When making promises in your copy, it's important to keep them. When promises aren't kept, you lose credibility and customers. Your customers end up resenting your company. You're unaware of it because they often don't complain to you or your company. Instead, they complain to their friends. And that damages your reputation.
To illustrate this, I once hired a lifestyle coach about 3 years ago. He constantly made promises, but he kept failing to keep them.
One time, we were supposed to have a coaching session, but he called me 1 or 2 hours before our session to cancel it. He wanted to cancel because he had a headache.
Another time, we skipped a coaching session. When I asked him about it, he said I improved a lot when we didn't have the session. He refused to schedule another one to replace it.
And to top it off, the last two coaching sessions were delayed by 2 months.
In my eyes, my lifestyle coach's credibility dropped a lot. Eventually, I stopped hiring him.
That example isn't specific towards copywriting, but it applies to writing copy as well. Have you ever read a sales letter that made promises, but when you ordered the product, the product failed to deliver on them? You probably felt resentment towards the company that sold the product and maybe even told a few people about your experience.
Don't let your customers or clients have that reaction towards your company. In your copy, make sure you can keep the promises you make. And then deliver on those promises. If you promise a 30-day money-back guarantee and the customer requests a refund within 30 days, refund the customer's money. If you promise to deliver a product in 3-5 business days, deliver it in 3-5 business days.
Here's a tip so your copy only makes promises you can keep...
When you finish writing your copy, give it a final check. See if you've only made promises you can keep. Whenever you come across a promise you're unsure you can keep, delete the promise or make the promise smaller.
For instance, if you promise your prospect that your product will increase her productivity by 80%, but you're unsure it can deliver on that promise, try promising a 50% productivity increase instead.
While you want to make your promise big enough to persuade the prospect to purchase your product or service, the promise must also be small enough so you can deliver on it. So make the promise as big as you can while small enough at the same time so you can deliver the promise.
Broken promises hurt your company's reputation. You lose customers and they spread bad word-of-mouth. Avoid that from happening to your company by making promises in your copy that you can keep. Then be sure to deliver on your promises. That will build your credibility in the eyes of your customers and increase your business' profits.
Francis Lui is a freelance copywriter with a specialty in IT copywriting. In addition to his copywriting skills, he has a technical background in IT -- a rare combination. To learn about his services and how to get him to write hard-hitting copy for you, visit francislui.com/.