How to Make a Sale Every Time — The Promise
“An ad that doesn’t promise any benefit to the customer doesn’t sell, and yet the majority of campaigns make no promises at all.” David Ogilvy, On Advertising
Your promise will often be the headline of your sales page; it can be the subheading, or appear in one of the introductory sentences of your sales page or video. In any case, your promise must come quickly and follow a clear structure. The promise is what compels your reader to read your content, follow you, and buy your product. The purpose of your marketing promise is to improve your customer’s life in one way or another: to help them make money, save money, become more popular, improve their love life, help their dog digest food better, keep their hair clean, or combat dry ends.
Value Proposition and USP
The “Unique Selling Proposition (USP)” is THE promise associated with your offering. According to USP theorist Rosser Reeves, your offering should focus on just one benefit — the single, most significant benefit. For example, to sell laundry detergent, a manufacturer might highlight the following five benefits:
- It gets clothes whiter;
- it takes good care of your laundry;
- it’s eco-friendly;
- it’s highly concentrated;
- it’s the least expensive.
The promise would then be highlighted, while the others would be relegated to the status of mere benefits. Your promise cannot include all five benefits, or it will become unclear. You must make a big promise to draw the reader in — a unique promise — and then explain how you will keep that promise.
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Here are a few examples of promises for fictional infoproducts:
- “Learn to code in less than 24 hours… even if you don’t know HTML.”
- “Create your sales page in less than 2 hours — even if you hate writing.”
- “Learn English effortlessly in just 15 minutes a day with our new Babbel method.”
- “The WIN Method for Landing and Succeeding in Interviews at Top Consulting Firms… Even If You Graduated from a Lower-Ranked School.”
- “Grow your community and double your revenue on Instagram for less than $50.”
When your promise is strong, it catches the eye and helps you gain an extra 10 seconds of your reader’s attention.
Hi! I’m Alexis, a former marketing manager at a champagne house. I’ve developed expertise in understanding the human brain and its reactions to marketing campaigns.
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