Greatest (biggest, best…) ever!
As soon as you hear it, you dismiss it. You’ve been burned too many times. If it sounds too good to be true, you know it probably isn’t.
Hype is dead. Hype has been laid to rest. People aren’t buying it anymore.
If your advertising campaign is built on the next biggest, greatest thing, good luck with all that. You’d be better served to drop all the overblown hyperbole and talk about the downside.
Yeah, the downside.
One of the easiest ways to instill trust in your customers is to be open and honest about what you or your products won’t do. As in… “This bottle claims to eliminate gas in your baby’s stomach. We all know that ain’t happening. Your baby will need to burp no matter which way she feeds. But here is why you really should think about this bottle versus that other one. If you are nursing…”
In other words, be honest.
Everyone knows that every product has an upside and a downside. If you don’t show the downside up front, the customer will wonder what you’re hiding. They will look for that downside and form a strong distrust of you in the process. But if you show that downside right up front, first they begin to trust you and second, they are far more willing to listen to everything else you say.
At the end of the day, it is all about Trust. No one trusts the hype. No one trusts the salesperson who hides the downside. So drop the hype, tell the downside.
I’m waiting for the furniture store to run this ad.
“This isn’t our biggest sale ever. In fact, we’ll probably have another sale next month. But the items we are selling today won’t be in that sale. If you’re looking for a great deal on a couch, wait til next month. But if you need a dining room set, we have a few closeouts we want to move off our floor. Nothing wrong with them, just not a style that sold well at regular price…”
I think it would resonate far better than the current hype with the circus tents and balloons and shouting MC’s. Especially to anyone who wants a new dining room set.
-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com
PS Not only should you reconsider your hype ads, make sure you are training your sales staff to tell the downside first. Be upfront and honest in your advertising, marketing, and in your store. Your customers will trust you far better.