How to Get Your Reader to See Your Value
When you‘re in business, the one thing that you want people to do is say yes. So you stand on social media or jump into people’s inboxes and tell them that they should buy yo’ shizzzz.
But, they don’t always see it that way.
They see, instead:
“I have commitments already”
“There’s no time”
“Maybe you’re not the right fit for my company”
“Sally isn’t buying it, then I’m not either”
“I don’t need it”
“The return on the investment isn’t high enough”
And the objections go on and on.
Getting your prospects to say yes comes down to your ability to demonstrate your true value to them, easily and early in your copy.
But the mistake many business owners make is they convey their value as THEY see it, not as what their prospects need to see it.
They’ll write things like:
“Unlock your highest potential so you can live the life you want to live” - boring, cliche, and not words their ideal clients were using
“Own the crown” - love and understand what they were trying to do with the concept, but as an ideal client for this particular brand, this was not inspiring at all for me...kind of runs in the opposite direction of what many of their ideal clients tend to lean
“In our Cardio Sculpt class you'll perform non-stop body sculpting accompanied by heart pumping cardio.” - BRUHHHHHHHH, who in the OMG - really? “non-stop body sculpting accompanied by heart pumping cardio” JUST NO - (the ad also has grammatical errors...don’t do that)
Disclaimer: These are all from ad campaigns, so they are not their only messaging and taken outside of the campaign can impact how the copy is received, but I wanted to give you an idea of what “owner-driven copy” looks and feels like.
Some copy that is driven by market research for these brands might have been:
“Life at 30,000ft” - because in testimonials, one reviewer wrote how she loved that she’s constantly visiting new places and seeing new things and that her frequent flyer miles were coming in handy now that she’s not afraid to live HER life
“Say goodbye to bounce” - this was literally on another ad for this company and it’s one of THE reasons that women buy this particular bra, so obviously, just like any brand, they’re testing to see what works and what doesn’t
“Sculpt your body 3x faster” - because who wants to workout for long periods of time? We’re all busy...even those of us that love to work out (not me) are looking for ways to maximize their time doing the things they love...not exhausting themselves further. Just because the non-stop part is a feature, it’s not an advertising benefit...stick to what the reader is looking for.
Part of demonstrating value is dissipating a pricing objection.
And while that may be a little more tricky to do with service-based businesses, product-based ones can simply show a price per unit measure in a prominent place.
For example, Magic Spoon foresaw that prospective buyers might be turned off by their $39.00 case of keto cereal. So to make it abundantly clear the value that they are actually offering, they put “$1.39 per bowl” on their order page to stand as a reminder that $1.39 is nothing to pay for a healthy breakfast.
But monetary value is not all that your reader may hold dear, as you may have noted in the bullet list above.
There are tons of reasons why people buy, like:
Status
Reciprocity
Fear of missing out
Pain avoidance
Scarcity
Trust
Social proof
And the list goes on.
The key to demonstrating value is knowing what drives YOUR buyers.
In 2017, Alcoa put researchers in their buyers’ companies to uncover what their true value was to them.
After two months of research, they were able to uncover brand new value points that, when presented to buyers, deepened their perceived value by the prospective customers.
This is a technique that most multi-million dollar companies and brands utilize to help them uncover how customers see them and to give them insight on buying triggers, so they can speak to the values that are most important to those people.
But. You might not have access to teams who can go out and do infiltrating market research.
You do, however, have direct access to your buyers that can give you priceless information that you can use to create marketing that speaks to all levels of prospective customers.
Steps to Increasing Your Value in the Market
Interview users of your product or service and find out what they loved about them (and what they didn’t, but don’t use that in your marketing...use it to improve your customer service experience).
Make a comprehensive list of words and phrases they used to indicate what was most significant to them about using your product or your service.
Create your copy for your ads, marketing, and website using their words instead of the words that naturally come to you in your head when you think about your product, service, brand, etc.
For example:
“I love that feeling of freedom I get when I know you’re going to handle all my emails for me.” - Customer
Keywords - feeling of freedom, handle for me
Emotion/translation - the user feels overworked/stressed/longs to feel untethered to this particular responsibility - he values his time, the peace of mind that comes with having something done and done well for him
Copy - “Unleash yourself from the 2 Ton burden of having to create the email marketing that currently sops up 3.75 hours of your time each week...and finally find the time you were missing to connect with those who have missed you so much” (Unleash, unchain, untether - all words that impart a ‘feeling of freedom’)
See how that works? Conduct the interview, note the keywords and phrases, translate them into what the user was feeling/longing for/experiencing, then create the copy based on that. BOOM!
Value - UNLOCKED
But, what do you do if you only have a few users and not enough data to create copy that is driven by good results?
Honestly, what I did when I was in that situation back in 2011? I went out and gave away copy to people who needed it in exchange for testimonials and I used those testimonials to fuel the next stage of my business’ growth.
I know there are people out there that preach that you should NEVER give away your product for free, but that’s just wrong. Just like the authors who want people to review their books and send out Advanced Reader Copies, you have to do the same thing.
You can’t take away from value that isn’t there yet.
Value comes from how much people are willing to pay for what you do and if you haven’t had anyone pay you (much) yet, you don’t hold value (yet). So get out there and do the dirty work to get it done and show them just who the fuck you are.
The second way you can go about getting more information is by talking to the customers of other businesses in your industry and use those words.
Whatever you do, just make sure that you are looking at what you do from your customer’s viewpoint to create copy that resonates, helps them see the inherent value of what you do, dissipates their objections, and builds trust.
If you’re not sure that you’re accurately putting your best value points front and center for your business or brand, jump into the Copy Edge to find out. Or come play in the Arena with us to learn more about talking people into buying yo’ shizzzzz! (Or take the easy route and let me put my Savage Copy process to work for your business ;D )