Is Your Promise Fantastic…Or Is It Written Off As Hype?

“This product is absolutely 300% money back guaranteed to help you and your family, heal you of ALL ailments, make you as wealthy as a king, give you eternal youth AND much more…

…or will it?”

Why is making the right promise to your customers’ so important? How do you walk that line between a great promise and straight hype?

Let’s have a look at some ideas that can help you craft a truly seductive, yet innocent promise.

Why is the promise so important anyway?

Marketing consultants often speak of the “risk aversion” of the average consumer—that is, consumers demand to know they are receiving a quality product (or service.)  The goal as an advertiser or marketer is to allay consumer fears of an inferior product by making buyers feel confident about their purchases, and they often do this through testimonials and money-back guarantees.

These methods of reducing a consumer’s sense of risk are becoming less effective today.

The reasons are fairly straightforward:

• Everybody is in the same game.  If everyone is offering a money-back guarantee or a litany of testimonials, there is little to differentiate one company from another and both methods lose value.
• Consumers are wising up.  Again, with every business in the risk aversion game, the bar is rising.
• Many methods are just too easy to fake. Testimonials, for example, are a dime a dozen: ask your aunt, two friends, and a co-worker for a testimonial, and you have a “user testimonials” page for your web site.  Consumers are now much less likely to trust testimonials unless they are proven to be from unbiased sources (of course there are also ways to do testimonials better).
• Consumer expectations are already low.  According to The Loyalty Engagement Index published by Brand Keys (New York, USA), consumer expectations have tailed off after rising steadily for a decade.  “Consumers are more realistic,” says Brand Keys president Robert Passikoff, “their desires are now based on experience rather than expectation.”

These four elements make for a marketing morass.  If consumer expectations for products and services are low, and their defences are up for common risk-aversion tactics, there is little room for assuring customers that their dollars will be well spent.

The Solution: A Straightforward Promise

Strategies for enticing risk adverse customers should enter early into all marketing decisions.  At their core, these strategies are about making a straightforward promise.  Such promises are specific, tied to pedigree, aimed at reasonable goals, and distinguishable from those of the competition.

Specificity

Specificity is still the number one way to make a promise or an offer credible.  Specific details not only signal to the customer that your company has expertise in an industry, they also mould expectations around credible, testable actions.

For example, suppose your company owns and operates a chain of luxury hotels.  What sorts of things might your company offer in its advertising materials?  Luxury accommodations?  A good night’s rest?  V.I.P. treatment?

Here is what goes through the mind of the consumer when seeing these promises:

• You offer luxury accommodations?  Such as?  Does that mean a comfortable bed?  Large rooms?  Intimate rooms?  Good room service?  What sorts of “luxuries” should I expect this time?
• You promise a good night’s sleep?  How will that differ from any other hotel?  Are there sound-proof walls?  Adjustable heating and cooling?  One-thousand thread count Egyptian cotton bed sheets?
• You guarantee a V.I.P. treatment?  What can I expect with that?  Does this treatment include concierge service, free show tickets or something more?  Do I have access to clean, useful facilities? Which ones?

The list could go on; the main point is that vague promises do little to conjure a clear picture of what you are offering. Everyone defines “luxuries” differently.  Painting a clear picture of the experience your customers will have is one of the best ways to build an expectation and get customers to sign on the dotted line.

Specific offers also give consumers a metric for determining whether or not your company has delivered on the promise.  In other words, specific details need to focus on credible, testable actions.  So what are these actions?  Here are some examples:

• FedEx guarantees that packages will arrive on-time using their online tracking system and overnight flights, which are quicker than trucks.  Consumers can go to FedEx’s website and see whether or not the delivery has been made, and on time.
• Tip Top Bakeries offer a line of “Soft and Smooth” bread, specifically marketed to kids (who tend to dislike large grainy bits in their bread).  Not only does Tip Top explain the process, the adverts describe the specific texture that their Soft and Smooth bread has.  One need only eat the bread to see if the promise has been delivered.

When a consumer encounters a promise, they must know exactly what to look for, and when.  Without these concrete details, consumers are at a loss as to how to evaluate the promise—and thus are less likely to buy.

Pedigree

We have all heard about “guilt by association,” but credibility by association is also a powerful tool in overcoming risk aversion.  If customers come to trust a particular brand, they will trust other brands associated with the primary brand.  If they come to trust a source of information, that source can lend credibility to a product.

For example, Dunlop tires is excellent at using the “pedigree” of their products.  Several well-known luxury car brands use Dunlop tires, and the company makes a big deal out of this fact.  If Dunlop tires are good enough for BMW and Bentley, surely they are good enough for any consumer.

Dunlop is also ingrained into the racing world—a fact that is plastered on their web sites.  If drivers trust Dunlop tires for their high performance vehicles, the message is clear: these tires will hold up under any conditions that the average driver would throw at them.

Are Dunlop tires really that much better than other tire brands out there?  They could well be.  The point is that, unless one is an expert on car tires, there is no way of knowing what a good tire is, or what to expect from one other than a problem free existence.  And so most promises made about tires will fall on deaf ears unless there is some way to link that promise to a credible source.  Dunlop has realized this and capitalized on their pedigree.

Aim… Not so High

We’ve all met that salesperson that promises the world in order to make a sale (much to the chagrin of production types).  Now it is true that making promises is one way to keep the customer at the table, if not close the sale but here’s the problem: counteracting the effect of one disgruntled customer takes about ten satisfied customers.

There’s truth in the saying that, “A satisfied customer tells ten friends; a dissatisfied customer posts to one hundred strangers on the Internet.”  If you continually make great sounding promises, eventually you will miss one of your obligations and that one dissatisfied customer will negate all of your hard work.  Better to lose five prospects than irritate one paying customer.

So what should a more “reasonable” promise look like?  Your promise will depend on your industry, your business model, and your current management situation; however, there are a few guidelines for shaping reasonable sounding offers:

• Avoid superlatives.  Sure, your product might be the fastest, smartest, cheapest, or sleekest model on the market today, yet no one is at the top of the game forever.  Instead, tie the description of your item to specific, testable details as described above.  Example: don’t advertise a car that gets the best fuel economy in its class.  Advertise the actual liters per 100 kilometers and tell customers how much money is saved, on average, by driving a car with that rating.
• Use descriptive terms that invoke a picture or an experience.  For example, don’t say that your scotch is “heavenly” or “smooth” (an overused term).  Mention the drink’s smoky taste, bright clear color, and warm finish.
• Think mundane.  Not every bite of chocolate, or ride to the supermarket, or interaction with a computer, will be a transcendent experience.  Consumers want to know the “little things” that will make their lives easier, more comfortable, and more enjoyable.  Which would you believe more: an advert for chocolate that delivered a heavenly experience, or one that promised a little personal enjoyment in your otherwise hectic world?
• Only promise what you can offer now—or what you can offer with just a little extra effort.  A printing company that typically does runs of 10,000 pieces should not be making offers to do runs of a million pieces (unless their operations just happened to multiply in size overnight).  This bit of advice is hardest for marketers to follow… but limiting one’s promises is crucial for effective delivery.  Remember, there is no harm in saying, “We cannot do that at present, but perhaps we can get your business in the future!”

In short, don’t make your promise too outlandish.  By just *meeting* the promise you’re making, you will find that you don’t have a disgruntled customer. On the other hand, by exceeding the promise you’re making you’ll have a very, very happy customer.

Keep Tabs and Fill Holes

Capitalize on what the competition is missing.  If you sell laundry detergent and your main competitor promises the cleanest wash, offer the gentlest wash, or the quickest wash (if these can accurately describe your product).  If the hotel down the street promises luxury workspaces for business clientele, offer efficient workspaces for business clientele.  In other words, distinguish your brands from the competition and try to fill an unmet need or “hole” in the market. Be the Number #1 in your industry by defining your own niche. So, for example, you are the first business to offer efficient workspaces for business clientele in the CBD.

Of course, distinguishing your brand might be difficult if you are locked into promoting a product that already exists.  Take the laundry detergent example: you will not be able to brand yourself as the gentlest laundry detergent if, in fact, your detergent is nothing of the sort.

The way to get around this difficulty is to explore your product with new eyes, looking for small “value added” features that might make your product stand out.  For example, while looking at (or using) your product, ask yourself:

• Is this easy to use?  Easier, in fact, than the competition?
• Is the product conveniently sized?  Will it fit in a pocket, briefcase, car trunk, living room, or whichever appropriate space?
• How does the product actually look?  What are the visual differences between your product and the competitions’?  Are those differences pleasing?
• Same questions go for the other senses: how does the product feel?  Sound? Smell?  Taste? Do not rule out any of the senses, or any details you capture with them.
• Is there anything special about the way your product was made?  Does the product go through rigorous testing?  Quality control?  Are they made using green methods?  Fair trade labor?  Well paid citizens?  Local companies?
• If your product is meant for extended use, does the material hold up well?  Is there a lot of maintenance required, or not?  Is it easy to repair?  Are the parts easy to remove for cleaning/ repair/ inspection by the consumer?
• How will the average person use the product?  What motions will they actually carry out?  What can they ignore, and what will “pop out” at them when the use your product?

To give you an example of how this questioning should go, let’s talk about the travel coffee mug on the sink in the kitchen (to be honest, the owner picked this item up in a little corner store over in the States for cheap).  What is so good about this mug that he still uses it?

For one thing, the mug is tapered, which means that the bottom fits nicely into his car’s cup holder.  The mug is also short, which makes getting it into the office dishwasher easy.  The bottom comes off, which makes cleaning the mug relatively easy.  The top has no moving parts, which means that there is less to break or go wrong.  Most importantly, the mug does a fine job of keeping hot liquids moderately warm as he drives to work.

There are dozens of ideas that come to mind with just this simple mug.  How might marketing materials for this line of mugs be built around the features just mentioned?  Do those features offer benefits that the competition cannot match?  I leave the answers to these questions to you as an exercise.

The main idea is that the promises you incorporate into your marketing materials should capitalize on benefits that your products already offer—and that your competition does not.  Making a promise that no one else is currently making is a lot easier than making a promise that everyone else is making.

Beyond Promises?

Once your marketing efforts are centered around a promise, what next?  Are testimonials and money-back guarantees moderately helpful?  Should your website have a page dedicated to customer reviews?

Is a promise enough?

The answer to the last question is both yes and no.  The promise should be the centerpiece of your risk aversion strategies, and should mold any other tactics you might use.  Without a credible promise, your business’s offer will be lack-lustre.

Then again, stopping with a simple promise will not work for every business and industry.  A promise of an intricate, blended flavour that burns right down to your belly might do for a vodka brand… but a promise of prompt and thorough teeth cleaning would probably not win many people to a new dentist’s office.  Finding the balance will require some experimentation (and a good look at the current market).

Most importantly, you will need to put yourself in the shoes of the average person seeing your marketing materials for the first time.  Is your company different?  Do your testimonials look faked?  Are your promises vague, or filled with “hype”? Do you buy, use, and enjoy your product?

Remember: An easy way to have happy customers and repeat sales is to under promise and over deliver.

Here are some extra resources if you’re looking for more information on creating a promise or unique value proposition for your business:

• How to Increase the Value of Your Business
• What is the Value Proposition?

If you want to chat about your promise or ideas for your promise, feel free to post it in the comments below.

Related posts

• “Word of Mouth”: Innovative or Antiquated? (2)
• Finding Your Fantasy Customer (0)

Posted by Start Local Team

Category Business Processes

Tags customers,marketing,reviews,usp