The Bencivenga Persuasion Equation®

A simple 4-part strategy for driving your response UP!

Dear Marketing Maven,

Quick review…

We know that advertising is expert salesmanship multiplied by a mass medium.

In this issue, we’ll look at a simple but highly effective way to drive response higher. It’s a four-part strategy, and each part uses the initials “UP.”

Let’s take a look.

Do you know what many consider to be the #1 skill of master salespeople? As marketers or copywriters, we need to master this same skill.

That skill is the ability to anticipate and address your prospects’ strongest objections—i.e., their reasons not to buy.

As the great sales coach Zig Ziglar put it: “A sale is nothing more than the resolution of objections."

Therefore, before mapping out your strategy for writing any ad, you must have a plan to address:

The Four Killer Objections All Ads Face

To understand how universal and deadly these four killer objections are, we must take off our “marketer glasses” and put on our “consumer glasses,” those we wear when we ourselves are consumers.

Doing this will enable us to realize—with unsettling clarity—why the vast majority of ads are instantly rejected.

The four universal killer objections are:

1. No Interest.
2. No Difference.
3. No Belief.
4. No Decision.

Let’s start with the first response killer:

No Interest…Get Out of My Face!

As copywriters, we choose our words and polish our sentences so carefully, envisioning our prospects engaging our message with rapt attention and full enthusiasm.

Of course, this is a self-delusional fantasy! Let’s get real and look at how we ourselves behave as consumers when confronted by the daily barrage of ads. Only then can we fully appreciate what our creative strategy must be when we return to our roles as marketers and copywriters.

4,000 Ads Per Day Aimed at Every American

The latest research shows that, counting all media, roughly 4,000 ads are aimed at every adult in America every day. I’m sure the numbers are similar in many other countries. Most of these ads don’t land, of course, because that number includes all possible media, and every possible channel in all media, during a 24-hour period.

Living in our modern world, we know that virtually every media channel we engage with is teeming with ad messages. It’s as if, when we step outside our home to enjoy a pleasant walk, we are immediately chased down the street by an eager, shouting mob of pushy salespeople trying to corner us and present their sales pitches.

We’re all so weary of it! Yet this is the price we pay for the vast universe of information, entertainment, and socialization our favorite media offer, so we tolerate it.

But we do something else, as well.

To preserve our time, sanity, and focus, our minds have learned to be in continuous ad avoidance mode. It’s become our unconscious automatic default response to advertising.

“Ad Avoidance Syndrome” Is Now Epidemic

Ad avoidance explains why legions of us gladly pay for commercial-free movies, TV, radio, and podcasts, just to be spared the parade of pesky ads.

Ad avoidance is why we record our favorite TV shows and fast-forward past the ads.

Ad avoidance is why, when we’re watching a live show and can’t skip the commercials, we use them as breaks, dashing to the bathroom or perhaps to the kitchen to grab a snack, mentally timing our getaway to be back at the tube just in time for our show to resume. (People who work at water utility companies say they can always tell when the commercials are running during the Super Bowl. Water usage suddenly spikes because almost everyone starts flushing their toilets at once!)

Ad avoidance is why we sort our physical mail standing over a wastepaper basket, the easier to toss junk mail and unwanted catalogs.

Ad avoidance is why so many of us now turn to AI assistants to seek information, skipping Google search results entirely because they’re so laden with ads and relentless clickbait.

Ad avoidance is why legions of us (some surveys show more than 50%!) have already opted for free ad blockers that not only screen out ads, but also trackers, malware sites and pop-ups. And the number of internet users doing this increases daily.

Ad avoidance is why we loathe spam on our cell phones, laptops, and iPads. In fact, the very definition of this odious word “spam” is unwanted advertising. When such messages evade our filters and sneak into our inbox, we delete them with an annoyed trigger finger, scolding them with, “I thought I locked you out. How did you get in here?”

Most of us have grown so ad-weary that we suspiciously examine even legitimate subject lines to detect promotions cleverly disguised as editorial matter. And we resolutely unsubscribe from senders we once liked but who’ve now come down with an annoying case of “TMP”—too many promotions.

By our actions, we are telling marketers everywhere, “Please, get out of my inbox and out of my face! Leave me alone!”

As If This Weren’t Ominous Enough for Marketers, On Rare Occasions When Ads Manage to Get Past the “No Interest” Objection, They Are Instantly Greeted by Three Additional Killer Objections

They are:

No Difference: Your ad caught my eye, but your product seems no different than many I’ve tried and found disappointing. No thanks!

No Belief: I don’t believe what you’re promising. You’re just like all the others, making exaggerated claims with no convincing proof. I don’t know you, I don’t believe you, and I don’t trust you. Goodbye!

No Decision: If somehow an ad survives the first three deadly objections, it faces its final hurdle—human inertia and the fear of taking action. That’s when the few prospects who remain are likely to say to themselves, “Let me think about this.” And with that little hesitation, this sale has sailed.

Make no mistake—all four of the above objections are not occasional. They are universal unless your ad is structured precisely on a strategy designed to face them head-on and overcome them.

Why These Killer Objections Are Universal

These four killer objections are universal because of the overwhelming imbalance between the vast quantity of marketing messages competing for our extremely limited, highly selective, and very valuable mental bandwidth that we are willing to expend on any one of them.

And don’t think that surrounding your ads with interesting and valuable content via podcasts, entertainment, etc., will automatically remove Ad Avoidance Syndrome. If your message is in any way identifiable as an ad, it will trigger some degree of automatic Ad Avoidance Syndrome, as that is now the automatic reaction among virtually all of us when confronted by ads.

In this fiercely competitive environment, how on earth do we as marketers and copywriters consistently create ads that make it into the tiny circle of winners that engage and hold their audience and, even better, trigger a delightfully high response?

Based on the principles of the advertising masters I was privileged to work with early in my career, by studying the strategies of top in-person salespeople, and most of all by learning from thousands of scientifically measured split-run tests, I developed a copywriting system specifically tailored to overcome each of these four universal objections.

This system is called…

The Bencivenga Persuasion Equation®

I first presented this strategy at my farewell retirement seminar more than 20 years ago. Because this strategy and the many others I shared are so strong in boosting response, I required every person who attended that seminar to pledge in writing to not publicize the many trade secrets I would reveal at that seminar so that all in attendance would have an exclusive edge in the marketplace.

As I say, that was more than 20 years ago. Since then, unfortunately, not everyone abided by their pledge. Several have posted the Bencivenga Persuasion Equation® on their websites and are using it to attract subscribers for their own publications. Many others have pirated the strategy, are selling it, and, worse yet, teaching it incorrectly. They still call it “the Bencivenga Persuasion Equation®,” giving me “full credit,” but are misinterpreting how to use it, which really bugs me, since my name is on it.

It’s time for me to put a stop to all this by going public with the correct strategy, making sure that anyone who wants to benefit from it knows the right way to apply it.

Here goes…

First, it’s critical to understand that the Bencivenga Persuasion Equation® does not address how to word your sentences or design your ads. (This is what some self-appointed “gurus” incorrectly teach.) We’ll get to specific styles of execution in future Maxims and how to choose the best for your product.

But the overview of this strategy is that it gives you something much more important than specific words or layout designs.

It reveals the critical subject matter of what your copy and design should be focused on.

To have the best chance of connecting with your prospects before being unceremoniously dismissed, you must organize your thoughts to be in perfect sync with the four killer objections virtually all your prospects have embedded in their brains, just waiting to reject you.

So, let’s look at those four killer objections again, but this time providing the correct antidote for each, so that your message has a maximum chance to get through. That’s what this formula is all about.

We’ll start with the universal default attitude virtually everyone has toward ads — “No Interest!”

How do we reliably get past the locked door of “No Interest!”?

Easy.

Just remember the foundational guidance I shared with you in Maxim #4:

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

As consumers, we know that our initial, impatient, ad-avoidance attitude is “No Interest!” Nevertheless, all of us have wants—problems and desires that are top of mind. We spend much of our lives and emotional energy thinking about how to solve our problems and fulfill our desires.

Therefore, if your ad’s message instantly communicates that it’s about a problem or desire that is top-of-mind with your main market, you will maximize your odds of neutralizing the “No Interest” objection a much higher percentage of the time.

This is why I love the Maxim …

“Problems are markets!”

When I say problems, I mean the whole panoply of consumer wants— problems, desires, needs, dreams—I’m lumping them all together as “problems,” as a shorthand convenience

A master salesman once gave me this simple yet powerful bit of advice: “No problem, no sale!” In our marketing and advertising, our mission is to identify and solve the biggest, most irritating top-of-mind problems or most ardently felt desires of those we wish to serve.

Problems are markets. The bigger the problem, or the deeper the desire, the bigger your opportunity.

So, when it comes to being sure your ad addresses the four most important objections it faces, here’s the formula I worked out in its most basic form. Your copy must hit upon all four points:

It starts with fully understanding the prospect’s problem, want, or desire. To neutralize the dreaded automatic default “No Interest!” objection, you must make a promise to solve a major problem (or fulfill a desire) your market is feeling.

And since a mere promise is not nearly enough to overcome skepticism and thus rejection, you must provide powerful proof that you can solve their problem in a way that’s highly believable and trustworthy.

Finally, to bypass the deadly “I’ll think about it” objection, you want to offer an attractive proposition for acting now.

Add those four together and you have the foundation for persuasion.

Now let’s kick it UP a notch and see if we can be super-persuasive.

You’ll notice that each of the four elements in the basic persuasion strategy above begins with the letter “P.”

Now let’s greatly increase the power of this basic strategy by using four elements that begin with the letter “U”. This will give us everything we need to leverage our persuasive power and resulting response way UP.

You’ll maximize your odds of generating breakthrough results if you solve an Urgent Problem ... with a Unique Promise (one that delivers the solution in a special way that competitors can’t match) ... and you make this unique promise thoroughly believable with Unquestionable Proof ... and offer a User-friendly Proposition that makes it irresistible to act now.

Look at how easily this works…

While prospects instantly flee the great majority of ads, this formula closes off their four normal exits of escape. And it does this not by force or trickery, but by motivating your prospects to stay, listen, and then act because you: (1) tap into an urgent problem they have, (2) describe how you solve this problem in a uniquely effective way, (3) back up your claims with exceptionally powerful proof, (4) invite them to act now with an irresistible offer.

Here's a simple chart of how it works:

Closing Off the Four Universal Exits of Escape

From Your Prospects’ Point of View, Here’s Their Typical Thought Flow

Your prospect’s thought pattern will follow this path:

“Oh, please, another ad. I’m too busy to deal with this now … Well, no, this is addressing an urgent problem or desire in my life.”

“Alright, this does sound interesting, but it’s probably just another sales pitch, no different from the rest ... Oh, hold on, here’s a unique promise. I never knew about this solution before or why it’s so superior.”

“Yeah, but it’s probably just hype ... Wow, look at this proof. This is amazing.”

“OK, I’ll think this over and then decide ... Gee, I really should act now, or I’ll miss out on this special deal.”

Do you see what’s happening?

We are anticipating and then closing off the four major avenues of escape that our prospects normally use to run away from us, causing us to lose vast numbers of sales.

Notice there’s no mention here of brilliant copywriting nor eloquent prose. Most ads win or lose not by the eloquence of the writing but the psychology of the sales process that I’ve just mapped out, a process that anticipates each of the four most deadly sales objections and counters each before they kill the sale.

This is what master salespeople do all the time. When you apply this strategy to your advertising, and execute the four parts with creativity and impact, something else marvelous happens. Price resistance starts to melt like ice in the summer sun.

In fact, that’s another valuable Maxim to remember: as desire goes up, price resistance goes down. The more you create desire by targeting an urgent problem with your unique promise, convincing proof, and irresistible incentives to act now, the higher the price you can charge. In fact, a higher price is often considered another proof element of a superior product.

An Easy Way to Grade Any Ad

This strategy also gives you a simple but highly accurate way to analyze—before your ad even runs—whether your copy is up to the challenge of today’s highly skeptical audiences who do not suffer intrusive ads lightly and dismiss unproven claims as sternly and impatiently as a judge who missed lunch hours ago.

Assign a value of 25 points to each component of the Bencivenga Persuasion Equation® and you’ll have a surprisingly reliable tool for predicting how well your advertising will do.

If all four components are strong, your ad earns 100 points. And that’s what we should always strive for.

Subtract 25 points for any of the four components that are not as strong as can be, and you know exactly where your ad needs more work.

This is not rocket science!

Is the ad solving a problem? Is it an urgent problem? Go through the whole list, and you’ll quickly see that most of the ads you encounter get very poor grades, especially if they’re not direct response ads and the results are not measured in sales and profits. (Unfortunately, even in our high-tech era, far too many ads are allowed to escape measurement and thus evade accountability in terms of sales and return on investment.)

Anybody can apply this formula, whether you’re a copywriter, an entrepreneur, or anyone else who must create, judge, approve, or pay for advertising.

Of course, this strategy is not the only way to create a great ad. A copywriter might ignore every principle I’ve described and still create a blockbuster. But that may be just a lucky one-shot gamble, not a repeatable process you can count on.

“The only way to win consistently in a casino is to own one.”

Gamblers in Las Vegas sometimes get lucky on a given night and beat the odds. But as Las Vegas mogul Steve Winn once quipped, "The only way to win consistently in a casino is to own one.” That’s because casinos always stack the odds in their favor.

That’s what you want to do with your advertising.

Sure, it’s okay to sometimes roll the dice on a totally “out-of-the-box” long shot ad. But don’t ever bet the ranch on it. Instead, run a low-cost split-run test against your control (i.e., the ad currently working best for you or your client). Your mainstay approach should always be to put the laws of probability on your side as strongly as possible. That’s what this Bencivenga Persuasion Equation® strategy does because it anticipates how most prospects react to any ad they encounter.

And don’t worry, this is not a straitjacket formula that restricts creativity. You and your creative team can apply this strategy with infinite creativity. That’s because the Bencivenga Persuasion Equation® simply covers what you should say—the content you should provide if you want to meet consumers where they are. This is not a prescription for how you should express your message, design your ad, or even organize it. Let your imagination soar on creative ways to present each of the four elements.

And feel free to do so in any sequence you wish. I say this because some who have started to “teach” what I recommend have mistakenly told writers that their copy should always begin with the problem, then move to the promise, then provide the proof, and close with the proposition.

No, no, no!

That’s just one creative possibility among countless others!

All you must do is be sure that you address all four killer objections somewhere in your presentation, because all four are top of mind for your prospects. You don’t have to use the elements of this strategy in any given sequence!

So, if you have an irresistible offer, by all means consider testing it as your headline. Or if you have a blockbuster demonstration that dramatically proves your case beyond doubt, let your TV spot or online video lead with it.

Your creative possibilities are endless. Just make sure that somewhere in your presentation, all four of the killer objections are addressed and solved to the best of your ability with the components of the Bencivenga Persuasion Equation®.

In future Maxims, we’ll look at some great ads that do this brilliantly in many creative ways that can serve as your inspiration or even models.

Until then…

Sincere wishes for a good life and (always!) higher response,

Gary Bencivenga

P.S. If you know any copywriters or marketers who would enjoy these Marketing Maxims, just send them an email with this link: https://marketingmaxims.com/

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