Promises: The 4Ps of Brand Messaging
We’re business owners – naturally, we want to promise the world to our people.
We want every offer, every service, and interaction with us to get them more money, more alignment, and more clarity in what they do. We want to promise that if they work with us, they’ll have $10k months, their ideal clients bursting down their doors, or the ultimate work life balance.
But, ethically…can we actually promise our people these big, wild things?
The answer? Well, it sort of depends.
Promises are tricky. When we’re talking about brand messaging or offer messaging– the what stuff you’ll say to share or sell your stuff – we need to make sure we’re paying attention to what we’re promising our people.
And that makese sense, right? We want to share a promise with them – that if they just trust us, they’ll get something they’ve been craving in return.
That means when we talk promises, they better be specific and compelling.
The plot twist: marketing is riddled with the worst kinds of promises – some that start with OK intentions, and some that are downright malicious to get you drop mad money.
That’s showbiz baby! (I’m kidding, that’s very much not showbiz, baby. That’s just me making light of something I whole-heartedly disagree with – false promises and lying to our people to get them to spend money.)
So how can we create promises for our offers that are ethical, attinable, and compelling enough for our people to say, “wait…I can’t actually go on without this”?
Keep reading, pal, I’ve got you.
Lil Key Takeaways: This Blog at a Glance
Your promise = your pinky swear to your people. Make it good, honest, and clear.
Skip the weird, overpromising – false promises might sound good, but they break trust fast (like really fast).
Good promises soothe the brain (literally). Clarity makes your people feel safe and ready to say yes.
Dopamine loves to see a good offer promise coming– the idea of the result gets brains buzzing before it even happens.
Leave a lil loop open – promises that spell out a transformation keep your offer stuck in their heads (in a good way).
Use the CASE checklist (Compelling, Attainable, Specific, Ethical) to craft a promise you can actually stand behind.
Mini Mesaging Marker can help you create promises for your offers (and walks you through the 4Ps of Messaging in a quick, 12-min training).
The Ins & Outs of the 4Ps of Messaging: Promises
The 4Ps Intro Guide: What You Need to Know
Real quick before we start talking about promises, I want to backtrack for a second and give you the whole run down on this “4Ps of Messaging” thing I’m yakkin’ about.
If you missed the full breakdown of the 4Ps, go peek at my full blog on the 4Ps of Messaging and then come back for your deep dive into the promise stuff.
At its core, the 4Ps of Messaging is a shortcut to help unstick you when you’ve got no idea what to say to share or sell your latest and greatest thing.
It’s a punchy little system to help you know what you're saying and who you're saying it to so you can move forward with messaging that’s clear, specific, and actually helps you talk about your stuff.
Here’s a quick refresher on what the 4Ps stand for:
People: Who’s this for, really?
Problems: What’s bothering them, blocking them, or keeping them stuck?
Promises: What are you actually offering them as a result?
POVs: Why should they care about your way of doing things?
Now that you’re all caught up, let’s get into the pinky-promise of your offer stuff.
The Transformation of a Powerful Promise – Brand Messaging Musts
What is an Offer Promise, Anyway?
I’m not going to spend too much time on a vocab lesson because I’m willing to bet you understand what an offer promise is.
An offer promise is the bridge between what your people struggle with what their ultimate desire is.
In other words, the offer promise is you saying, “hey! If you invest in this thing, I promise you that XYZ.”
Offer promises set expectations, build trust, and importantly, get your people’s attention, because in an ideal world, the promise of your offer is specific to an issue they’re directly dealing with.
The Duality of an Offer Promise: What Your People Want & What Your Offer Delivers
Here’s where things get tricky. Creating an offer promise is all about balancing what’s attention-getting, specific, and accurate.
In a world where ethics don’t exist and we have no moral compass, we could just say any little thing about our offers to snag attention.
→ When you buy my all-natural face wash, you’ll never have a single pimple again!
→ My 6-month coaching program helps you earn six-figures in just a few sessions!
→ Buy this new perfume and your ex will want you back by next Thursday!
You get the point, right? The promise of not having pimples, earning six figures, or having our ex come crawling back to us all sound amazing – but it’s impossible to actually promise those things.
And worse, it’s unethical, too.
The duality of creating an offer promise is finding that beautiful overlap of what your audience is truly seeking and what your offer can tangibly, measurable, and honestly deliver.
Why Promises Matter – Your People (& Their Brains) Need Them
Aside from the fact that it’s just common sense that people would want to assume your offer will deliver something for them, there are actually a ton of brain-y reasons that promises are an important part of marketing.
Promises aren’t just clear, cute things we tack on to the end of our messaging.
They actually light up very specific parts of our brains that drive buying behavior. It’s kind of the lil meet-cute where copy sales psych meets marketing that tickles your people’s brains.
Offer Promises Sooth Uncertainty & Tell Our Brains to Cool It
By design, the human brain struggles with ambiguity. We don’t like uncertainty, and when we deal with it, our amygdala (the fear center!) puts us into a low-level stress response.
Without a clear promise, your people might feel wishy-washy about your offer. The ambiguity monster starts creeping into their heads.
When you have a clear, specific promise you can point to, your people’s brains start to perk up. Clear promises give our brains a sense of safety and control, both of which activate our prefrontal cortex – the part that’s in charge of logic, planning, and decision making.
TLDR: When you have a specific, attainable, and clear offer promise, your buyer’s brain says, “I know exactly what I’m getting here – now I can make a choice.”
Good Promises Kickstart the Dopamine Drip
Neuroscience tells us that dopamine isn’t always released when we get a reward – rather, it’s released when we anticipate getting a reward.
A well-crafted promise gives the brain a tangible picture of their ideal outcome. That kicks on their mini dopamine drip and gives them the good feelings that may make them want to move toward that future.
TLDR: A really good offer promise can actually make your people’s brains crave the result (thanks dopamine!)
Offer Promises Help our Brains Close the Gap Loop
Our brains are all about completing a story and closing a loop.
According to something called the Zeigarnik Effect, the unfinished tasks stick in our brains more than finished ones. Basically, a psychologist in the 1920s (Bluma Zeigarnik) found that people remember incomplete or interrupted tasks better than the completed ones.
Nice piece of trivia, but how does this apply to our offer promises?
When someone hears and clicks with a clear, specific offer promise, their brain starts anticipating the result. It’s like you’ve planted an open loop in their head that their brains really, really wants to close.
With an honest and specific offer promise, you can create a lil mental tension for your people (in a good way). They might think:
“Oof...what if I really could finally feel confident showing up online?”
“Wait, could I actually see improvement in my leads without losing time?”
“This kinda sounds like the thing that fixes what I’ve been struggling with...”
When you an open a loop with an offer promise, their brain starts to fill in the gaps with a hypothetical after until that loop is closed (they buy, download, or inquire).
Their brain will start imagining the after — and until that loop is closed (by them buying, opting in, or learning more), the offer stays sticky in their head.
TLDR: Your promise can create a lil positive mental tension that gets your people thinking. They’ll want to resolve that tension by clicking, buying, or booking.
Crafting Your Promise: Everything You Need to Know for Ethical Promise Making
You get the gist, right? Offer promises are important, our people expect them, and when they’re done right they can seal the deal for us.
So, how do you go about building one for your brand messaging or offer messaging?
Building The Ethical & Honest Offer Promise Checklist
Every time I’m putting together an offer promise, I create a long list of promises that I think are a good start.
Then, I run through my tried-and-true CASE checklist to make sure I’ve got an offer promsie that checks all my boxes.
And now, pal, I give you the CASE checklist. Your offer promise(s) should be:
Compelling: Does this promise get their attention? Does it apply directly to their life, struggles, desires, and thoughts? Is this relatable to their real-life, everyday experience?
Attainable: Is this promise possible? Measurable? Tangible? What metric does this promise use to help your people see the real results? They need to be able to realize this promise, then have a metric for measuring their success.
Specific: Is the outcome clearly defined? Does it apply to their actual lives? Is it relatable?
Ethical: If I didn’t love a good acronym, I would have put ethical first because I truly believe this is the most important part of an offer promise. I’m going to drop a harsh truth on you – if you can’t 100% say without a doubt that your promise is ethical, you need to rethink it. Here’s the litmus test for whether or not it’s ethical. Simply ask, “OK, but, can I actually promise and deliver this?” If yes, great. If no…back to the drawing board.
The Promise Pitfalls to Avoid at All Costs
I always tell people to simplify the whole “promise” part of their offer by asking themselves this question – what can you actually promise your people and sleep at night?
That’s not to say we should be marketing based on what we can get away with and still get a good night’s sleep. But let’s pretend for a moment that everyone running their own business has a moral compass.
If that’s the case, what can you honestly promise? Because promises in general aren’t icky – it’s manipulative, false, or fear-based promises that get my red flag vote.
So, how can you avoid doing this with your offer’s promises? Here are a few tips:
Avoid promising specific profit or income (in most cases): Maybe this is just me, but I think stuff gets murky when you start throwing numbers at someone. For exampe, unless you truly can claim that your offer directly causes an income spike every time, I would’t start talking about how you can help people with 6-figure businesses or $10k months.
Don’t be vague: When you offer a generic promise like, “this will improve your life!” or “you’ll never feel stressed again,” you lose your people. Why? Because it’s vague – it’s not specific, it’s not speaking directly to someone, and it doesn’t apply to their life. Instead, be clear and specific with your offer promises (it helps immensely to know who your people are inside and out, another P in the 4Ps.
Overpromising is kinda shady: Unrealsitic, unverifiable, and unmeasurable outcomes as promises give everyone the ick. The quickest way to lose someone’s trust is to promise them the world and then delivering a map of it.
Your Promise? A Transformation You Can Truly Deliver
It pays to create valuable offer promises. They itch our peoples’ brains the right way and give them a clear path toward deciding if our offers are the right choices for them.
Need a little help figuring out what your offer promise is? Meet Mini Messaging Marker.
This 12-minute messaging training gives you a hot jolt of inspo on what to say to speak to your people and helps you create a cute lil messaging guide that covers the 4Ps of Messaging.
In Mini Messaging Marker, I’ll help you think hard about your offer promises and help you create them while sharing helpful examples as we go!
