guarantee (60% probability of success)

Kitchen logic conveys how the benefit is delivered, using language that people can easily understand and quickly relate to… old-fashioned logic.

Personal experience is about providing customers with an opportunity to see, feel, and experience the product or benefit.  There are three types of personal experience: 1. sampling, 2. demonstration, and 3. sensory feedback.

A demonstration is particularly effective when it is set in a situation that seems nearly hopeless.  They can be done live OR documented and used as evidence in brochures or advertising.  Sensory feedback is about providing people with signals that reinforce your product’s effectiveness.  At its simplest, this means helping them see, feel, smell, taste, or touch the experience.

Pedigree is about providing people confidence by detailing the heritage behind your product or service.  There are three types of pedigrees: 1. development pedigree (providing credibility as a result of the design, creation, formulation, or production process behind your product or service), 2. marketing pedigree (best selling, recommended by 3 of 4 doctors, etc.), and 3. trademark pedigree (using a brand or trademark that has a pedigree of trust – Good Housekeeping).

Testimonials can be provided by customers, experts, or independent third parties. Media quotes can be an outstanding source of independent testimonials.

Guarantees can be the most powerful reason to believe IF the fine print is minimized. The power of a guarantee is directly linked to the level of risk that you appear to be taking. No risk… no marketing benefit.

6 More tips on being the most believable marketer in your industry:

1. The Internet and infomercials are marketing media that carry high levels of consumer skepticism.  If you use these media, you must triple your credibility communications to achieve the same level of impact as classic physical retailers.
2. Score your real reasons to believe versus your competition.
3. Your reasons to believe MUST BE relative to an overt benefit that MUST speak to a target audience. Therein is created a chain reaction in which each piece of your message works together.
4. Anything done during development or production that is unique offers potential as a reason to believe.
5. Beware of offering irrelevant reasons to believe.
6. Beware of following the industry in offering reasons to believe.  The more a strategy is used, the less credible it becomes.  People simply conclude “they always say that.”