I read the other day that they’re going to be making Top Gun 2.

I’m half excited that both Maverick and Iceman have committed to the movie, and half scared that they’ll make a lame sequel.

Anyway, this news got me thinking about Top Gun again, and those amazing dogfights where the pilots all tried to get “missile lock” on each other. And THAT reminded me about a new kind of ad that “missile locks” onto its target until prospects become leads.

It’s called “retargeting,” and it’s something every law practice should be doing.

Here’s how it works. Continue…

I have a confession.

When lawyers shows me their existing Google Ad campaigns, I often have to smother a gasp.

That’s because I’ll instantly notice some major “red flags” indicating that the ad campaign is ruining that lawyer’s life, liberty, and the pursuit of their legal happiness.

Without further ado, here’s a short list of the top three red flags that I see: Continue…

I’m always amazed how simply measuring something leads to improving it.

Take the time that I wanted to lose some weight…

I took a piece of paper and taped it to my front door. I then weighed myself every morning and wrote my weight down on that piece of paper.

I live in a NYC apartment, so I walked by that door 20 times a day. Now, just walking by the door didn’t make the pounds magically melt off. But looking at that piece of paper helped me focus on the one metric I wanted to improve. And slowly and surely, I lost weight.

It turns out that when you measure something, you come to understand why that something goes up and down. And understanding something means you can control it. And controlling something means you can improve it.

I think of my “piece of paper” diet every time I think about helping lawyers use marketing to get more clients. That’s because you can actually follow my “piece of paper” diet to increase the number of leads you get. Continue…

One of the best ways to increase conversions on your landing page is to convert features into benefits.

Indeed, customers buying drills aren’t buying features like 1/2″ drill bits. What they really want is the benefit of making perfect 1/2″ holes easily.

This makes sense to me, so I understand why many marketers say to “sell the hole, not the drill”.

So when I started writing this article about features and benefits, I thought I’d check out the product descriptions for some drills. Surely, they’d be chock full of benefits and not features?

Alas, they’re not! Take a look at the bestselling high-performance drill on Amazon. The product description’s first listed feature is the weak “Supplies 330 in./lbs. of torque”.

Is 300 in./lbs. a lot of torque? Maybe 300 in./lbs. of torque means that I can drill into hard brick? Or make holes in drywall in 3 seconds?

I guess I’ll never know.

It’s sad. Even drill makers can’t be bothered to turn their features into benefits. Black & Decker’s marketers must have heard the saying, so the reason can’t be ignorance.

The answer must be because it’s hard to convert features into benefits.

So the question is this: How can we easily convert “features that tell” into “benefits that sell”? Continue…

Guarantees work.

A third-party provider of guarantee seals did split tests that showed that its guarantees help clients increase conversion rates by 6.0%, 7.6%, 9.9% and 11.3%. Impressive results!

Customers love them, especially unconditional money-back guarantees. That’s why guarantees boost sales.

But sometimes, your product requires your customers to (gasp!) make an effort in order to achieve their desired outcome. Maybe you’re a web designer and your client needs to approve mockups quickly so you can hit your deadline. Maybe you have a web app, and your clients need to log-in and use the app. Or maybe you’re a nutritionist, and your client needs to stop eating ice cream.

If your customers need to do more than swallow a magic pill to get the results they want, a guarantee can perversely encourage your customers to not even try to make an effort. After all, lazy customers can just do nothing and get a refund.

Guarantees can result in customers paying nothing and not getting the result they want. That’s a bad result for them, and a terrible result for you.

So how can you benefit from increased conversions from guarantees, without refunds wasting your time and destroying your profitability?
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Many testimonials just aren’t credible.

I’ve seen testimonials that use stock photos for pictures.

I’ve seen testimonials attributed to a vague “customer in Texas”.

I’ve seen testimonials that attribute quotes to a company whose URL has expired.

It’s as if landing page authors forget that testimonials add credibility to a product’s claims only when the testimonial itself is credible.

So how do you establish that a testimonial is credible?
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Unconditional guarantees are everywhere.

30-day return guarantees. There are 100% satisfaction guarantees. Even 200% satisfaction guarantees!

Whatever name it goes by, an unconditional guarantee lets the buyer return a product or service for any reason and still get a “prompt and courteous refund” (or more).

Unconditional guarantees do improve conversions. They reduce risk for prospects, so they feel more comfortable buying. Improve your guarantee and conversions go up. It sounds great!

But I guarantee that if you’re just offering an unconditional guarantee, you’re missing a huge opportunity to connect with your prospects. You’re leaving money on the table and missing a huge opportunity to connect with your customer.
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Testimonials increase sales. But don’t take my word for it:

“Testimonials increased sales by 34%”

It’s commonly thought that social proof can help in the sales process, so we wanted to leave nothing to chance and test it. Testimonials increased sales by 34%. The testimonials we used are very ‘sober’ (compared with the overly enthusiastic ones you so often see in marketing literature). The test results were surprising.

– Chris Mukta, founder of WikiJob (source)

So did it work? Did the testimonial convince you? 🙂

Unfortunately, most landing pages have terrible testimonials. It’s just too easy to make common mistakes.

Mess it up, and your split tests will make you think that testimonials don’t work at all.

The Two Reasons Most Testimonials Don’t Work

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