How to Get Your Prospect to Say Yes to Your Offer
By Sandy Franks

• Those conversations in our head
• Your prospect’s four main questions
• What Claude Hopkins says about the offer
• Four questions the prospect needs to have answered
• More copywriting insights at your fingertips

Ever find moments when you’re talking to yourself? I sure do. Of course, so as not to look like I’ve lost my mind, I keep those conversations private. They just stay in my head.

Don’t be embarrassed if you said yes too. Everyone does this, especially the prospect who is reading your sales letter and then is trying to decide whether to push the buy button.

The truth is, there is a very specific dialogue that occurs whenever anyone is making a buying decision of any form.

That internal dialogue is usually a set of four questions the prospect is desperately trying to answer:

• Buying Question 1: What are you trying to sell me?
• Buying Question 2: How much?
• Buying Question 3: Why should I believe you?
• Buying Question 4: What’s in it for me?

Your job, Dear Copywriter, is to help prospects answer these four questions in a way that sets them at ease and makes them feel good about the decision to pull out their wallets and buy whatever product or service you are selling.

You can help them do this by crafting a compelling offer. Now I admit, in my early days of growing up in direct response, direct mail dominated everything. It was the only form of reaching your target audience because back then, there was no Internet … no websites … no email marketing.

So we followed a golden ratio for direct mail success that went something like this: 40% is list, 40% is the offer, and 20% is creative.

Whether the ratio still holds true is a discussion for another time. But there is no denying that the offer is a critical part of your sales copy. So exactly how do you get the prospect to say yes to your offer?

As Claude Hopkins, the father of advertising once said, "Make your offers so great that only a lunatic would refuse to buy."

When it comes to making the offer in your sales letter, here’s what you have to keep in mind. People make their decisions based on emotion and justify them with logic.

When you construct a strong offer … one that would make Claude Hopkins proud, what you’re really doing is helping the prospect justify their buying decision. They’re “emotionally sold,” but now need reassurance they’ve made the right decision.

By answering the four questions I outlined above in your copy, you’re giving them the reassurance they seek. Here’s how to use these questions to your advantage.

With Buying Question 1, What are you trying to sell me? … the prospect wants to know the obvious. What are you selling?

But the actual product, like a health supplement or new gadget, is just one level of what they are asking. What the prospect really wants to know is how will this solve my problem?

You must have a clear, easily identifiable outcome. In other words, your prospect wants a tangible result.

With Buying Question 2 … How much does it cost? … the prospect wants to know they are getting a good deal. No one wants to overpay or feel ripped off. The value they’ll receive has to be far greater than the actual price itself.

Why should someone believe you? Buying Question 3 goes to the core of buyer insecurity. Sometimes, offers can sound so fantastic on the surface, they seem too good to be true.

People have to trust that they’re not dealing with a charlatan peddling some phony snake oil before they are willing to hand over their money. An offer only works if it has credibility behind it.

What’s in it for me? With Buying Question 4, the reader is really trying to figure out is how they’ll benefit. For instance, a person who buys a Mercedes-Benz is buying the prestige that comes with owning one. So don’t be afraid to remind the prospect how they’ll benefit from buying the product you’re selling.

Your takeaway for today: Be sure to answer each of the four questions above when you’re creating the offer in your sales letter. You’ll reassure the prospect they’re making a sound decision.