Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [81]
A syllogism is a means of structuring an argument or reasoning based on a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion.
For example:
Major premise: Our product saves you time.
Minor premise: Time savings means more productivity.
Conclusion: This product will make you more productive.
By stating the major premise, or the initial need of the searcher, and then providing the minor premise, or the additional need that you provide (the need beyond the initial need), you then create the correlation to support a conclusion.
A powerful means of persuading is allowing your audience to reach the conclusion that you want them to realize, through the guidance of your message.
The visitor can be easily persuaded when they convince themselves of something in line with your goal before you state your goal. Because they are satisfied at their ability to deduce it before it is said, read, or heard, their emotional and intellectual states are satisfied and more open to the persuasive message.
Using the earlier example of FreeCreditReport.com, we can structure the presentation like this:
Major premise: I can save thousands of dollars by knowing my credit score.
Minor premise: My fee for knowing my credit score goes to charity.
Conclusion: I am a good person for giving to charity in order to know my credit score.
For SeaWorld, the “Benefits to Buying Online” provide the same structure:
Major premise: I get more for my money by booking online.
Minor premise: I will save money for things I will pay for anyway.
Conclusion: Booking online saves me money and time.
Additional conclusion: The same benefits may not be available tomorrow, so I should book today.
Using Mint.com, the setup is similar. The goal is to make the visitor feel empowered by their decision.
Major premise: Mint.com gives me the ability to manage my money.
Minor premise: It’s simple and takes five minutes to set up.
Conclusion: I can easily manage my money today!
Free Trials
Free trials are rarely free. If you’ve ever applied for a free trial, you know that a credit card is going to be required. That’s the first objection, and it is usually encountered in the sign-up process. Handing over credit card information is always a major objection point. You can’t always bet that the visitor knows that the credit card request is coming, because this was advertised as free.
The Motley Fool (www.fool.com), one of the first popular online investment and financial sites, is known for their humorous and sometimes extreme takes on financial matters. By offering a 30-day free trial along with a 30-day money-back guarantee, they are meeting the objection of price in two methods—a free trial and a guarantee—both very powerful sales techniques for gaining the conversion (see Figure 7-13).
Figure 7-13: The Motley Fool—overcoming price objections
GoToMeeting has one of the best objection-handling methods. When asking for credit card information, there is a sidebar of objections, using the voice of the visitor (see Figure 7-14). These are not written to the visitor; they are real questions and real concerns at this stage of the process. By asking these questions, in the visitor’s voice, GoToMeeting is able to unassumingly instruct about how the free trial works and how one can easily cancel after the trial period ends.
Figure 7-14: GoToMeeting free trial—objection selling
Complexity
37signals uses the objection to price, complexity, and time as an obstacle to overcome into a sales point. With its call to action of “30-day free trial, sign up in 60 seconds” (see Figure 7-15), 37signals is able to provide the user with a promise that its Basecamp product is able to be set up quickly and tested for free.
Figure 7-15: The 37Signals.com call to action overcomes objections.
In less than 10 words, 37signals takes away any excuses the visitor may have by overcoming the three objections of time, difficulty, and pricing.
User Registration
One of the most frequently ignored objections online is the request for users to register or create accounts. When a visitor