RightSpot Media | Digital Performance Marketing

Sticky tricks for more credible content

Posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 1:49 PM by Jebadiah Roberts  |  Comments (0)

Last week, we gave you 10 tips for making your website more credible.

But there’s always more you can do to make your message believable—even if your marketing budget won’t foot the bill for a celebrity or expert endorsement.

For creating credible content on the cheap, Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the fascinating book Made to Stick, offer the following tricks.

Each will bolster your message without breaking the bank.

Cite an antiauthority

Let’s face it: People are wary of authorities.

Experts—even the ones who didn’t just play doctors on television—can be bought and sold.

But an antiauthority—someone like Pam Laffin, who starred in a series of incredibly successful anti-smoking ads in the 90s—can slice through cynicism.

Pam wasn’t a doctor. Or a scientist. But she did happen to be dying of emphysema.

And who could disagree with that?

So the next time you need an authoritative voice, remember that it doesn’t always take an accredited expert to truly understand a subject.

Sometimes, you just need someone who will silence even the most cynical skeptic.

Put it to the Sinatra test

The Sinatra test takes inspiration from the lyric "If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere."

In other words, since I’ve already done this, I can definitely handle that.

For instance, if you handle the security for Fort Knox, you can probably protect someone’s home from burglars.

The trick, then, is to provide an example so potent that its credibility covers your current claim.

If you’re looking to land a new opportunity or create a new message, comb through what you’ve already proven for something that covers your current goal or claim. 

Include relatable details

Ever heard an urban legend? Or maybe a ghost story?

Well, if your storyteller was any good, chances are they included a local detail that made the fiction hit a little closer to home.

Like the name of a nearby road—or an empty building that everyone’s heard of.

Because if even a small part of an idea is believable, it spills over onto the rest.

So once you know your audience, reel them in with something they can relate to and verify.

And the rest of your message will become just as believable.

Make it vivid

Statistics.

Bored yet?

Me too, so let’s look at a way to make numbers matter.

In the 80s, a group called Beyond War realized that scary statistics about nuclear arms did nothing to galvanize action.

Their solution?

Drive the message home with a format people can feel.

Rather than reciting quadruple-digit numbers that no one could cling to, they made their point by emptying 5,000 BBs—one for every warhead in the world—into a steel bucket.

The ping of each drop—and the time it took to drop them—made that number vivid.

And a once-slippery statistic became decidedly sticky.

You should never expect a statistic to stick. Instead, always make your numbers vivid by putting them in personal terms.

Humanize the scale

Scientists recently discovered that the average polar bear covers a range of 260,000 square kilometers in its lifetime.

Huh?

Sure, it’s a big number. But will anyone remember it in five minutes?

Let’s try again.

Scientists recently discovered that the average polar bear covers an area the size of Wyoming in its lifetime.

People have a general idea of what this means, so they’re more likely to find it credible.

Don’t make people grasp at your message.

Instead, place it within a human scale.

Because big numbers won’t mean anything outside of someone’s pre-existing schema.

Challenge your audience

Tossing around terms like "scientifically proven" and "double-blind study" might lend credibility.

But so will saying, "See for yourself."

In other words, let your audience be your guinea pigs by challenging them to prove you wrong.

The brothers Heath offer a great example from President Reagan’s 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter.

He didn’t quote statistics about unemployment and interest rates—all of which were on his side.

He simply asked, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

And that was all it took.

He didn’t work to prove anything to the audience. He made them prove it to themselves.

And you can do the same—if you trust your audience enough to let them try to disagree.

 

When you’re writing for the web, credibility makes all the difference.

So, what’s your credibility challenge? Post it below, and we’ll try to provide more advice in future posts.

Tags: authority, copywriting, credibility, influence, persuasion, stickiness