ISP-Advertising: Pleasure or Pain?

Most human beings will do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure. When creating advertising plans, programs, and campaigns, most ISPs ignore this principle.

by Christopher M. Knight [August 16, 1999]

It's true; most ISP advertising follows the conventional path—stressing the benefits of why someone should buy their service. This textbook approach is all very well, but it passes up a whole audience of willing buyers who just haven't had the right buttons of theirs touched yet.

Want proof? Ask yourself this question: What would you do more: try and protect, preserve, and defend $100,000 you already own, or try to earn an extra $100,000?

Most folks would say that they would work harder to protect their $100,000, because there is significantly more pain associated with the idea of losing $100,000 than the pleasure of the idea of having an extra $100,000 in the bank.

Most of your customers fit this profile. So what am I saying here? I'm not suggesting that you dump all of your positive, benefit-oriented ISP advertising campaigns, but merely that you add into your mix some headlines or programs that are fear-driven, that show how your ISP alleviates the pain of the Internet experience.

To get a feel for this principle in action, look at the following examples. Here are five nice, positive ad headlines, followed by five that are altered to weave a dark side into the message. How do you think the differences will affect ability to convert interested prospects into paying customers?

Pleasure-Benefit-Positioned Headlines

1. Our ISP Guarantees 100% Uptime for You & Your Business.
2. We have enough capacity to guarantee high availability for your Internet access needs.
3. Expert Internet access technical support available 24 hours a day.
4. Easy-to-use installation kit makes installation a breeze.
5. National coverage means you can dial us up locally in every major city.

Fear/Pain-Benefit-Positioned Headlines

1. When your business is down, you're losing money, which is why our ISP guarantees 100% uptime.
2. Tired of getting busy signals at your current ISP? Switch to our ISP, where we guarantee no busies or it's free.
3. Eembarrassed when you're not able to understand what your ISP tech is telling you? Our friendly, courteous technicians will help you 24 hours a day, to resolve any issues you may have.
4. Computers are hard. Software rarely installs easily. Many times programs even mess up your computer, or worse, can lead to a systems failure, which will cause costly downtime. Our ISP software kit has been tested on 5 of the most popular platforms with an average installation time of under 2 minutes.
5. Tired of paying outrageous long distance phone bills to use your ISP when traveling? Our ISP offers local calling in every major city in the nation—which can save you a bundle!

Still skeptical? Take any of these and test them both ways. See which headlines or benefit propositions leads to a higher prospect-to-customer conversion ratio. Some experiences ad-folk hold that as much as 95 percent of an ad's effectiveness is in the headline, even when the body copy is the same.

Go ahead; give it a try. You have very little to lose . . . or do you? What will it cost you to not implement this advice? ;-)

Christopher Knight
Founder & Managing Editor, The ISP-Lists