I used to be a real sucker for direct response offers. For example…
One day in high school, I was leafing through the classifieds in the local paper. And one ad made my eyes pop out:
“Get a job as a U.S. Park Ranger. Beautiful work, solid pay. Results guaranteed or your money back.”
For context: I hated high school. I had no ambition of going to college. And I didn’t like people.
“So you’re telling me I can get paid to commune with bears among the hush of the redwoods?” I squinted at the ad. “Hell yes!”
If I remember right, the cost to become a U.S. Park Ranger (as per the classified) was something like $60. That was money I didn’t have… but I begged, borrowed, and stole enough to get it. What did it matter? I could pay it all back with my first U.S. Park Ranger salary. It was guaranteed.
A few weeks later, my “Become a Park Ranger” kit arrived in the mail.
It consisted of a thick binder with study materials and instructions on how to apply for the 3x/year government test procedure that was the first step to becoming a park ranger.
Huh?
A thick binder? Studying for a test? On the off chance that maybe in a year, I could get paid to walk around Yosemite, away from the horrors of high school?
My heart sank. This is not what I had signed up for. And my beautiful $60… where did it go? I called up the company, and with a trembling voice, I asked if I could get a refund.
“Did you take the Park Ranger test already?” the other end asked.
“Uhh… no?”
“Well, that’s the condition for our refund guarantee. Take the test, and if you don’t pass, we will give you your money back.”
I think I buried my “Become a Park Ranger” kit in the back yard that night, so it didn’t remind me of my shame, failure, and lost money.
But who knows. Maybe I will still get $60 worth of story out of it. Because it’s a good illustration of an idea I recently got from marketer Rich Schefren:
“Your offer is not only ‘You pay me x and you get y.’ It’s also what your customer has to do with y to get the outcome.”
Maybe that sounds trivial. After all, the first thing you’re taught in copywriting school is that people don’t want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole in the head. And nobody wakes up at 3am, sweating because they don’t have enough newsletter subscriptions, right?
Well, it might be basic. But how many of us actually abide by these rules when we create offers?
Of course, one way to use this is simply to promise the redwoods and the bears, and to make no mention of thick binders and exam procedures.
Trouble is, you need a real sucker to fall for that. And even then, it’s hard to build a repeat business.
So that leaves you with the other option. Which is to actually reduce as much as possible the time and effort that your customer has to invest, post-purchase, to actually get the result he is after.
Not only will this make for an easier sell… not only will it produce satisfied customers who come back for more, over and over… but it also means folks will pay much more, right up front. Even if they have to beg, borrow, and steal to do it.
Anyways, here’s my offer to you:
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Well, if you sign up to get my email newsletter, I take all the weight off your shoulders. I do the research about the best ideas… I find the entertaining and appealing stories that make these ideas slip easily into your brain… and I package it all up and send it to you every day.
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