October 1974.

Two copywriters are sitting in an ad agency. They’re working on a direct-response promotion for a client who sells silver coins and bullion. The copywriters are Gary Bencivenga and Dan Rosenthal. They’re arguing: 

“I like the body copy,” says Bencivenga, “but I don’t like your headline.” 

Rosenthal’s headline: 

“Why not?” says Rosenthal.

“Because why are you saying MAY rise?” says Bencivenga. “You should test a headline that sounds a little stronger, a little bolder, such as ‘Why the price of silver WILL rise steeply.’ That way it sounds, Dan, like you believe what you’re predicting.” 

Bencivenga’s headline: 

The winning headline in a moment — but first:

This simple copywriting secret may explode your response. It’s a powerful persuasion technique, proven to add credibility to your claim, the promise your ad is making. Here it is: 

When you make a claim, put a condition on it.

A condition makes it clear your claim is not a 100 percent certainty. A condition is language designed to ground your claim, making it more feasible, believable. Because belief garners trust. And trust compels action.

Email copywriter Ben Settle does this very well. Note the conditions (i.e., the words and phrases italicized and bolded) in his bullets: 

• “An old selling strategy that makes it almost neurologically impossible for people to delete your launch and affiliate emails before opening them…” 

• “An unorthodox way to make a killing selling a product you know nothing about and have not even read the sales page for… Believe it or not, this is one of the fastest, easiest, most ethical ways to create quick sales I’ve ever used… Plus it usually only takes a few minutes to write the emails to do it…”

• “A mental trick used by one of the world’s biggest e-commerce sites that creates a feeding frenzy of buying activity during your product launch and affiliate campaigns… Do it correctly and it can create an overwhelming need in your list to buy products they didn’t even necessarily want…”

See how each condition qualifies its claim? Conditions take the edge off a promise that sounds too good to be true. I’ve heard it described as “snoozing the reader’s Yeah, sure… alarm.” 

“Fine,” said Rosenthal. 

“Let’s test it.”

Years later, Gary Bencivenga did an interview with Clayton Makepeace, another copywriting great. He talked about this specific split test.

“It’s counterintuitive,” said Bencivenga, “but ‘Why the price of silver may rise steeply’ outperformed ‘Why the price of silver will rise steeply’ maybe by 200 percent.”

In this case, “may” was the condition.

The winning headline:

One word. 200 percent lift. 

Simple technique. Simple execution. Explosive response.

P.S.

You can create a condition about your business right now by sandwiching your claim inside an IF… THEN statement: cite a relatively easy requirement (IF), and follow it up with a strong promise (THEN). This will instantly make it more believable. 

You can probably write an IF… THEN statement right now, in a few minutes. 

And then use it as a headline, subhead, email subject line, tagline — many things.

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