Guaranteed Indeed

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was an extraordinary philosopher, renowned to this day for his words of wisdom, but if what he said about life’s uncertainties were to still hold true, 21st century consumers might even be more reluctant to part with their money.

“In this world,” he once opined, “nothing is guaranteed except death and taxes.”

Of course, Ben wasn’t around when L.L. Bean guaranteed the first pair of boots its founder sold in 1912.

But seriously, the world in which Ben lived was obviously far, far removed from ours today, a world in which almost everything is guaranteed – and rightly so – by those in sales.

As Dean Rieck, President of Direct Creative, writes in a recent (October 18, 2004) issue of DM News, “If you really have a good product or service, stand behind it. A guarantee proves that you’re reputable, and it helps lower the perceived risk your prospects feel.”

I couldn’t agree with Dean more. In fact, when I had my own small creative services agency in the mid-1990s, I once went so far as to guarantee our work in order to land a piece of new, potentially lucrative business. In a letter I mailed to a number of hot prospects, I proudly proclaimed, “The chances are very slim that you’re not going to like what you see from Cargill Creative, but you might never see a thing unless we make such a bold offer.”

Truth is, as any experienced direct marketer or advertiser knows, a good, strong guarantee invariably increases your response rate and is rarely, if ever, triggered by the customer. Back in the day, a guarantee worked wonders for my fledgling agency. For a prospect that may have been on the fence about the services we had to offer, such precious words of reassurance virtually sealed the deal.

“A guarantee is one of your most important marketing tools,” says Katharine Barr, independent creative consultant and copywriter – and a past president of the New England Direct Marketing Association. “A guarantee articulates that you stand by your product or service, and that there is absolutely no risk in doing business with you.”

“But the guarantee must be as strong as possible, or it is useless,” adds Katharine. “A simple, strongly-worded statement WILL increase response. Guaranteed.”

Guaranteed indeed.

“The risk is ours, sure, but we honestly don’t look at it as a risk,” I wrote with confidence in that simple, albeit successful lead-generation letter for Cargill Creative back on February 9, 1996. “We look at it as an excellent opportunity to introduce not just ourselves, but our copywriting and design, to a number of new clients (including you), and to do some of our best work ever.”

Yes, contrary to what Benjamin Franklin said more than two centuries ago, it seems everything is guaranteed by us marketers nowadays – everything, that is, except death and taxes.

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