What’s the risk?
This week I am talking you through the basics of how to use risk in your marketing to boost your sales.
If your job is to sell something, you may be missing a trick in your conversation – have you heard of loss aversion marketing?
You probably already appreciate that focussing on customer needs and the unique value your solution provides is essential but interestingly, as humans we are more motivated by avoiding loss than we are in potential gain – there are psychological studies that show this.
As far as sales messages go, risk or ‘avoiding loss’ can be used as a motivating factor and it can be very powerful . . . but you don’t want to get it wrong. So, in this episode, I’m going to show you the many different ways to be creative about using risk in your sales message and how to get the balance right to make the difference between a sellout and a no show.
I really hope that you enjoy this one. I’ve dug deep into my childhood and imagination to bring you the best examples I could think of so hopefully it’ll make you laugh and if you have kids who don’t do what you say, the benefits of listening might be twofold!
As ever, please feel free to contact me and leave any comments or questions below.
If you would like to know more about the Write With Influence course, please follow the link below.
Show Transcript:
Amy:
Hello and welcome to another episode of Write With Influence, 10-15 minutes of sales messaging and psychological persuasion tips to help you captivate customers and sell more of what I have AND there are some illustrative sketches thrown into the mix because learning how to mind meld people into clicking a Buy Button shouldn’t be dull, it should be fun!
First of all, tell me… what’s going on with you? Now, you can tell me it’s just you and I right now; anything you’d like to get off your chest? Perhaps you’re celebrating a big win? Perhaps a new promotion? Or you’re trying to figure out why your last promotional email didn’t bring in the flood of orders you were expecting?
If you want to tell me about it, I want to hear it and you can get your message to me by using the comments box on the show page. Feel free to celebrate a success and I’ll cheer along with you, but you can also share a challenge or frustration and we can see if we can work it out together. Quick caveat on that last part though, I’m really only good at solving sales messaging and copywriting problems. If you’re trying to figure out why you purchased that set of seven reusable silicone food cover lids that you saw very late at night on a Facebook video advertisement, the ones that seemed an amazing idea at the time, especially when the black and white portion of the video where someone was really struggling with clingfilm (plastic wrap if you’re one of my US friends) made you see how hellish your life had become without the aforementioned reusable silicone lids, only to then receive them and end up only using two out of the entire set . . . well, I’m afraid I can’t help you because I’m still trying to figure that one out!
On to the show and this time round, we’re talking about using risk in your sales messaging and copywriting. Risk should absolutely be an element of your persuasive sales message. People should feel that there is a negative consequence if they don’t have your product. Now we’ll talk about how far you should take this a little later, but first of all, why is risk so important? Aren’t we always told to sell the benefits and talk about the positive transformation? In the last show we looked at describing Butterfly Moments to make people feel emotionally connected in a positive way to the outcome of using your product. There wasn’t anything negative there so Amy, what’s going on?
Okay, yes, benefits are important. Yes, a positive emotional connection to your product is important, but so is risk. There are many moving parts in a successful sales message, risk is just one of them. So why is it so important? Well, it’s because humans are more motivated by avoiding loss than they are in potential gain. I’m going to give you some links in the show notes if you want to read more about this, but it’s because of something called loss aversion.
Loss aversion is the theory that we prefer to avoid loss more so than acquiring the equivalent gain. So for example, we feel bad about losing $5 but we don’t feel equally good about finding $5. In fact, it’s thought that the pain of losing say $1,000 can only be compensated by the pleasure of gaining $2,000. Now, loss aversion was first identified by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman and Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel Prize in economic sciences for it so, you know, he’s pretty smart!
Anyway, this principle is absolutely used with success in marketing. It’s one of the reasons free trials work. They take advantage of someone becoming accustomed to having something during the free trial so that they don’t want to feel the loss of it by then not continuing into a subscription model and this can also influence marketing language. For example, how a loss or a gain is framed. A $5 discount may not be as motivating as avoiding a $5 surcharge, for example. These are all different things that you can test in your marketing messages, but risk can be a very important motivating factor so you should absolutely be aware of it and know how to use it as part of your sales messaging tool kit when you’re sitting down to write. As I mentioned, Daniel Kahneman has a Nobel Prize so we should probably listen to him! And me? Well, I once won a silver medal for my front crawl in swimming so . . . I’m kidding! I’ve been fixing broken sales copy for more than a decade and I’ve seen how tweaks and changes to the language that we use and the angles that we take and the themes that we attack can absolutely make the difference between a sellout and a no show. And I do still have that swimming medal. So today let’s look at the following:
- How do you identify the risk and your sales message?
- Why is it important to understand that risk alone is not enough?
- Why is it also important to not make things too risky?
First of all, you need to identify the right risk for your customer. Whenever I sit down to write or planned sales copy, one of the elements I’m looking for is:
What’s at stake for the customer if they don’t buy?
What would they miss out on if they don’t say yes to the promotion?
And you really do need to know your customer to get this right. If you want to see a real life example of someone desperately trying to find a motivating risk, all you need to do is go to your local supermarket, find a tired, work weary parent accompanied by a child having a tantrum. Quite often in this situation you will see some rapid fire persuasive techniques that usually involve risk if the child doesn’t behave and culminates in the phrase of, “Wait till I get you home!”.
When I was younger, my dad worked away a lot so my mum was left with two children under the age of four and a 14 year old to control. Her powers of using risk still stay with me today.
[NEW SCENE -Amy as a child]
Mum: “Amy! John! Stop bouncing on the bed!”
Young Amy: “Why?”
Mum: “Because I said so!”
Young Amy: “Why?”
Mum: “Because I’m tired and I don’t want you bouncing on the bed . . . I just made that!”
Young Amy :“I’m not even really messing it up!”
Mum: “Oh, Oh dear. Well I suppose I’ll have to then . . .”
Young Amy: “What? WHAT?”
Mum “I didn’t want to do this. I mean, your brother is going to wonder where you are when he comes home from school.”
Young Amy: “Are we going to Grandmas?”
Mum: “No, not Grandma’s. If you don’t stop bouncing on the bed, you’re going to go to the naughty school.”
(Amy Laughing)
Young Amy: “Naughty school?! Who’s she ringing?
(Mum on the telephone)
Mum: “Oh, hello? Is that the Dickensian school for naughty children?
(Pause)
Oh, wonderful. Yes. I have two naughty children here available for collection. How soon can you send someone round?”
Young Amy: “No, no, no wait, we’ve stopped!”
Mum: “As quick as that?! That would be great! Their brother’s going to be home soon and it’d be perfect if you could pick them up before he gets here. He’s our favorite you see and I don’t want to upset him.”
Young Amy: “We’re sorry. We’ve stopped!”
Mum: “How naughty are they? Well, I asked them to stop bouncing on the bed and they wouldn’t.
(Pause)
I know. Shocking. . .
How long can you take them?
(Pause)
Two weeks? Oh wonderful – some peace and quiet at last! Now, what will they have to eat when they stay with you?
(Pause)
Liver, onions, tripe. . . that does sound like perfect meals for naughty children. Okay. Yep. There’ll be ready and waiting.”
Young Amy: “Mum, please, we’re sorry.”
Mum: “No, they won’t have any toys. I’m taking all of their toys and stuffed animals down to the bottom of the garden and burning them all.
(Pause)
OK, Lovely, Bye Bye!”
Young Amy: (Crying)
“I don’t want to go to the naughty school!”
(Big brother comes home from school)
Big Brother “Mum, I’m home!
“Why are they crying? Are they going to the Dickensian school for naughty children again?”
Mum: “That’s right. Pass me the wine . . . I’m going to have a bath.”
[END]
Just for the record and in case my mum is listening, that never happened and any likeness to my mother or other members of my family and friends and people I meet in this podcast is merely coincidence!
So the first thing you need to do is identify a motivating risk. What do your customers care about? The answer to this is always going to lie in your customer research and identifying the right risk isn’t always easy. What we might think would be motivating factors for our customers might fall on deaf ears. Think about motivating someone to give up smoking for example, for some people the risks of their health might be enough to make them stop, but for other people it might be saving money and for others, it could be that their friends no longer smoke and they don’t want to be the odd one out or they just feel like it’s sort of gone out of fashion.
But let’s think about this commercially. What are some of the associated risks of people not purchasing your product or service? Remember in the last episode when we discussed Butterfly Moments, we were describing how our customer’s lives will be positively changed by our product. Well, one way to start thinking about risks is to ask yourself, so what happens to your customer if that change never takes place? And the answer isn’t just that, well, things can stay the same. It could be that things get worse. This could have a long term impact on potential customers. If you don’t purchase that time management book, you might be forever feeling swamped and stressed by work and life and over time, this could make you pretty miserable. Or it might be that customers face a more acute risk – if they don’t fix a leak fast, they’re going to end up with thousands of pounds of flood damage. Remember, we tend to be more motivated by the idea of loss than gain. So your first step is to figure out from your customers . . .what could they be afraid of losing? And then the next thing that you need to know is that that risk is not enough. Your customers have to feel a pressing discomfort about not solving their problem. For example, compare this scenario:
[NEW SCENE – Buckingham Palace]
{Royal music and the sound of someone writing}
Queen Elizabeth (Writing):
Dear Ms. Harrison, you are cordially invited to have afternoon tea with me, Queen Elizabeth II in six months time.
(Pause)
Oh, I do hope she can make it Phillip, she’s hilarious! And even though I’ve talked about afternoon tea, I’m really hoping we just hit the brandy hard. I’m not naming any names, but I’m quite, no, royally ****ed off with a few people at the moment and could do with something to take my mind off things.
Amy’s Husband:
Amy! You’ve got another letter from the queen!
Amy:
No way!
Amy’s Husband:
Yeh, you’ve been invited to hers in six months time. We should probably get you a new dress!
Amy:
Oh, absolutely, I don’t want to make an embarrassment of myself!
Amy’s Husband:
Should we go now?
Amy:
No . . . plenty of time!
{Royal music playing}
[END]
But, what if this happened . . .
[NEW SCENE – Amy’s house]
Amy’s Husband:
(opening letter)
Amy, you’ve got an invitation to see the queen.
Amy:
Yeah, I know!
Amy’s Husband:
No, she sent another one. She said she’s having a really hard time with you know who and wants cheering up now. Shemwants you at the palace tomorrow . . .Amy, you’re wearing your dad’s sweater . . .we need to sort out your wardrobe now.
Amy:
Oh God. . .shopping!
{Royal music playing}
Location: PALACE
Queen Elizabeth (Talking to guests):
Yes, yes, thank you for coming. . .
Amy:
(whispering to husband)
These heels are too high!
Amy’s husband:
That’s all that they had . . . Amy pull your skirt down a bit! You look like Julia Roberts, if they’d made the film Pretty Awful Woman. Come on, it’s nearly your turn . . .
Amy:
Oh, er, hello, hello Your Majesty . . . .
(falls over and trips)
{Gasps from the crowd}
Queen Elizabeth:
Oh, oh, what’s happening?!?!
Amy’s Husband:
Amy! You’ve nutted the Queen!
Policeman (talking into radio)
{Police sirens}
The Corgi is down, the Corgi is down. Arresting suspect on site.
{Royal music playing}
END
So, perhaps I should take my wardrobe more seriously to avoid such consequences, but look, when the problem was months away, there was no urgency, but with a shorter timescale, I felt compelled to act.
So when it comes to using risk in your messaging, it’s not just enough to say, look, if you don’t buy our product, something bad might happen, you also want to try and identify why that problem may be bigger than they first thought or may arrive sooner than they first thought. So for example, it’s like the warning lights in your car, if a bulb light comes on, you might not think it’s a big deal and maybe you’ve got some time to get it fixed, but if your oil light comes on or you realise that you’re low on petrol, you know that you’ve got to take action pretty quickly. There’s so many ways that you can combine risk and urgency in order to motivate people to purchase. For example, if it’s a conference, you may use the risk of missing out on the latest industry trends. You don’t want the idea that your competitors will be ahead of you and will be able to start planning strategies and techniques and tactics that you don’t know about because you don’t attend the conference. You might need to educate your customer and show them that the timeline for solving the problem and avoiding risk is shorter than they may think. Let’s say you run dog behavioural courses and you might say, “look, if you don’t have your dog under control by the age of x amount of months then there is a real risk of aggressive behaviour setting in”. Or if you can show that the problem is going to get bigger and more expensive to solve if left alone, again, that can be really motivating – this great combination of risk and urgency.
However, one of the things that you don’t want to do is scare monger your audiences. One of the guys that I work with talks about this and explains it by saying,
“Look, this is not a country song. If people don’t use your product, they won’t lose their job, their woman, their dog, and end up living under a bridge.”
To stop you doing this, ask yourself two things:
First of all:
- Is the risk believable?
And also:
- Do people feel that they can solve it?
I ask because you don’t want people thinking that the problem is so insurmountable that there’s no point in trying. There are different ways that you can make people believe your risk and believe the urgency around the timeline. You might have anecdotal case studies, examples of people who have failed to take action and suffered a consequence. Statistics can also help, for example, if you’re a consultant for bars and you can show that 40% of bars in a particular area closed last year, that brings the risk into a sharp focus. You might even have visual evidence of the consequences, a collapsed ceiling from water damage for example, and there are also many ways to show people that the problem can be solved. Again, case studies from your customers, before and after descriptions and images, statistics about the results you’ve achieved for customers. There are many different ways to be creative about using risk in your sales message and I want you to realise that it is a key element.
So remember to identify the risk that matters to your customer but understand that risk isn’t enough – your customer has to feel uncomfortable about the consequences today, but don’t make things so risky that your customers either don’t believe you or are too paralyzed by fear to act.
That’s all for this episode!
Don’t forget, as always, you can leave a comment if you have a question, challenge or sales messaging victory that you’d like to share and if you want more of an end to end framework for researching and writing your copy, check out the complete Wight With Influence course.
Until next time, keep believing and remember, sometimes the risk just isn’t worth it!
[NEW SCENE – Conference]
Conference Attendee:
Oh, this conference is dull. Nice hotel. But yeah, look, it sounds like there’s a party in the ballroom. Should we sneak in?
Colleague:
Oh, I don’t know if we should risk it.
Conference Attendee:
Come on! It looks a lot more fun than this! I bet they’ve got an open bar as well. . . let’s just pop our heads in, it’s probably just another conference, no one will notice.
Colleague:
I don’t know.
Conference Attendee:
C’mon. There’s no risk. What’s the worst that could happen?
{party music}
(Doors open)
Stranger from party:
Ahhh come in! I see you tried to sneak into our celebration. . .
Conference Attendee:
Oh, I’m sorry, we, we must’ve made a mistake. . .
(whispers to friend)
. . . come on, let’s go!
Stranger from party:
Oh, I don’t think so. That’s okay. You’re just in time to be our guests of honour at this annual gathering of people against conferences.
Conference Attendee:
Wait, no, stop! Let go of me!
Stranger from party:
Every year we gather in a large hotel and throw a wonderful party just waiting for people to try and sneak in from a nearby conference and look for the free bar. You were looking for free booze weren’t you?
Conference Attendee:
No!
Stranger from party:
Don’t lie!
Conference Attendee:
Yes, yes we were. Please just let us go.
Stranger from party:
No, no, no, come on, up on stage. That’s it. Fix them to the rotating board. Now who wants to come up and practice their knife-throwing skills? That’s it Smithy! Come on up! I do like those spectacles of yours, Are they new?
Smithy:
Yes, they are. Got them the other day at the opticians. Hey, you’ll never guess who I bumped into at the opticians . . .”
Stranger from party:
Who?
Smithy:
Everyone!
Stranger from party: “Hahaha! Good one Smithy! Now throw!
Colleague:
What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the worst that could happen? YOU
IDIOT!
Awwwwwwwww
END
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