Last week we hit the tip of the iceberg with headlines. A conversation that, quite frankly, could last a whole year. Here we’ll discuss the vital role that guarantees play in your marketing and direct mail.
First some guarantee ‘basics’ that we must address. There are three chief types of guarantees, with a very quick blurb on each. We’ll expand on them later.
How you phrase the guarantee is nearly as important as having on at all. It’s best when it has a name. I recently wrote a guarantee for a promotion of our own and named it the, “The “You Cannot Fail With 3D Mail, $500.00 In Your Pocket” Guarantee. And here’s how I worded it:
When you place your first order of 3D Mail over $100 and use my FREE 30 minute consultation, if you’re not extremely happy with your mailing, I’ll refund 50% of the purchase of the 3D mail items up to $500.00.
As you can see, it’s a strong guarantee, but when you give it a name, it adds something extra to it. I’ve also used the “You’ll be a Star” guarantee and, “My Personal Make-You-Happy Guarantee” both with a great deal of success. My mentor Dan Kennedy, has used, “My personal, Big, Bold, Iron-Clad Guarantee” on many of his products for years, again with great success.
In addition, multiple guarantees almost always outperform single guarantees. Here’s an example of a multiple guarantee that we use when we go and speak at seminars and boot camps:
Money Back Guarantee – If you are not delighted with your results or not happy in any way what-so-ever return the system within the first year and I’ll give you your money back.
Triple Your Money Back Guarantee – If you use both of your 30 minute One-On-One Coaching sessions, and your 2 Critique Certificates within the first 3 months, and you can show that you actually used our advice when you created your campaigns, and you actually mailed at least two campaigns, and you’re not absolutely delighted with your results I’ll give you 3 times your money back.
You see, we gave a one-year, no questions asked guarantee (my favorite) but then added to it by adding the triple money back guarantee. Does it work? You bet. When we first offered this at a live event, we sold 83% of the room!
There’s also one more element to this guarantee, but you’ll have to wait until later in the week for me to reveal that one. See you then.
There are a few more big ideas I have to share before we move away from guarantees. First is the length in time of the guarantee. In almost all instances the longer the guarantee, the fewer refunds you’ll have. I know that may go against conventional thinking that the more time they have with a product/service the more likely they will realize they don’t like it or don’t need it.
It’s actually just the opposite. The more time they have to use your product or service, the less likely they are to ask for a refund. Here’s why. When you only give someone 14 days to use it, at day 12 if they haven’t used it, or are not seeing results, they’ll ask for a refund.
If you give the same product 90 days, the chances that they actually will remember and use the guarantee goes way down. Now, you need to be honest and have integrity with this. If they ask for a refund on your guarantee within the time allowed, you darn well better honor it.
Finally, we’re left with unconditional vs. conditional guarantees. Unconditional guarantees are just that, unconditional. They are under no obligation to meet certain parameters or conditions (Duh!), they simply get their money back, no questions asked.
Conditional guarantees are just the opposite. Your client must do something in order to get the guarantee. I just told you about our Triple Your Money Back Guarantee that reads:
It’s obvious now that this is a conditional guarantee. These can be used to bolster your “regular” guarantee, and really give you an added punch that can spark additional sales. Here are a few examples of great guarantees I’ve seen and some I’ve written for myself and clients.
Unconditional guarantee used by Victoria Principal selling facial cream. It’s a whole lot better than just saying, “money back guaranteed:”
“If your friends don’t accuse you of having a face lift, return the empty jar and we’ll give you all your money back.”
Here’s another I wrote for a client, a perception and unconditional guarantee in one, I call it the “You’ll be a Star” guarantee:
“If you don’t think my show wasn’t the most amazing you’ve ever seen, and people are not coming up to you after the show patting you on the back for having such a great event, then you don’t pay a dime.”
I can hear a lot of you out there saying you can’t guarantee your products or services. If you’re a doctor, you can’t guarantee patient health, if you’re in weight loss, you can’t guarantee that they’ll lose weight, if you’re a financial advisor, you can’t guarantee monetary
success.
But there are a ton of things you can guarantee. The doctor can guarantee that he’ll see you within 5 minutes of your scheduled appointment time. If you sell weight loss, you can guarantee that their coach will call them back within 45 minutes of receiving a call. A financial advisor can guarantee something similar to the doctor, or guarantee returned phone calls or any number of things not directly related to the product or service, but to the quality of service they’ll receive.
Marketing Tip Reader’s Only Special
Do you offer an amazing guarantee? Do your competitors lock up your prospects to unfair contracts or conditions? If so, you’ll want to use the handcuffs! Here are a few headline ideas you can use with the handcuffs:
“You Won’t Be Handcuffed With Our Industry Leading Guarantee”
“Feeling Handcuffed To Your Current Cable Provider?”
“Don’t Be Handcuffed by Lousy Service”
Are You Handcuffed To A Lousy __________ Contract?
You can get 15% off the handcuffs when you use promo code handcuff. You can call to order, 888-250-1834. We’ll be able to answer any questions you have and take your order quickly, right over the phone. We’re open 8AM to 5 PM PST, Monday through Friday. Whether you go online or call, just be sure you mention promo code handcuff to get 15% off.
To Your Direct Mail Success,
Travis Lee
(888) 250-1834
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