The Elements of Response

“We just can’t seem to get people to respond,” said the marketing manager of a large coaching company. “We need better copy.”

“What are you requesting them to do?” I asked.

“We’re just asking them to schedule a free call.”

And therein lay the problem. Not with the copy per se. But in his underestimating the huge resistance people have to scheduling a call (even a “free” one): the hassle, potential for wasted time, dislike of getting on a call with a stranger, fear of strong-arm sales tactics, and simply not wanting to add yet another time commitment to an overscheduled day.

First, we gave people an alternative way to respond: to get on an email list (so we could give them good content and keep trying to get them to schedule a call).

Then we revised the copy by:

1. Making clear the call would only be 15 minutes

2. Promising valuable information/advice (“3 things you can do immediately…”)

3. Committing to “no hard sell”

4. Guaranteeing the call (“if you don’t feel it was worth your time, we’ll send you a $25 Amazon gift certificate”)

It boils down to a simple formula: R = [B – C] × F.

RESPONSE equals Perceived Benefits minus Perceived Costs times Friction Rating

In other words, what someone gains by responding — knowledge, material gain, psychological benefit — must be greater (often much greater) than what they feel it will cost them in time, money, risk, or potential frustration or embarrassment.

And we must also take into account how hard it is to provide that response: the friction factor.

Let’s use a 1 to 10 rating scale. If perceived benefits are a 10 (lots of great reasons to respond) and perceived costs are only a 2 (response doesn’t cost anything and there’s minimal downside), we’re left with an 8, which is pretty good.

But then we have to factor in friction. We’ll give friction a grade. If there’s no friction, it gets 100%, and that 8 is unchanged. If there’s total friction — insurmountable hoops to respond — we give a grade of 0%, and 0% of 8 is 0, so, appropriately, no one will respond. If friction gets a grade of 50%, response goes down to a mediocre 4. And so on.

So you can see that even if the response you desire is clearly in their best interests, if the perceived cost of the response you desire is too great — or the trouble it will take to respond is too great — you can jump through all the rhetorical, copywriting, and persuasion hooks you want, but your audience still won’t give their OK, reach for their mouse, or take out their credit card.

It seems obvious. Yet it’s so easily forgotten as we try to get words out of our mouths or onto the page.

Here’s a simple framework for generating the response you want, based on the five key elements of response, which, for your mnemonic convenience, I have acronymically grouped as: A.T.O.M.S….

A - Attention — Getting it and keeping it
T - Trust — Why they should listen to and believe you
O - Outcomes — The material and psychological motivations
M - Mechanism — Making it easy to respond
S - Scarcity — Why they should respond now

Let’s break it down…

Attention (getting it and keeping it) is the starting point. Without it, you have nothing, for you’re talking to no one.

Figuring out what gets people's attention isn’t hard. Just ask yourself what would get yours. Or someone else’s IRL across the table from you.

My client Boardroom had what they called the “Hey, Honey” test, where you imagined calling out your headline or main point to your spouse or partner. If you imagine them responding with indifference (or incredulousness that you would interrupt whatever they were doing with such nonsense), better think of something else.

For example, would starting with a shocking fact get them to stop what they’re doing and pay attention? What about a juxtaposition or incongruity, like two things that just don’t go together but actually do?

You might try starting with a big (yet believable) benefit. Or something people believe to be true but isn’t, like a myth, misconception, or big lie (nobody likes to be in error and risk looking stupid). Change is a powerful attention-getter: something that’s different and could affect their fiscal or physical well-being (like the discovery of a new cure). And, of course, whose ears don’t perk up at the start of an interesting and relevant story?

Something I learned from the very insightful marketer Walter Burch: A never-fail attention-getter isn’t directly forced upon someone, but overheard. Like the old “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen” commercials. Ways you might do this yourself are: “Here’s what people are saying…” Or “Someone told me the other day…” Or just make your copy a customer talking in a friendly way about your product, and let the prospect “overhear” it.

Once you’ve got their attention, for goodness sake, hang onto it for dear life. People these days have a million things (and three or four electronic devices) competing for their shorter and shorter attention, and just because you grabbed it momentarily doesn’t mean you’ll be able to keep it.

Hanging onto it is where the basics of persuasion and copywriting become essential: be clear, be interesting, tell stories, and keep letting them know what’s in it for them if they continue reading or listening (entertainment, benefits, or that their curiosity will be satisfied).

Bear in mind that not all attention is created equal. In a working paper from Harvard Business School, The Rising Cost of Consumer Attention: Why You Should Care, and What You Can Do about It, Thales S. Teixeira reveals that attention has both duration as well as quality, and that you should make sure there’s a match between your ad and the quality of your prospect’s attention.

In other words, if your prospect is likely to be multitasking, don’t hit them with a wall of long copy. Keep it simple.

And above all, never, ever, take attention for granted.

Imagine a shabbily dressed stranger came to your door with a one-ounce gold bar and offered to sell it to you for $500.

Do you whip out your checkbook? No? Why not? Last I looked, an ounce of gold was worth eight times that amount.

Of course, the problem is that there’s no trust. And without trust, no amount of salesmanship or fancy talking or writing is going to convince you to respond positively to forking over $500. No matter how big a bargain it may objectively be.

But what if they were more nicely dressed? What if someone you knew or trusted vouched for this person? What if they had a certificate of authenticity from an independent lab along with a perfectly plausible reason for needing to sell it at that price, like their car had been towed and they needed the money to get it back?

Now you’re starting to see the importance — and power — of trust.

There are two kinds of trust:

1. Intellectual Trust — Generated by proof, track record, studies, credentials, endorsements, testimonials, social proof (everyone’s doing it).

2. Emotional Trust — Generated by past experience with the person or company, badges of trust (a doctor’s stethoscope or lab coat, diplomas on the wall, seals of approval on a web page).

A close relative of trust is believability. And they reinforce each other. We trust those we believe. And we believe those we trust.

Ok, now that you understand it a little better, how do you facilitate it?

Psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud literally wrote the book on trust: Trust: Knowing When to Give It, When to Withhold It, How to Earn It, and How to Fix It When It Gets Broken. In it, he shows that there are five essentials of trust:

1. Understanding: When we feel listened to and understood. (Think about the people you trust.)

2. Motive: When the person or company seems to have our best interests at heart. (Nothing works against trust more than suspicion of ulterior motives.)

3. Ability: When we feel they have the competence, skills, and capacity to deliver on what is necessary. (This is why we trust specialists in what we need rather than generalists.)

4. Character: When they are consistent, truthful, take responsibility, and have integrity. (This is why a “damaging admission” works so well to engender trust.)

5. Track record: When they’ve done it before. (The standard disclaimer may say that “Past performance is not indicative of future results." But often it is.)

A big part of trust is what I call the three likes: we like them (as Robert Cialdini emphasizes), we feel they like (respect and appreciate) us, and we see or sense that they are similar to (like) us.

Just as importantly, we trust those whom we see others trusting, as evidenced by testimonials, endorsements, any kind of social proof, or simple proximity. (J.P. Morgan once turned down a request for a loan by saying, “I won’t give you the money. But I will walk across the floor of the stock exchange with you.”)

Guarantees — actual or tacit — are an important element of trust. Although few people will take you up on a guarantee (many people are embarrassed to ask for a refund, or can’t be bothered), just the fact that it’s available is a powerful signal that you stand behind your offer, and are looking after their interests. And that generates trust.

Guarantee or no, you add trust to the equation when people know their response is reversible — that they can change their minds, and that switching back (or to something else) is easy.

Jeff Bezos calls these “two-way door decisions.” A personal example might be: “If you don’t like the Chinese restaurant I picked out, there’s an Italian one right across the street.” While in business, it’s: “You’ll get your money back, and your data is completely portable so it’s easy to switch back or to another platform.”

In your photos, in your copy, in the actions you take, always be considering: What can I do to signal or earn trust? And how might I be doing the opposite?

As we saw, people only respond when the benefits of doing so outweigh the negatives and costs.

So think carefully about benefits. What will the respondent gain materially? And what will those benefits lead to? For example, making more money means being able to buy and do the things they want. Getting healthier means being able to keep up with one’s kids and grandkids, living longer, and staying out of a nursing home.

Make a list of the outcomes you can promise and work out how many different ways each one can be expressed. What are the ways you can make your claims bigger, more dramatic, or more impactful? For example, if one of your claims is about a discount, “half off” is usually more powerful than “save 50%.” And a dollar amount is often more powerful than either when it’s a larger number (“save $125” versus “save 30%”).

Consider emotional benefits as well: how those who respond will feel more confident, more satisfied, more fulfilled, more admired by or attracted to others.

Paint a vivid picture of what their life will be like after they act. What will they be able to do or accomplish that they couldn’t before? How will they be seen and admired by others? How will their response enable them to better fulfill the roles they wish to play in life: the good provider, good parent, strong leader, admired hero, considerate person?

Once you’ve got them eager to respond, remember that no matter how emotionally ready they are, most people won’t act unless they can also justify their action with logic. That’s why you want to show them how the response you’re hoping for makes a great deal of sense, and that it’s backed by unassailable proof. For example: “The Chinese restaurant is closer and less expensive than the Italian one, and got great reviews,” or “Our supplement is recommended by a university hospital, and we’ve received hundreds of testimonials.”

I’ve seen instances where promising less increased response, simply because it was more believable. In short, never let your promise (outcomes) outrun your proof. (Again, see “Trust” above.)

One last thing: Be proportional. If you want them to whip out their credit card for a $1,000 charge, sure — pull out all the stops and show them what the outcome will be seven ways to Sunday. But if all you want them to do is click a link to watch a video, it may well be enough to promise a bit of benefit and satisfaction of curiosity for doing so.

I find no small irony in the fact that we expect people to respond, yet fail to provide an easy, low-friction way for them to do so.

In person, someone can nod their head or say “yes.”

Let’s start with some tips for presenting the ask…

It starts with how you phrase the request. For starters, it’s much easier to respond “yes” to: “Let’s go get Chinese food, ok?” than “Do you want Chinese food?” Because the first one just asks for confirmation, while the second requires a decision.

Taking this one step further, in his book, Never Split the Difference, Chris Voss says it’s often easier to get the response you want if you go for a “no.” For example: “Would you be very disappointed if we went for Chinese food?” works better than “Do you want Chinese food?”

In fact, one of the best ways to get a positive response is for no response at all to be a positive response. For example: “Unless you say otherwise, I’ll make reservations at the Chinese place.” Or: “We’ll bill you monthly until you tell us to stop.”

Of course, people can’t respond if you don’t give them a way to respond, which is why, in marketing, it’s almost always a good idea to include a response mechanism, whether that’s a coupon or phone number in a print ad, or a link, buy button, or a way to give an email address online. If nothing else, this makes the results of your efforts measurable.

Ok, so they want to respond. But in marketing, there’s often a big gap between what someone wants to do and their doing it.

So, for goodness sake, make the process as easy as possible, make it feel as safe as possible, and make what you want them to do as clear as possible (click? where? what will happen after I do?). Make the instructions easy to read, the fields large enough and easy to fill in, the number of steps as few as possible, the information you request as minimal as possible.

Above all, make sure you’re not asking the prospect to do anything they’re not physically, intellectually, or emotionally capable of doing.

How? By going through the steps yourself, and by getting others to go through the steps and watch as they do. Install behavior tracking software such as Hotjar or Clarity to eavesdrop on what your prospects are doing on the page.

I promise you it will be eye-opening when you realize how many responses, inquiries, or sales are lost between “yes, I want to do this,” and “too much, too frustrating, I can’t, I’m outta here.”

I’m the first one to admit that I do my best work when there’s a deadline. And that I seldom do what is good for me to do or even what I want to do unless there’s some urgency of time or quantity pressing down upon me.

Highlighting scarcity isn’t manipulation. (Although it can easily turn into that if you’re not careful.) It’s merely acknowledging human nature, how we’ve been evolutionarily programmed for thousands of years, for most of which time access to resources has been extremely limited, and the consequences of being denied access have been extremely dire.

So tell your partner they need to decide now because the restaurant is closing soon. And make sure prospects know they don’t have all the time in the world to take you up on your offer, either because of a deadline or limited quantities.

Set and say both quantity limits (in total or over a certain timeframe) as well as time limits (such as that an offer will expire or a response must be received by a certain time). And, of course, stick to those limits! You don’t want to be the business who cried wolf. (See “Trust” above.)

And remember that almost as powerful as actual scarcity is the threat of scarcity — the restaurant may run out of Peking Duck, there may be a price hike (a scarcity of the product or service at this price), or supply chain problems may necessitate the product being put on backorder.

If your offering doesn’t lend itself to scarcity, create a special bonus of some sort but limit it to those who respond within a certain timeframe, or to the first 50, 100, or 1,000 who respond.

Of course, time or quantity limits aren’t the only ways to create a sense of scarcity. It can also come from the fact that you position your product or service in a unique way, thus making it rare. Or by highlighting the negatives of other options your prospect might be considering, such as your competition, do-it-yourself alternatives, or not doing anything at all.

That’s how you, your product, or service doesn’t just become scarce. It becomes the only sensible choice. (Eugene Schwartz in his must-read book Breakthrough Advertising calls this winnowing down of prospect choices “concentration,” while Marty Marion turned it into a step-by-step system in his book, Advanced Brand Positioning and the De-Positioning Matrix.)

What I’m recommending here is to stop, at least for a time, thinking about writing, or copywriting, or getting the right words onto the page. And instead think in terms of how you can generate the response you desire.

This will prevent you from falling into two traps I see over and over again:

1. Asking for a response out of proportion to the justification given for it — This invariably happens, for example, when the desired response is to book a call. Nobody likes to schedule a call. Nobody likes to schedule a call that may turn out to be a sales call. And yet people say “Click here to book a call” with no assurances that the call will be short, beneficial, and no-pressure.

2. Providing justification out of proportion to the response requested — For example, a long, involved email when all one wants is for them to click the button that takes them to the sales page.

When trying to get a response one-to-one, don’t overthink it. Remember that you’ve been generating the responses you desire since you cooed, smiled, and cried as a baby, threw tantrums as a toddler, and charmed and argued as a teenager.

You’ve convinced people to hire you, go out with you, maybe even marry you.

Trust your inner persuader!

Turn to it whenever you’re looking to get a certain response — whether you’re talking to one person or talking or writing to many at once. Nine times out of 10, the best answer to “what should I say?” is to base it on what you would naturally say and do if your best prospect were sitting right across the table from you.

I’m thinking of expanding on this idea — maybe even as a book.

If that’s something you’d be interested in, please let me know in the comments, including what you would especially like to see more (or less) about.

I promise to respond personally, but only to the first 10 people who comment.

And time is running out… I need to decide whether to turn it into a book within the next two weeks.

(See what I did there?)