200-Proof Marketing

Many of my recent tests have had to do with building trust which I’ve found is an absolutely critical part of making sales.

After thinking about it more I realized that it’s not so much about Trust as it is about Comfort.

They are similar, but I believe Comfort describes whats going on better.

By making your visitors feel comfortable about their purchase, you can increase your conversion rate to utterly insane levels.

So from this day forward I declare AIDA obsolete. Taking it’s place is AIDCA…

We all know AIDA stands for:

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

The new C stands for Comfort.

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Comfort
• Action

While Comfort building seems to fit best between Desire and Action, it should not be confined there.

You should be building comfort from beginning to end. With everything you write you should ask your self: “Will this make the reader more or less comfortable about buying from me?”

Here are some ways you can Build Comfort:

1. Give them what they want for free in your copy. Not everything but enough to show them you know what you’re talking about and can help them.
2. Write your copy so it looks more like a helpful article than a traditional sales letter.
3. Provide as many testimonials as possible. The more the better.
4. Add audio or video to your testimonials.
5. Link to and reference supporting work you’ve done (such as other books in the same market).
6. Say how many people have bought your product if it’s a large number. People will feel more comfortable buying after many others already have.
7. Test adding a picture of your self.
8. Let them know you will be there to help them if they need it.
9. Make it easy for them to contact you if they need help.
10. Assure them their order will be secure.
11. Portray to your visitors that you care for them and care about what happens to them.
12. Expose vulnerabilities. Show them you have weaknesses. Example: “I couldn’t count my fingers without a calculator.” or “As a child I was horribly over weight, even my parents made fun of me. (for a weight loss product)”

Test some of those and let me know what happens. My guess is that most of them will increase your conversion rate.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 11:27 pm and is filed under Internet Marketing, Test Results, Copywriting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.