The Implied Value Proposition: Three ways to transform your sales copy

[Music] marketer i'm writing three words on this board these three words begin a headline in a recent experiment engage acts x4 now let's analyze them but before we do that ask yourself a question what are the first three words you're using right now an important headline an important headline in your email or in your landing page so three words engage x4 these words were built by the brand in their best performing page notice however that the first word is engage that is a sales word and it actually tells you to do something the company wants you to do engage x extends for their brand engage x4 indeed the marketer writing this may be a superb communicator but right now they're communicating the wrong message now i'm not saying that as a matter of opinion but in our lab we've ran 20 000 plus treatments and experiments and tests like this and we tested this the new headline said x beginning with a brand gives you those are the first three words we used they could be improved but even still this approach which began not with what the company wants you to do but with what you can get from the company that shift in orientation that shift in messaging strategy was part of the new email that we sent and the new email outperformed the old email by 104 to be clear the new email more than doubled the amount of leads so what can we learn there are three keys in the next three minutes i'm going to unpack them i want this to be as helpful and as dense as possible let's learn them together now the power in this approach comes from an implied value proposition it begins with the first key a reason centric copy what does that mean it means that you should focus the email not on what you want them to do for you but the reason that they should let's compare the two headlines in full engage x for your physician social media strategy eight words let's look at the next one x gives you immediate access to over 120 000 doctors that's eight words in one number and the difference is profound the second approach gives you a reason not just any reason but a specific value proposition focused reason it helps to answer this question why should i select your organization over x y z that is my other options why should i choose you over the other options that brings me to the second critical concept the second principle don't just use reason-centric copy but use quantitative copy now the second principle ties tightly into the first because it's not enough to give them a reason it's not enough unless they believe the reason you give let's compare the two approaches in these two emails the first one says need to engage by the way terrible we're saying the same thing we said in the headline we're saying in a different way and we're saying it in a confusing way need to engage practicing physicians learn how i don't want to learn i don't want to work but you're now asking me to work how to use and it's the brand again x physician only social media tools to conduct research and create product awareness long drab painful now let's look at the opening line of the second email x is the largest social network of verified u.s physicians representing 68 specialties physicians spend 35 000 hours per month on x discussing drugs medical products and procedures do you see how different the second approach is it is giving you quantitative information studies have shown over and over again studies in our own research program that when we quantify we help people believe now instead of hammering them again with vague words and a notion of what we want them to do we're giving them further reasons why they at least ought to put us in the consideration set if they believe these reasons they will also be believing the essence of the value proposition so these first two principles are critical but let me share a third and final principle sequenced copy notice how the call to action for the first email is get started git is a word we often use in a call to action but they use it in exactly the wrong way get started with a free 30-minute demo well that sounds like a value to them but that's not what i hear as a prospective customer i have to start by obligating myself to giving you information so that i have to get on a phone call and listen to your people try to sell me every aspect of that call to action has implied negatives what we've done in sequenced copy is we've matched the ask to the exact place they are in the sequence of thought we don't optimize for web pages or emails we optimize for the sequence of thought so the call to action for the second approach is see how x works now if you're a marketer and this is turning a light on for you bear this in mind we didn't learn these things without making horrific mistakes on our own i'm embarrassed at the things i've done wrong over the years but i continue to learn the essence of marketing is the message the essence of the message is the value proposition and all of this comes down to psychology there are two ways we can frustrate our best efforts there are two flawed asks these ass will mitigate the power of our message and ask to the wrong person or ask at the wrong time doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right the marketer must deliver the right message to the right prospect at the same time or it is no longer the right message [Music] you