If your car needed repair work, would you go to a garage that offers free esti­mates? You likely would. Today, most garages offer them.

Not only has it become a cus­tom­ary prac­tice, but also every­one expects a free esti­mate from mechanics.

How­ever, here’s an inter­est­ing sce­nario. Let’s say your car broke down at the worst pos­si­ble time, and you are in a ter­ri­ble hurry. (If you’re like most peo­ple these days, you are.) Plus, you specif­i­cally wanted a free estimate.

If you had to choose a garage quickly, which garage would you choose? Would you go to the one you only think that offers free esti­mates? Or would you go to the one you know for sure that does? Espe­cially if you don’t have much time?

As sim­ple as it may sound, by com­mu­ni­cat­ing some­thing that’s usu­ally taken for granted by your tar­get mar­ket, you will be cho­sen more often. Rather than claim­ing supe­ri­or­ity, like “we’re #1,” you’re imply­ing it by demon­strat­ing what makes you superior.

A men­tor once told me, “Impli­ca­tion is more pow­er­ful than spec­i­fi­ca­tion.” In mar­ket­ing, it means that you should imply your supe­ri­or­ity rather than claim it outright.

If you claim supe­ri­or­ity, your claim appears self-​​serving and what­ever you do say is sus­pect at best. But if you imply supe­ri­or­ity, your claim, although not directly stated, is accepted as more cred­i­ble, gen­uine, and, para­dox­i­cally, concrete.

Peo­ple will uncon­sciously assume that you are supe­rior. You are com­mu­ni­cat­ing your supe­ri­or­ity, not in some mar­ket­ing piece you wrote or paid for, but in that most elu­sive yet vital of places in all of marketing…

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In an ear­lier blog post, I talked about the fact that lately I’ve been lean­ing a lot more towards test­ing the reduc­tion in bottlenecks.

Some of the results are staggering!

In short, the more I increase the sense of secu­rity and trust, bet­ter the flow and ease of order­ing, and project a more con­gru­ent and pro­fes­sional image, the more sales I make.

Since that post, some read­ers have asked me for some exam­ples. I pre­fer not to reveal mine as they are pro­pri­etary. But I can say this…

One of the things that I’m start­ing to really like are ecom­merce sites that are less “saleslet­ter­ish” — i.e., less long-​​scrolling copy in a direct-​​mail for­mat, and more clus­tered lay­outs that are reader-​​focused, commerce-​​centric, and action-​​driven.

They still use com­pelling copy and a solid response mech­a­nism. If the user needs more details, a “more info” link then sends them to a typ­i­cal, long copy saleslet­ter. But these sites’ front-​​end are more action-​​oriented than they are scrolling-​​oriented.

I’ve decided to test this with our main web­site at Suc­cess Chef. I still use long copy. But I’ve con­verted the front-​​end into an ecom­merce, multi-​​product, catalog-​​like format.

And the results are in…

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If you’ve been a stu­dent of mar­ket­ing for some time, then I’m sure you’ve heard of the say­ing: “Peo­ple don’t want to buy a quarter-​​inch drill, they want a quarter-​​inch hole.”

That quote by Theodore Levitt is prob­a­bly one of the most quoted pas­sages in mar­ket­ing in try­ing to explain the dif­fer­ence between fea­tures and benefits.

How­ever, I believe the quote is incom­plete and leav­ing out some­thing that, to me, is far more impor­tant. And that is, what’s the pur­pose of this quarter-​​inch hole? What does the reader plan on doing with it? Even bet­ter, what’s the end-​​result the reader wants to achieve with it?

The answer to that ques­tion is, in my esti­ma­tion, the real ben­e­fit. The ulti­mate benefit.

Not the hole. And cer­tainly not the drill that cre­ated it.

Sure, it is a ben­e­fit to some degree. But “ben­e­fit,” defined in the dic­tio­nary, is “some­thing that improves, enhances, or pro­motes well-​​being.” So let me ask you, how is one or one’s well-​​being enhanced by a quarter-​​inch hole?

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Through­out my research, I’m always sur­prised when I stum­ble onto web­sites that are pro­fes­sion­ally designed and seem to offer great prod­ucts and ser­vices, but lack or fail in cer­tain impor­tant elements.

Ele­ments that, with just a few short changes, can help mul­ti­ply the results almost instan­ta­neously.

Gen­er­ally, I have found that there are seven com­mon mis­takes. I call them the “Seven Deadly Sins.” Is your web­site com­mit­ting any one of these?

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What’s the sin­gle, most impor­tant ele­ment in copywriting?

Let me say it another way.

You’ve done your research. You found a starv­ing mar­ket. Your prod­uct fills a need. And your sales copy shines with ben­e­fits. If every­thing is so per­fect, then why is your prod­uct still NOT sell­ing? Is it the price? The offer? The competition?

Maybe. But not necessarily.

The fact is, these things are not always to blame for being unable to sell an in-​​demand prod­uct, even with great copy. In my expe­ri­ence, I believe it has more to do with one thing:

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