Hi friend!
Here’s a sad reality that you may not like me to reinforce, but trust me, it’s for your benefit: making money online is hard. Especially in a service-based business.
Put yourself in a potential customer’s shoes: If they’re interested in a copywriting service, it’s natural that they’d weigh their options carefully.
In their eyes, your offer is up against the biggest and most trusted agencies in the world. Those whose offers include guarantees, such as “get results or we work for free,” “money-back guarantee,” and “a free design guide to get the most out of your copy.”
The way to enter a saturated market is to improve your offer (or guarantee) and deliver more value per buck. Sadly, it’s not enough to provide 2x the value per buck. To stand out, you really need to increase it to 10.
That’s why, when I recently sold a content marketing masterclass in Estonia, I included many free bonuses to the core offer of 2 training days and a copy of my entire writing system.
Here are the bonuses and guarantees I added:
– Free Instagram Masterclass (that rivals paid courses by Instagram Gurus).
– Access to a private Facebook community, where I personally help students overcome their roadblocks.
– A free copy of a book that has helped me the most as a content creator.
– 30-day, no questions asked, money-back guarantee.
– My private swipe file of the best viral content examples that I’ve built over 3 years.
– 66% discount for students who enrolled in the first cohort.
When I was thinking of ways to improve my offer, I used Sabri Suby’s framework “7 Steps To Creating A Power Guarantee” from his book “Sell Like Crazy.”
Fully explaining it would make this newsletter issue way too heavy, so I recommend reading the book for the best results. In the meanwhile, here’s a barebones summary of it:
- Study the competition
Do a Google search for other businesses in your industry and the word ‘guarantee.’ Go deep in your search. What type of guarantees did you find? Did you find any specific performance-related guarantees, or were they the more common, lackluster vanilla ‘satisfaction guaranteed’ type?
- Laser in on your strengths
What area of your business is a strong point for you? Do you get results quickly? Do you have exceptional craftsmanship? Do your products or services produce consistently outstanding results? Always sell the thing you do better than your competition.
- Be specific
Think about the specific results a customer wants, or the problem they’re trying to solve when they buy your products or services. Make a clear promise and tell your prospects they must experience the benefits you’re promising – otherwise they don’t owe you a red cent. Guarantee in detail what that satisfaction will look like to your customer and make it measurable.
- Choose a payback
You want to create an attractive payback in case a customer is unsatisfied – this is simply the standard in any saturated market. Don’t be scared because data shows that only 5% of customers will ever take you up on it. This will add a high perceived value and alleviate or remove the perceived risk around the purchase.
- Test, measure, and refine
It’s vitally important that you know how well your guarantee is performing before you make it a core element of your offer. How? You can include it on some landing pages and not others, or different advertising channels such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram. Then track the results and test, measure, and refine it until it’s really power-packed and pulling in sales.
- Put it on front and center
Once you’ve tested, measured, and refined your guarantee and found a winner that’s pulling its head off, put your guarantee in front and center of all your marketing and public relations. Put it on your website, landing pages, proposals, ads, brochures—anywhere a customer will see it.
- Give your guarantee a name
While this isn’t mandatory, giving your guarantee a unique name can dramatise it and heighten its impact. Here are just a handful of examples to get your creative juices flowing:
My 100% Money-Back ‘Triple-Protection’ Guarantee
No Way You Can Lose 30-Day Free Examination
100% On-the-Spot Full Refund
My 110% ‘Call Me Crazy’ GUARANTEE!
My 110%, No-Fuss, No-Questions, Take-It-or-Leave-It-PROMISE!
With the seven practical steps you now hold in your hands, every guarantee you write should suck in sales like never before. A strong guarantee puts your prospect at ease and makes it easier for them to say ‘Yes!’
I will leave you with this quote: “If the offer and the guarantee don’t keep the founder up at night, then they’re not strong enough.”
That’s all today.
See you next week.
Vahur
Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help you:
- If you’d like me to coach or consult you in private, I offer a 1-on-1 coaching program and a 1-hour consultation call. Learn more about my services here.
