Commune Media | Measurably Effective Digital Marketing™

Admit weakness to strengthen trust

Posted on Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 at 9:57 AM by George Dvorsky  |  Comments (0)

As marketers, we take great pains to highlight the amazing benefits of products and services. Our words can make an offering sound spectacular. Heck, we can even turn flaws into features.

But as successful copywriters know, there’s always the risk of going too far and losing credibility—making an offering appear too good to be true. So what can you do if you want to keep the sell but lose the suspicion?

Enter the "damaging admission." Disclose a flaw—or even the appearance of a flaw—and your offering becomes more believable. In fact, a damaging admission can be so powerful as to make make even your most over-the-top superlatives go down like sugar.

Drop their shields

Why does it work?

As you can relate, prospects are naturally defensive because they know you’re trying to sell something. To persuade them, you need to gain trust. And you can’t do that with over-the-top rhetoric.

Psychologists know that trust is integral to influence. Honesty—or the perception of honesty—goes a long way to building this trust. Studies show that being and acting trustworthy—such as by showing vulnerability and admitting a weakness—is essential for marketing.

And, as we all know, once you lose trust, it’s almost impossible to get it back.

Make the connection

So go ahead and list your offering’s benefits. Then ground your sales pitch by admitting minor shortcomings.

When you use a damaging admission correctly, it actually strengthens your copy. Not only do you earn prospects’ trust by showing that you can voluntarily make an honest disclosure, you also create opportunities to reveal influential information.

Consequently, your admission should tie in directly with a key selling point of your product or service.

For example, your product may be the most expensive on the market—but its quality and craftsmanship are second to none. Or perhaps your company is the smallest in your industry—but no competitors work as hard as you at customer service.

List your flaws

To come up with a damaging admission, list all the flaws or shortcomings of your product or service. Be honest! If they exist, you can be sure your customers think about them.

Next, compile a list of benefits, value-adds and special features.

Finally, see if you can correlate the two lists to create opportunities to highlight your favorite selling points. Just make sure that your disclosure is credible and not too severe—nothing that would offset the value of your offering or lead to a lawsuit.

For example:

• We know our gizmos are the most expensive on the market. But their durability will save you money in the long-run.
• Sure, we’re less famous than the competition. But if you value proven techniques and strategies over self-promotion, perhaps we should talk.
• If you’re looking for a big-time Hollywood set designer, you’ve come to the wrong place. But if you need the job done right and affordably, read on.

Will such damaging admissions work for you?

Well, they might not turn every prospect into a long-term customer. But if you start using them now, you’ll soon find yourself surprised at how effectively they build trust, increase compliance and convince customers of your honest-to-goodness greatness.

Tags: copywriting, influence, persuasion