marketing campaignsSo have you ever visited a sales page that’s been so full of hype it’s made you blink or just stare in disbelief?Or I’ll bet there have been times when you’ve closed a sales letter page down because  the hype was too ridiculous for words.

I’ll let you into a big secret, hype is the absolute death of any copy you may be writing and if you start to indulge then say goodbye to any customers you’re hoping to attract.

No doubt you’ve been told to avoid using “hype” in your copywriting and sales messages, But when it comes to defining hype and especially to determining how much is just right, the water gets just a tad murky and no two marketers can probably give you a definitive answer as to what they think ‘hype’ comprises of..

That’s because “hype” is subjective. It can also be a sensitive issue. 

For instance,one person’s perception of hype may be another person’s idea of exactly the right message. I sometimes wonder if we Brit’s have a very low tolerance for hype as I’ve found in my experience we tend to bitch about it more..

The thing is, you’ve got to have a modicum of hype in your sales message because you’ve got to make it sound exciting. There’s nothing more boring than a sales message or sales page that doesn#’t have at least some excitement attached to it!!

Let’s look at a couple of examples

Sales message example #1: “This system is for sale for $33.33, here’s the order button.please click it”

Okt, that’s hype free, the problem is, it’s also benefit free, boring and will capture the interest of no one. Of course, if the system is already well-known and you’re discounting it to 5 bucks, you may make a sale, (but you’ll be lucky to do so)..

But if you’re selling a good product at a reasonable price, you’re going to have to turn on the hype.

What about this?

Sales message example #2: “This Revolutionary New System Cuts Your Work in Half While Tripling Your Productivity.”

Not tooo bad  and certainly worthy of further investigation if you’re interested in getting more work done in less time. And yes, there is some hype in there, especially  in the words “revolutionary” and “new” – just not so much that it raises red flags and causes your prospect to tune out.

Sales message example #3: “The Easy System that Earns You a Thousand Dollars a Second with NO Work.” (Sigh)

Looking at the words themselves, there isn’t much in the way of hype. We didn’t say it’s the greatest system in the world, or that everyone loves it, or there’s never been anything like it since the beginning of time. We just said buy it and you won’t have to do any work. (Which is of course completely untrue). It’s not  believable by any standards and anyone who puts something like that deserves to lose any potential customers. In this case,  the promise is just so much hype in the ears of the prospect and doesn’t offer enough substance to enable to get their credit card out.

Sales Message Example #4: “Give Me 5 Hours and I’ll Show You How to Earn $1,439 Per Month on Autopilot.”

Hyped? I don’t think so. This message offers a specific benefit in exchange for a specified amount of time and work.  The amount doesn’t sound unreasonable because we’ve all see examples of a few hours of work resulting in a monthly income of several hundred or even a couple of thousand dollars per month. Most importantly, the reader isn’t being promised something for nothing, which will ALWAYS instill doubt in a prospect. It sounds honest, it doesn’t sound hyped, and it’s completely plausible, (I like it).

So what have we learned from this example? Plenty I hope.

First, if you don’t use some hype in your copy you’re never going to sell much of anything. People need to get excited before they’ll whip out their wallets and they need to see a clear benefit to making the purchase. They WANT to be fired up, they want to feel their heart race a bit and experience that adrenaline rush of getting a great deal. The better you can extrapolate how the features of your product will benefit the consumer and improve their life, the more likely they are to click the order button.

Second, be believable. Making wild claims is the ultimate in hype – and if you can’t back those claims with rock solid absolute undeniable proof, you’re better off not making those claims at all.

Third, be specific. “Make $2,000 a month!” sounds much more like hype than “Earn $2,078.55 a month.” Why? Because the specific number is more credible, as though it’s already been done. “Type Faster” doesn’t mean much, but “Type 15 Words Per Minute Faster after Just 4 Lessons” tells the prospect exactly what to expect. Non-specific claims and rounded numbers just naturally sound like hype, regardless of whether or not they’re factual.

Fourth, tell them what the catch is. This goes right back to being believable, because if you tell someone they can get a great benefit, they immediately want to know what the catch is. Often this equates to price, but if you can show a different catch, such as “5 hours,” then you take their mind off of price and onto the question of, “What do I need to do for 5 hours to make that $1439 a month?”

And by the way – normally an article like this would start out with the definition of hype, but I wanted to save this gem for the end. Here’s what hype really means:

Hype: Verb meaning to stimulate or excite

Hype: Noun meaning extravagant or exaggerated claims

As you can see, hype is good so long as we strive to stimulate and excite, rather than exaggerate or stretch the truth.

Till next time…


    2 replies to "Just What Is Hype & How Can You Avoid Using It?"

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