What A Gutter Cleaner Can Teach You About Borrowing Credibility
Had an email from a friend and Google Adwords expert, George Lane, www.george-lane.com in which he shared an interesting piece of marketing he received through his letterbox.
Incidentally in a few weeks I’m hoping to have an interview with George on this Blog all about Google Adwords and how you can improve your own Adword campaigns. So stay tuned.
Anyway back to the marketing.
The piece in question was from a gutter cleaner. Ben’s Gutters in fact. Actually I never knew there was such a profession. I just thought everyone cleaned their own gutters. Stupid me.
Anyway you can take a look at Ben’s advertising piece by clicking here.
There are some clever and hidden bits of marketing psychology going on these few sentences. I wonder if Ben has written this knowingly or unknowingly. Or perhaps he just thinks “I’m in the neighbourhood and I’ll put one of these through each letterbox. See what happens. Kill two birds with one stone.”
So what’s going on here. The answer is simple.
Firstly Ben is borrowing credibility.
How’s he doing this? Well, it’s almost as if George’s neighbour is endorsing Ben’s services – without giving him a testimonial.
If Ben is deemed good enough to be employed to clean the neighbour’s gutters, well, he must be good enough to clean everyone else’s gutters as well.
A bit of the ol’ herd instinct kicking in here. Follow the crowd. People feel safer if everybody else is doing the same thing. (Personally I hate doing what everybody else does. And my natural inclination is to do the opposite. But hey I’m in the small minority.)
Before I go let me ask you a question. What credibility can you use in your own business? Have you got testimonials from past customers, track record, statistics of performance, etc you can use?
If not, perhaps you can borrow credibility. Just like Ben has done. What do I mean by this?
Well look around for prominent people or statistics in your industry. People who are experts or have been quoted in the media. Numbers quoted in the Financial Times for instance. And quote them in your sales pieces.
See how quoting the Financial Times in your sales message implies FT approval. You do? Great. That’s borrowing credibility.
Secondly, consider this:
If George’s neighbour is having his gutters cleaned why the heck isn’t George having his gutters cleaned as well? Does George want to have a house with dirty gutters? Of course he doesn’t.
So there’s the keeping up with the neighbours scenario. People like to feel better than other people. After all, nobody wants to have their neighbours one up on them. It’s the competitive element. Remember life is very competitive.
Thirdly there’s the personal touch.
A hand written message. Ben’s message doesn’t come across as marketing and advertising. It comes across as a note from a friend. And that’s important.
Why?
Because it by-passes the reader’s BS antennae. It gets in under the reader’s filtering system to avoid reading marketing stuff whereby people are trying to sell you something. A hand written note is a Me to You communication.
Somebody has taken time out to write a personal note to you. Just like a good sales letter should read.
So back to Ben. In just four lines of copy he stirred up a host of emotions in the reader’s mind.
What could he do to improve his response rate?
Written a heap of testimonials with real names and addresses on the page. Also offered a super strong guarantee. AND an irresistible offer.
If he’d have included these he would see his response rates soar.
What do you think?
Comments welcome.
Until next time
Mark
For all your marketing needs visit my site:
www.markpocock.com
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
The original compliments slip is very obviously printed not handwritten (felt pen leaks through paper and also changes the texture of the written side) so it was immediately obvious to me that it wasn’t not a spur of the moment note. After checking them on the web (for negative reviews) I called them, not because of keeping up with neighbours/personal touch, but because I need my gutters cleaned this summer and don’t fancy going up the ladder myself. Their advert - and it was obviously an advert, at least to me - coincided with my requirement.
IMO, the use of a handwritten compliments slip simply makes it stand out from the usual typeset ads, but maybe my non-social (geek) personality means the keeping-up-with-neighbours/personal touch stuff passes me by.
it’s a good tactic - except that someone put four of the same leaflet through my door - which slightly defeated the object of the apparently personal touch!
The curious thing about this piece is that it *appears* to be hand written - on the spur of the moment - by a guy in his van.
It’s impossible to tell from the scan I sent you, but the “hand written” note is printed in bulk. It’s so cleverly done, it took me a while to figure out (in fact the only way I could tell it was printed was that the “felt-tip pen” didn’t show through on the other side).
As you said on your (excellent) post, this layout drops the readers defences and lets the social proof triggers through at full force.
Cheers,
George