I think you’re dead on as far as reputation is concerned. I wouldn’t touch a campaign with drastic claims with a ten foot pole. Good post.

While I agree with the post I’m no so sure about the headline…

The problem is, peeps don’t differenciate between hype and excited urgency and enthusiasm (EUAE).

EUAE sales, whereas hype does not.

Trying to convince a client your copy is not “hype” but infectious enthusiasm seems to be getting harder every day

Having said that I’ve just had the opposite, a client selling a $7k digital product online – who wants it “more hypey”.

Hype is in the eye of the beholder I guess…

AC

I agree on ridiculously high valued bonuses being a turn off. It sets off my skepticism red flags. I’ve been lured in the past only to get bonuses of little or no value. After that the marketer went on my no trust list which I share with my clients and colleagues.

It’s great that you shared to use hyperbole as a recognizable example. Then your readers are “in on the joke” instead of thinking you don’t respect their intelligence.

For the GREATEST EDUCATIONAL REFORM PLAN KNOWN TO HUMANKIND, go to:
http:/www.thekingslandplan.com

To me, when I see someone offering more “bonuses,” even to the point where I’ve seen several marketers vying for sales by trying to outdo each other, I run for cover. I’ve been down that road when you go to collect your bonuses only to find they have so many strings attached to them they are worthless. And it is also true from that point on, they have no credibility any longer.

“Feeling the wind in your hair and the rumble in your feet” while driving a Porsche down a winding road makes no sense if you’re selling a Prius. You’d believe it about the Porsche but not about the Prius. You’d want to experience that in a Prius, but you would move your readers to laughter and considerable doubt about anything you said.

While they might like to think they could capture that feeling while driving one, their motivation for getting one is clearly to make a considered buying decision for economy, being “green” and doing something to help whatever environmental cause they believe at the moment.

In my mind it’s not just going too far, it’s using the wrong ones as well. Know your audience first and foremost and you’ll know when something will work and when it won’t

Thanks for the Post!

With all of the laws that govern marketing online we would hope every seller is truthful in their descriptions. People can easily be hurt financially & emotionally and we really do have to protect consumers with correct advertising. There are many copy writers who give their time, knowledge & skills freely to help others succeed, so there can be no excuse for lameness.

it is nice topic to discuss..

For me, doing hype is a part of creativity
some people eager to know about product in their very good sides, and by hype we gain more attention for it..

but of course not good to use hype in wrong way, as a ‘Lies’..
It is about of mixing words, using synonyms, playing with meaning..

*Bravely ignoring the typos in his earlier post, Alan C forges on…*

Ah, bonuses! It’s often said that to make your offer irresistable you should have bonuses equal or even greater in value than the main product. Indeed some will even buy something just for the bonuses.

I’ve found offering them as an optional extra for a few dollars more on the order form to be more effective. It certainly doesn’t kill sales and increases revenue.

So do bonuses work? Yep – but there was a big launch recently that showed how too many of them and hyping their value doesn’t work. The launch flopped basically.

Good copy focuses on the client, what they want and need, their reasons for and against etc. Relatively few bonuses will be relevant enough to be worth including.

This is especially true with information products. People buy simple and easy – the last thing they want is a whole library of learning and hard work! Yet you see it all the time, peeps offering for example an organic traffic product, with “FREE!” stuff about pay per click, (valued at $97!!) some “FREE!!” ebook on offline marketing (by NAMED PERSON that’s worth $297!!) etc etc.

To me you’re just reminding them of alternative traffic sources but far from thinking “Yummy” peeps tend to be overwhelmed. That leads to inaction.

You know the worse thing about hype though?

It reads like pants the 2nd time and online people will often return to a site 3 or 4 times before buying. At this point they’re a little more thoughtful, reading a little closer, less excitable and the hype, if not outright offensive, is plain cheesy.

Talking of cheese, that’s what I aim for, good cheese. It should have enough bite to get your attention, followed by a pleasant mouth-feel and aftertaste to keep you interested. Bite by itself soon becomes like chewing someone else’s socks….

Alan C

I tend to agree with most of the stuff posted here. Especially about the bonuses as they are being used today. Pure hype.

The last dozen major launches I have witnessed (even signed as a JV on several of them but ended up not promoting after I saw what was happening) have been nothing short of an orgy of overrated overkill. I don’t know about anybody else, but there is something a bit sickening watching “gurus” vie against one another with bonuses to the point the main product is lost in the shadows.

People are a lot more savvy online today than they were even two years ago. The day of the carnaval barker has about run its course with them.

Free bonuses? Yeah, right. If you call leaving the backend of an offer tangled in a dozen new spider webs of perpetual junk mail, “trial” enrollments in memberships you wouldn’t join on a good day and your hands full of ebooks and videos that were old news years ago. You get a bonus for sure, but you almost never get kissed.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see how anyone who has been online any length of time in IM doesn’t see it coming. There is fixin’ to be a crash to the point you will have to run people down and pay them to take your IM products. Oh, I’m sure there will always be a few newbies around for the “garoos” to con out of their money for a while but that will die out, too. They are not marketers; just a flash in the pan.

It always happens. This same cycle of events has been cycling through and repeating itself over and over since direct response mail was invented. I believe we are at the far-end of one of these cycles. People are sated on “pie-in-the-sky” and can’t eat another bite.

It will die out and be reincarnated in a year or two and the whole cycle will start over again:

The “really knows” will teach the “know nothings” how to market and make money in the IM niche.

The “know nothings” will miraculously be transformed into “knows everythings” in a short time.

The “knows everythings” will spread what they don’t know or even understand to new “know nothings” on the fast track to become “knows everythings.”

Round and round it goes until the only thing going around is years of dated, incorrect information and then the whole will crash again. They are selling magic beans; not marketing skills.

It’s the nature of the beast. You can always make money at it as long you know where in the cycle things are at. Enthusiasm is good, but hype kills. Friends don’t let friends write hyped.

I think there are ways to hype things without people realising what you are doing – you play on their emotions and work on their psychology, without “bigging up” the product to a point where people’s credibility snaps.

Bonuses just ring alarm bells with me – it suggests the product itself is not sufficiently good value on its own.

Where is the point where credibility snaps? It depends on the individual consumer, but I think you can stretch things further, and get away with it, if you do it with guile and style.

Which touches on the point raised by others, about being honest…where does exageration become lies? Bernard Madoff was a liar, but my pension has dropped by 35% in the last few months and the company it is with suggested it would grow by about 5%-7% a year. Truth, honesty, integrity, they are all relative terms.

Anyway, an interesting topic! Thanks for letting me participate and Hi to everyone out there> I’m in sunny (today!) England…

Great topic – well overdue for discussion. The purpose of hype is to accentuate the benefit or value of purchasing a product or service; to entice a customer. It is exhausting, boring, and transparent when overused or exaggerated to the extent of becoming an untruth

Hype should be used with care and consideration of the potential client/customer. True value can oftentimes speak volumes for itself when well presented!

CRAP is still CRAP nomatter how many so called bonuses are offerred!
They all seemed to be trying to outdo each other to get the commission cheque.But people are beginning to wise up and see through all this nonsense….. time to get creative
I pity the poor copywriter who tries to compare a Porsche to a Prirus (comment above from David C) I’ve owned a Porsche – He obviously has not!
A comparison of driving pleasure would be laughable at best, and in my mind at least …….
…………a total non starter
His credibility with me would go ‘straight out the window’.
regards
Graham in U.K.

Ah Graham in U.K.! That is precisely my point! LOL! There are ideas and images you can create in the readers mind that flow very naturally when you think of owning a Porsche. And as I’ve heard Ted Nicholas say on more than a few occasions, if your bonuses, your incentives don’t dovetail in with your product, it creates doubt in your readers mind.

You obviously got my point one way or another without realizing it. Comparing the two strains credulity. Crafting a careful image in the readers mind of what their life could be like with your product means understanding how far they are willing to believe in themselves. Go beyond it and you go into the junk pile.

Take an ad saying “$174,317 dollars in 1 week using my breakthrough system!” Now a veteran marketer knows full well there are tricks to that you’ll never get in a $47 product. A newbie may not but being lured by his dreams of success and easy money on the Internet, will fall for this too many times. When I see them I hit delete and never look back.

Hi David C
No I did get your point and didn’t mean you when I referred to the poor sop who had to write copy comparing a Porsche to a (what was it again?)
I totally agree with you, and having met Ted Nicholas and his charming wife at a seminar, I can vouch for what has been said. I would also add that I think Ted is by far one of the nicest men I’ve ever met, and leaves us younger guys in his wake. Now if there is a modern day copywriting guru – then Ted Nicholas is that guy

I would also like to add, that you should not use keyword stuffing in your copy. Google doesn’t like it. They say Less is More, this is also true in seo copywriting.

James Blond

The amount of hyperbole in your copywriting will depend on the type of copy you’re writing. Hype never works in business-to-business context. If you’re writing a company profile for a multinational corporation, you won’t want any hype.

The important thing is to back up what you say in your copywriting. I recently noticed an example where someone has failed to do this. There’s a person who calls himself
“Australia’s Leading Business Consultant” on his website. The problem is that he doesn’t prove he’s the leader. Why is he the leader? Does he have the most clients of any business consultant? Can he charge the highest fees for his services?

Your copywriting needs facts to back up your claims. If you say you’re the best or the leader, you need to prove it in your copywriting. If your copywriting can’t prove it, then it’s just hype.

For more copywriting tips, you can read my copywriting blog at http://www.wordnerds.com.au/category/copywriting/

Nice post for those persons who has quality in products and don’t know about copy writing. In real a great message.

Great advise Miguel. I will definitely try this on my first video post for my positive thinking blog.

Generally, I feel that using hype is acceptable, however it depends on the situation.

Unwarranted hype turns the reader off in some situations and puts the reader to sleep in others.

The trick is correctly defining the situation!

This also works for aesthetic purposes because it breaks things up if properly placed. Just like bullet points, putting visual emphasis on text is beneficial to readers (as long as you’re emphasizing something legit and not a bunch of crap).

Well said. Hype has to be justified, and believable. One tip I suggest, is if you’re going to offer a bonus report, “worth 79.00″ or whatever, then you ACTUALLY sell the bonus report elsewhere for that price!

Then, you can say: “I sell this report elsewhere for 79.00 but it’s included in this package.”

That way, you’re justifying the so-called value, because that’s what you’re selling it for, elsewhere.

Paul Hancox

I often just skip pages that have those big offers, it kinda comes across as spammy… and even that the product they are selling isn’t strong enough to stand on it’s own. So I completely agree with you.

The trouble with hype for hype’s sake is that one (that is, copywriters per se) can only get away with it for so long, before sending everyone’s BS detectors off massively, which in the end, just about shoots everyone in the foot so to speak.

Better it is to write less hype and stick to the facts.

Sure, you can dress a product or a service up a tad, nothing wrong with that in the slightest….but when it starts to border on lies and pushing forward a notion which cannot possibly be true in a month of Sunday’s….please give me a break.

It’s completely counter-productive to try to sell something which is as of yet, completely unproven.

If it’s an older, more well established product or service, recognisable by the masses – perhaps then a little hype, tongue in cheek — one can get away with with….if presented properly, but a brand new product, with no track record…

In this case it’s nearly always better to stick with the facts as they are, if you want to maintain any credibility at all.

I agree with you. Being seen as a trustworthy person is so crucial especially in this day and age where a small blunder may cost you the business you have built for years.

None of us should use hype, nor write negative political ads. There’s only one problem – they work or can work, if done well!

Anything from a copywriter that starts “when it comes to” needs to be considered as being written by a non-copywriter. But “when it comes to” discussing hype and hyperbole then adjective has to be levered into the equation. Assuming that copywriting by numbers is a purely mathematical exercise… “when it comes to” is equal to C (Corny) + over use of adjectives which is R (ridiculous excessivness) + A (anally pleasing the client) x P (pretentious waffle) the only answer, mathematically, has to be… = CRAP.

I would be grateful if you could exchange the previous comment posted under the name Julian on your excellent blog on hype with the following:

Some copywriter’s assume the inclusion of exagerated numbers in copy is a rite of passage. As you point out, the larger the numbers the more unbelievable the copy and therefore the less effective it becomes.

During the 80s and 90s in Britain I noticed another trend in writing that also rendered the resultant copy unbelievable and therefore untrustworthy. Phrases such as “The World’s leading”, “The World’s biggest” and “The World’s best”. In fact only recently, in a national newspaper here, the O2 entertainment site in London (The Dome) was described as “The world’s favourite entertainment venue”.

Considering that Britain, in World terms, is relatively small, making such global claims only shows, to me at least, that the writer has an exagerated view of place, scale and fact. Which instantly renders the entire written approach unworthy of belief and trust.

Therefore I totally agree with you that there is no place for hypebole in well constructed, cognitive copywriting.

However, using known and proven facts to their best advantage is a type of hype that I believe good copywriting is fundamentally based on.

I beleive it’s where the distinction between hype and hyperbole is made that defines good copywriting from bad.

Fascinating debating point – excellent blog!

You need copywriting that keeps geography in mind too. Some of the best UK campaigns I can think of rely on humour and understatement rather than hype. Focused emphasis is good, hysterically shouting about benefits is a turn-off.

A good copywriter will also understand the types of hype (or not) that work for different audiences and different countries.

Funny post!

Reputation is everything in this business. I completely agree.

You will always earn more in the long term if you provide more value to your customers.

Under promise. Over deliver.

Your article was so good that I actually pee’d my pants!

And that’s not hyperbole!

Brilliant post.

From my experience hype works effectively when the client I am writing for is passionate about their company and believes fully in themselves. It is easy to write using hype for these clients as you can buzz off their excitement.

On the other hand, when writing for a client who is less passionate and excited, or a business which isn’t as dynamic as others, I think that using hype for promotional materials can end up feeling ironic and not in line with the tone of the business.

Agreed – I think the hype damages reputation and sales, especially the absurd ‘valued at’ offers on the internet.

I have been reading a lot on net marketing lately and I am surprised by the hype that comes across. The free bonuses and schemes that are offered give an indication that these marketers underestimate the intelligence of the readers… And I thought that I was lacking somewhere. Happy that I read your article… Think you could read my blog at the above mentioned address and comment on the copy writing? would appreciate it… say _ /10.

I think hype’s got its role in copywriting, and really, why not use it? Exaggeration isn’t skullduggery. Just like the example above, we use the phrase ‘told you a million times’ all too often, why not use it in copy?

If it’s true, why be ashamed of making claims that increase your products perceived value?

Just a thought.

Mark

As a freelance copywriter, I feel subject should always dictate written content. Hyperbole is often effective in underscoring central selling points and calls to action. But if the shoe doesn’t fit the foot, don’t wear it.

enjoyed the piece,

thanks!

I definitely agree and receive emails like this all of the time. I unsubscribe or delete because I have been burned before by over used and untrue hype. No one makes $3000 in one day with a start-up website that they haven’t already marketed and promoted with a lot of effort.

The same stands for anyone trying to get a job in an industry they don’t know anything about. Even if they work their way in, their lies are discovered and then no one wants to deal with them. Just as word of mouth is good for business it can easily destroy one through lying through exaggeration beyond belief.

Miguel,

“Why you SHOULD use hype” It hooked me! I *HAD* to read your case!

CONSIDERATIONS:

As copywriters –

- Do we understand the difference between Hype and Excitement?
- And is it coming across in our copy?

Fact: Excitement sells. But if we mess up this balancing act, our consumer trust slips away – losing us the reader and the sale.

I just wrote a post on this topic. I’d love to hear everyone’s feedback, especially about the “ratio” part I mention. I’m not quite sure about it.

MORE INSIGHT HERE: http://www.promotewrite.com/blog/copywriting-hype/

Thanks for all your insights!

It was such a good topic to discuss. Interesting post. It’s my first to heard about hyperbole in copywriting.

i agree with the post…hype can be used as a good tool…it clears the topic….we should use it…thnks for the post..its nice…

Hype is like a woman screaming from a dark room claiming that she’s the most beautiful woman in the world and she tries hard to make Venus seem like her wannabe. So she better put the lights on to back her claim.

In the UK, our threshold for tolerating BS is a lot lower. As a result, I think using hype in copy tends to backfire. Humour and understated confidence are traits that seem to resonate with me.

If done right, I think you’re right. Hype done right stops the reader in his tracks. Or perhaps it stops the reader in her tracks. It depends entirely upon the gender of the one whose tracks are being stopped in …

The tracks part. Not the hype part.

You see, it’s like using abbreviations to save time. You could, for example, simply say “Thank” instead of “Thanks” when you only want to thank somebody a tiny, little bit.

This is a more precise use of English, and will surely be appreciated by the recipient, because he or she saves the same additional time. If you use this with your loved one at home, and use abbreviations often, then by the end of the year the two of you could have hours or even days saved up, and then you could spend some extra quality time together.

Now, is that hype?

“One never knows, do one?” — Fats Waller

– Arthur Cronos
CopyDragon to the Stars

.

Thanks so much for sharing. I know I can’t stand the crazy emails that say “make $5,000 in a day.” So I know it can happen but if everyone could do it, why isn’t everyone doing it. The truth is that they are only making it because suckers keep buying their overly hyped junk. “Better to err on the side of honesty…” Wonderful words of wisdom!

Hype is always good in copywriting. But too overused at the mo. Try classy understatement too.

Love the title! Ironic yet “hypey” at the same time. Explained the way you did, hype does seem to come in handy when you’re trying to emphasize a point. Although I have to say that just like anyone else, I run for cover as soon as the offer becomes too incredible.

I had to learn a whole new set of rules for educational copy writing, dictated by the DOE. ‘Hype’ is out when you market to students. Even factually accurate statements like ‘largest’ aren’t allowed. Isn’t that the strangest ever angle on hype?