Get your audience "Super" familiar with your offer

Get your audience "Super" familiar with your offer

When our car’s windshield cracked, I immediately knew who to call. 

But something inside my brain stopped me. 

WHY did I think of that business? 

We had never used them before. I hadn’t had any conversations with family or friends about cracks in their windshields. In fact, it seemed like it had come out of nowhere.  

Then I realized!

I was still in the midst of driving kids back and forth to school every day (no busses at our charter school), and we typically had the local radio station playing in the car. Whoever sat in the front passenger seat controlled the station. Which often meant that as soon as an ad set started, they pushed the button to change the channel. 

Even with those quick fingers moving away from the ads, several times we had heard an ad for a local business offering windshield repair. 

The repetition gave me a sense of “knowing” the business…even though I didn’t. We had never used them. Never met them. Never even met anyone who had used them.

When we had a crack in our windshield, I immediately thought of them (and felt like they were trustworthy because I had heard their name so many times until I stopped to think about WHY I was thinking about them!).

It was the first time I recognized the power of familiarity.

Last year, I also heard an excellent episode about its power from David Garfinkle, the world’s greatest copywriting coach, on his podcast, The Copywriter’s Podcast. [Can’t remember the exact episode it was though because I was bingeing on them!]

He was telling the story about the origin of the name “Super Bowl.”

Back in 1966, the owners of the National Football League and the American Football League agreed to host a national championship game. A Sports Illustrated article states, “NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle came up with names like the "Big One" and "Pro Bowl" but those didn't stick.” 

Kansas City Chief’s owner, Lamar Hunt, was familiar with a brand-new fad toy his son loved, the Super Ball, and he floated the idea of “Super Bowl.” It didn’t go anywhere.

Side note - the name Super Ball is, in itself, another example. Ball is something that everyone knew and understood. They were comfortable and familiar with the name and what it meant. And “Super” is a common adjective. But when Wham-O! put them together?! It was the perfect combination of familiar and new/exciting.

So the first “AFL-NFL World Championship Game” was held in 1967. 

But the Super Bowl name? It turns out a reporter heard Lamar Hunt say it and used it in his news story. Readers started seeing the name. More reporters started using it. 

By 1970, the AFL-NFL World Championship Game was officially re-titled The Super Bowl. And in 1971, they added their trademark Roman numeral to indicate how many have been played.

What happened between 1967 and 1970? 

People became familiar with the name “Super Bowl.” 

It was both new and exciting and, at the same time, familiar and comfortable.

In other words, perfect for the “offer.” 

How do you use this in your own copy? 

Introduce the NAME of your offer when you’re talking about it. Share your client results through case studies and testimonials throughout all your marketing materials when you’re taking care of clients (and not just during your launch). Talk about HOW you support clients in your program or through your offers. 

All of that will help your readers become familiar with you and your offer.

Share why your offer is different and what your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is. How is your offer different than what your reader has seen or experienced before? This isn’t so much about you and your brand as it is about your unique framework or how you deliver your service. 

As a copywriter, one of my USPs is that I understand what a deadline means. 😂 While it’s somewhat funny, it is astonishing to me how few copywriters actually pay attention to the deadline and hit it. 

All kidding aside, something else that sets me apart from most copywriters is that I firmly believe partnering with messaging specialist is the KEY to success. Getting an expert's eyes on your messaging helps see what may be confusing, where clients may be saying something different from what you're saying, or how to look at your offer from a different angle. And how you can seed the name of your offer into your messaging so it becomes familiar.

For example when I was working with Danielle Levy, founder and CEO of The Boardroom League, we talked about her unique 3-House Business Framework where she looks at all of the different business operations through the lens of different business houses. While operations and systems are something familiar and common, her framework is something different and exciting.  

Another client, Laura Naiser, is a certified coach from Brook Castillo’s The Life School. But her USP is focused on using the knowledge from there and combining it with her own knowledge and familiarity with God’s Word as a mindset coach serving Christian entrepreneurs who keep getting tripped up by imposter syndrome. Again setting up the perfect combination of something familiar (in this case, the Bible) and something new/exciting (the science behind HOW your brain works). 

When you balance the familiar with something new, your dream client will be interested in the exciting/different/novel while still having the comfort of frequency and consistency.

It's a perfect combination to prepare your audience for your offer!

When it comes to your business, using this combination of familiar and new is one of the best ways to prepare your audience to get ready to buy. It’s intriguing while still feeling safe.