In this week’s video I want to talk about one straightforward way you can write better ads.
I haven’t seen anyone talk about it lately, yet it’s crucial for creating great advertising.
The ads I read that don’t do this always fall flat.
The ones that include it always perform better.
That’s why I want I want to tell you about it in today’s video.
Here is the thing: Most ads are overhyped. They make big claims yet they go ignored.
Why is that?
Because in most cases these ads are making one simple mistake. The good news is it’s easy to solve.
In this video, I’m going to give you exactly what that mistake is.
I’m going to tell you how to correct the mistake and why it’s so important.
And finally, I’m going to give you an example of what the solution looks like in action.
The goal?
To write better ads.
Video Transcript:
Have you ever seen an ad campaign that makes this big, bold promise: become a millionaire, lose weight overnight by taking a magic pill, and immediately you shrug it off? That’s not possible for me. Yeah, right. Right?
What you’re experiencing is an ad campaign that’s missing a critical element that causes the entire thing to fall apart and what I want to share with you today are some things that you need to add to your ad campaign to make sure you don’t hit that barrier. Let’s talk about it.
Now in some way, shape or, form, every ad campaign is meant to change beliefs. You need to create a campaign that shapes the beliefs of your market so that they can A: believe that the promise that you make is possible and second, that it’s possible for them.
What I wanna talk about today are the beliefs as they relate to your claim. So your claim is the promise that you make about your product. It’s the outcome that you promise. So for example, let’s say you are a golf instructor and you’ve put together a course that helps someone shoot lower scores.
Now, there are a lot of potential outcomes for a golf instruction course, right? You could hit the ball further, you could be more accurate, or more generally, you could shoot lower scores. All of those are valid and worthy claims and results that someone could expect to see at the end of a great golf instruction course.
The problem is if you create a campaign that just makes those claims and you don’t take into account the believability of those claims, a large percentage of your market is going to see that claim and immediately write it off as something that’s not possible for them, right? Yeah, that guy could do it, right?
Again, going back to some of the points I’ve made in previous videos about your market is always looking for a reason to maintain the status quo. They’re always looking for a reason to stay where they are and so if you have a golf instruction course that’s promising someone that they can get better, they’re immediately looking for reasons why that’s not possible for them and they’re immediately looking for reasons why they should not believe that.
And so if you create a course that claims better scores, longer drives, more accuracy and you don’t hit believability, a large percentage of people are just gonna write that off. And that’s horrible because you want them to have this great product, right? You want people to experience the benefits that you have to offer.
I remember personally, this a lesson that I received from one of my first mentors, Kevin Rogers, a copywriting coach. I remember writing this copy with all of these big, bold claims. And I thought that’s what I needed to do to win the desire of my target customer. I had to promise the world and Kevin took a look at it and he saw it immediately. He’s like, “Kev, this is all amazing and possible, the problem is it’s not believable.”
So I started making changes, I started studying all of the greatest copywriters of all time, I started handwriting, spending hours and hours and hours looking at all of their copy and really dissecting what are the nuances of an ad campaign that make it believable because that’s where the profit comes from. That’s where the big wins come from, is when you can put together an enticing advertising campaign that promises a result, promises an outcome that is the number one desire of that market and they believe that it’s possible for them.
So what I want to give you are the elements that I’ve distilled from that deep dive into the greatest advertising of all time and validated with the $20 million in ad spend that we’ve managed firsthand for our selves and our clients. Cool, let’s do it.
The first piece that you need to add to increase the believability of your advertising campaigns is proof.
So one, your market needs to believe that it’s possible in general, that this is a thing that is humanly possible. And two, they needed to believe that it’s possible for them.
Now, going back to the golf instruction example. If a golf instructor promises that they can teach someone how to hit 600 yard drives, that doesn’t pass the first believability threshold, that doesn’t pass the believability that that’s just humanly possible.
The second piece is that it needs to be believable that it’s possible for them. So the first element that you use to earn believability is proof. Those are testimonials from people that have gotten the result that you’re promising, that’s proof. It could also be science and data that supports the changes. So maybe it’s a golf instruction program and there are some different mechanics and so you start pulling data and research from biomechanics. And you start pulling things and saying like this is why this is possible. Here’s proof from the science of biomechanics and how we’re gonna implement that in your game and so then it starts to create this believability that it’s actually possible.
In general, what you’re doing with your proof is you’re creating third-party verification. So you’re making these claims and that claim is verified by a third-party. The believability of your campaign goes up exponentially when you start including those elements.
The second element is it needs to be relatable.
What I mean is when you are delivering testimonials, you’re delivering science and data, you’re providing third-party verification. The person that is watching it should be able to see themselves in the results. They can see themselves, so the testimonials are coming from players that are just like the target customer. They are of the same skill level.
Because, for example, let’s say you have a golf instruction campaign and you promise that you can hit 400 yard drives, but the testimonial is coming from a PGA Tour pro. A professional golfer, what’s that gonna do to believability? A relative novice, a beginner, is gonna see that and go, “Sure, he’s a tour professional, he can do that.” Right? And they’re gonna break believability and they’re not gonna believe that it’s possible because the proof that you offered and all of the examples that you offered are not relatable to them. So you need to architect it in a way that they can see themselves in it and they can relate to the result.
And then the third piece is simplicity.
That is making the claim and showing them how to achieve that outcome in a way that makes it simple and easy. Because if it becomes too complex, if it becomes too sophisticated for them to wrap their head around the result, that’s gonna break believability and they’re not gonna believe that it’s possible for them because it’s too hard.
Like, “Of course, some rocket scientist can figure that out, but I’m not a rocket scientist. That’s not possible for me.” And so when you’re thinking about the way that you support the proof around your claim, it needs to be presented with simplicity.
So if you put together those three elements, proof through science and data, testimonial, third-party verification, you have relatability within that proof and so people can see themselves in it and it’s also delivered with simplicity, what you’re gonna do is start building the belief of your market. Your target customer is going to believe that this outcome is possible for them. And what most people do is they just have the claim and they think the promise can support a campaign all by itself and what happens? Nobody believes it, which means nobody takes action and you don’t get customers because of it.
If you include those three components in your advertising campaign, your ideal customer is going to be able to see themselves using your product. They’re gonna see themselves being able to A, use it, and B, achieve what it is you’re promising your product can achieve.
Both of those things combined increase believability, increases motivation, increases desire that ultimately leads to them taking an action on your campaign. So, go ahead, use those three things, proof, relatability, simplicity, and I trust you will see better results in your advertising campaigns. Go get it.