If you have not read this thread: You WON'T Make BIG MONEY Until You Understand This... Even If You're Providing Value please read it before continuing here. It is essential reading.
As the previous thread explains in great detail, building trust is a key part of making sales and getting customers on-board with your product or service. And the way you do that online starts with copywriting. Even if your sales funnel involves getting on the phone with the customer, having a video call or similar, usually that happens at the later stages. This means that the first impression your customers get of you and your business is given by the words they read inside your ads or on your website.
And the first impression is also usually the last impression. Either your prospect starts out by feeling you're the kind of business they can trust, the kind of business that delivers, or they start out by feeling that there is something risky, shady, or unprofessional about you. If they start with the negative impression, then you're already fighting an uphill battle that will require tremendous effort to change. In fact, you're better off dropping that prospect and looking for a new one, because the effort it would take is probably not worth your time. On the other hand, if they get a good, positive first impression of you, your sales job is significantly easier.
Research shows that it takes roughly 7 seconds for people to form a first impression. And the way you present yourself through your copy plays a big role in that.
To help you remember the fundamental principle of building trust through copywriting, I have stolen Trump's slogan: "Promises Made, Promises Kept"
Whenever someone clicks on your ad, or navigates to your website, or fills in the contact form on your website, they do so because they have an expectation. This expectation has two components: (1) the promise you implanted into their minds with regards to the benefit that they can gain by taking the action you want them to take, and (2) the subconscious expectations that they have about your product, service and business.
We will break each one down.
1. Your Promise - Make Sure You Fulfill It, And Do NOT Bait & Switch
Every online business uses some traffic generation strategy, whether that is SEO, content marketing, paid advertising, forum marketing, or something different. Regardless of what method you use, you always make a PROMISE to your prospect that grabs their attention and motivates them to take action. If you do not do that, then they will not enter your funnel, and that's the end of it. So obviously the promise must tell them a benefit that they will get by taking the desired action. Sometimes you'll use an information gap to arouse curiosity, you will create mystery, you will present an irresistible benefit, or you will deliver the promise of entertainment.
Regardless of what you do, once the person lands on the page, you have 7 seconds to start delivering on the promise. If your ad promises that you will reveal a secret, you must start revealing it. If your ad promises something free, then they need to quickly see what you're offering, and see that it is free.
If you break your promise, then they will immediately label you as not trustworthy, and even if what you are actually offering is of interest to you, they are very likely to ignore it, leave the page, or otherwise look for competitors to obtain it. So do not bait and switch.
2. Subconscious Expectations - Identify & Meet Them
Whenever we follow someone on a promise, we have some subconscious expectations about WHO the person or business is. For example, if your promise is "World-class Direct Response Agency Offers FREE Training On Building 6-Figure+ Funnels", followed by a video of you in your mom's basement and a headline with spelling errors and rainbow colored fonts, then for sure you have blown it.
When I see such a promise, I already have an idea of the kind of person who would make it. I see a successful businessman, who has worked with high-powered businesses to deliver outstanding results. I see someone with a nice office, well dressed, and ready to roll. I do NOT see a teenager in their mom's basement. Nor do I see someone who can't spell correct English. And yet, this is how many businesses present themselves, and then wonder why they're not getting any clients.
So, as a copywriter, it is your role to identify what kind of image your prospects unconsciously form of your client, even before landing on his website, based on the promise that is made to attract them. And after you have identified that, you have to write the copy so that it meets with that image.
When that happens, the rational mind (System 2) of your prospect is lulled into comfort, because everything is as expected, everything looks good. Your prospects are in a positive frame of mind, they lower their guard, and they become more open to what your copy will tell them to do next.
The next stage of building trust is giving your prospects an identity that they crave. People do not simply want the transformation that your product is going to give them. They don't simply want the direct benefits. They also have more subtle desires, which represent the kind of people they aspire to be. Things like successful, part of the elite, intelligent, cultured, well-read and so on. This includes both desirable character traits and desirable roles.
Building trust here requires more subtlety. You don't want to start right off the bat with portraying the identity that they want to achieve. Because if you do, they will feel sold to and manipulated - or they just won't believe it's possible for them. Rather, you want to start out by helping them identify your product or service as something useful for people like THEM. Then you transition into showing how your product or service helps people like them achieve the identity that they crave for.
The most powerful form of trust is built around a shared identity. A family, a city, a nation - whatever it is, a shared identity brings people together, and makes them feel comfortable and open around each other. So your brand is the nation - your brand is the shared identity that people like your prospect can partake in by buying and using your products or services.
So as a copywriter who wants to build trust, at this stage you have to identify who your prospect IS, and who your prospects WANTS to be.
And the final stage is the kind of trust that is built by confirming what people already believe (or want to believe), and thus validating them. This is the most difficult part of copywriting, and we are getting in very "metaphysical" realms. When someone reads what you wrote, and they find themselves agreeing with it, automatically a switch flips in their mind: this guy or gal is like me, therefore I can trust them because they know what I'm thinking and how I'm feeling. That's why people generally look for partners with similar beliefs that they have. That's why you hang in groups of people who share similar beliefs with you. That's why you're on this forum, reading these words, and not on socialism.com.
This stage is the most difficult because you literarily have to know what your prospects believe at this moment. If you tell me "Make 6-figures with sales funnels", and I don't believe you, you've lost me. Suddenly, my rational System 2 mind springs into action, and starts saying... wait a moment, something is fishy here. That doesn't really seem possible... Better discount all the other claims being made just to be safe. Watch out around this guy.
Likewise, if you are in a hypercompetitive market, like weight loss, or in a market where people no longer believe that the result is possible or credible, then you're losing people by saying "New Method Shows How To Lose Weight Without Starving, Pills or Surgery!" - they don't believe it, they don't trust you about it, they're not going to trust your other claims. You must always start where your prospect is, not anywhere else. If your prospect believes that it's impossible to lose weight, and everyone out there is trying to scam them, then that's what your headline will say. Offer them validation, make them feel heard. Say "Don't Believe Any Weight Loss Promise Until You Read This!" -> see what happens? Suddenly a prospect in that frame of mind trusts you, because you confirm their beliefs, and you show yourself to be like them
So your job here is to figure out what they believe in, and never contradict them. You may need to extend their beliefs. Say they believe A, B, C, but to make a purchase you have to get them to believe D, and drop B. So first you confirm A, B, C, you agree with them. Then you bring in D as an extension that is proved based on the beliefs they already agree with. So start from things they already believe in, and move slowly to things you want them to believe that they do not yet believe. The slower this transition, the more you get them nodding while reading, the more you'll get them to trust you and accept beliefs they wouldn't otherwise.
This brings this short introduction to copywriting that builds trust to an end. Below is a summary:
Remember:
Promises Made, Promises Kept - 4 Stages To Building Trust & Generating Conviction
1. Deliver what you say you will at all stages of your funnel (Promises you make to the prospect)
2. Meet their subconscious expectations (Promises the prospect assumes about you)
3. Show that you know the identity they want to achieve, and the way there (Promises the prospect makes to himself about himself)
4. Confirm & Extend Their Beliefs, thus validating them (Promises the prospect holds himself and others to)
I highly encourage you to also read this thread if you think copywriting is very cool and something you want to get better at: The Limitations of Copywriting, Sales, and Marketing
Puts things in perspective a little!
As the previous thread explains in great detail, building trust is a key part of making sales and getting customers on-board with your product or service. And the way you do that online starts with copywriting. Even if your sales funnel involves getting on the phone with the customer, having a video call or similar, usually that happens at the later stages. This means that the first impression your customers get of you and your business is given by the words they read inside your ads or on your website.
And the first impression is also usually the last impression. Either your prospect starts out by feeling you're the kind of business they can trust, the kind of business that delivers, or they start out by feeling that there is something risky, shady, or unprofessional about you. If they start with the negative impression, then you're already fighting an uphill battle that will require tremendous effort to change. In fact, you're better off dropping that prospect and looking for a new one, because the effort it would take is probably not worth your time. On the other hand, if they get a good, positive first impression of you, your sales job is significantly easier.
Research shows that it takes roughly 7 seconds for people to form a first impression. And the way you present yourself through your copy plays a big role in that.
To help you remember the fundamental principle of building trust through copywriting, I have stolen Trump's slogan: "Promises Made, Promises Kept"
Whenever someone clicks on your ad, or navigates to your website, or fills in the contact form on your website, they do so because they have an expectation. This expectation has two components: (1) the promise you implanted into their minds with regards to the benefit that they can gain by taking the action you want them to take, and (2) the subconscious expectations that they have about your product, service and business.
We will break each one down.
1. Your Promise - Make Sure You Fulfill It, And Do NOT Bait & Switch
Every online business uses some traffic generation strategy, whether that is SEO, content marketing, paid advertising, forum marketing, or something different. Regardless of what method you use, you always make a PROMISE to your prospect that grabs their attention and motivates them to take action. If you do not do that, then they will not enter your funnel, and that's the end of it. So obviously the promise must tell them a benefit that they will get by taking the desired action. Sometimes you'll use an information gap to arouse curiosity, you will create mystery, you will present an irresistible benefit, or you will deliver the promise of entertainment.
Regardless of what you do, once the person lands on the page, you have 7 seconds to start delivering on the promise. If your ad promises that you will reveal a secret, you must start revealing it. If your ad promises something free, then they need to quickly see what you're offering, and see that it is free.
If you break your promise, then they will immediately label you as not trustworthy, and even if what you are actually offering is of interest to you, they are very likely to ignore it, leave the page, or otherwise look for competitors to obtain it. So do not bait and switch.
2. Subconscious Expectations - Identify & Meet Them
Whenever we follow someone on a promise, we have some subconscious expectations about WHO the person or business is. For example, if your promise is "World-class Direct Response Agency Offers FREE Training On Building 6-Figure+ Funnels", followed by a video of you in your mom's basement and a headline with spelling errors and rainbow colored fonts, then for sure you have blown it.
When I see such a promise, I already have an idea of the kind of person who would make it. I see a successful businessman, who has worked with high-powered businesses to deliver outstanding results. I see someone with a nice office, well dressed, and ready to roll. I do NOT see a teenager in their mom's basement. Nor do I see someone who can't spell correct English. And yet, this is how many businesses present themselves, and then wonder why they're not getting any clients.
So, as a copywriter, it is your role to identify what kind of image your prospects unconsciously form of your client, even before landing on his website, based on the promise that is made to attract them. And after you have identified that, you have to write the copy so that it meets with that image.
When that happens, the rational mind (System 2) of your prospect is lulled into comfort, because everything is as expected, everything looks good. Your prospects are in a positive frame of mind, they lower their guard, and they become more open to what your copy will tell them to do next.
The next stage of building trust is giving your prospects an identity that they crave. People do not simply want the transformation that your product is going to give them. They don't simply want the direct benefits. They also have more subtle desires, which represent the kind of people they aspire to be. Things like successful, part of the elite, intelligent, cultured, well-read and so on. This includes both desirable character traits and desirable roles.
Building trust here requires more subtlety. You don't want to start right off the bat with portraying the identity that they want to achieve. Because if you do, they will feel sold to and manipulated - or they just won't believe it's possible for them. Rather, you want to start out by helping them identify your product or service as something useful for people like THEM. Then you transition into showing how your product or service helps people like them achieve the identity that they crave for.
The most powerful form of trust is built around a shared identity. A family, a city, a nation - whatever it is, a shared identity brings people together, and makes them feel comfortable and open around each other. So your brand is the nation - your brand is the shared identity that people like your prospect can partake in by buying and using your products or services.
So as a copywriter who wants to build trust, at this stage you have to identify who your prospect IS, and who your prospects WANTS to be.
And the final stage is the kind of trust that is built by confirming what people already believe (or want to believe), and thus validating them. This is the most difficult part of copywriting, and we are getting in very "metaphysical" realms. When someone reads what you wrote, and they find themselves agreeing with it, automatically a switch flips in their mind: this guy or gal is like me, therefore I can trust them because they know what I'm thinking and how I'm feeling. That's why people generally look for partners with similar beliefs that they have. That's why you hang in groups of people who share similar beliefs with you. That's why you're on this forum, reading these words, and not on socialism.com.
This stage is the most difficult because you literarily have to know what your prospects believe at this moment. If you tell me "Make 6-figures with sales funnels", and I don't believe you, you've lost me. Suddenly, my rational System 2 mind springs into action, and starts saying... wait a moment, something is fishy here. That doesn't really seem possible... Better discount all the other claims being made just to be safe. Watch out around this guy.
Likewise, if you are in a hypercompetitive market, like weight loss, or in a market where people no longer believe that the result is possible or credible, then you're losing people by saying "New Method Shows How To Lose Weight Without Starving, Pills or Surgery!" - they don't believe it, they don't trust you about it, they're not going to trust your other claims. You must always start where your prospect is, not anywhere else. If your prospect believes that it's impossible to lose weight, and everyone out there is trying to scam them, then that's what your headline will say. Offer them validation, make them feel heard. Say "Don't Believe Any Weight Loss Promise Until You Read This!" -> see what happens? Suddenly a prospect in that frame of mind trusts you, because you confirm their beliefs, and you show yourself to be like them
So your job here is to figure out what they believe in, and never contradict them. You may need to extend their beliefs. Say they believe A, B, C, but to make a purchase you have to get them to believe D, and drop B. So first you confirm A, B, C, you agree with them. Then you bring in D as an extension that is proved based on the beliefs they already agree with. So start from things they already believe in, and move slowly to things you want them to believe that they do not yet believe. The slower this transition, the more you get them nodding while reading, the more you'll get them to trust you and accept beliefs they wouldn't otherwise.
This brings this short introduction to copywriting that builds trust to an end. Below is a summary:
Remember:
Promises Made, Promises Kept - 4 Stages To Building Trust & Generating Conviction
1. Deliver what you say you will at all stages of your funnel (Promises you make to the prospect)
2. Meet their subconscious expectations (Promises the prospect assumes about you)
3. Show that you know the identity they want to achieve, and the way there (Promises the prospect makes to himself about himself)
4. Confirm & Extend Their Beliefs, thus validating them (Promises the prospect holds himself and others to)
I highly encourage you to also read this thread if you think copywriting is very cool and something you want to get better at: The Limitations of Copywriting, Sales, and Marketing
Puts things in perspective a little!
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