Demonstrating expertise is my favorite copywriting technique/secret for two reasons (that I’m sure will be of interest to you):

1: It boosts conversions like crazy when done right (more on that in a bit).

2: Most copywriters don’t use it, which means those who do use it get a leg up on the competition while establishing and building brand authority (quite the valuable asset).

Why listen to me? My name is Rishi Rawat and I’ve spent the last 12 years breaking my head to better understand why online shoppers behave the way they do. I know a thing or two because I’ve A/B tested a thing or two.

PS: At the bottom of this article is a video where Simon and I discuss this important conversion strategy.

Why Does Demonstrating Expertise Boost Conversion Rates?

We are living in a hyper-specialized world. If I have a heart condition I don’t just want to go to a doctor– I want to go to the best doctor who specializes in my specific heart ailment, is taking new patients, operates at a location within driving distance from me, and is within my budget. That is what I want, anything less feels like a bad deal (because it is!).

Your shoppers feel the same about you and every other site they stumble across. They don’t just want to buy from a site that sells a product that kinda fits their needs; instead, they want to buy from someone who developed a product only after studying every other option that was available, then used their research and knowledge to build something far better.

They want an expert, an authority in your space. Otherwise, it’ll be far more difficult for them to convince themselves to open their wallet. In the next section, I’m going to use an example to show why demonstrating expertise matters and then I’ll show how you can express it on your product pages.

Example of Demonstrating Expertise

Let’s say I was hired by Highkey.com to improve bestseller sales (Mini Cookies: Chocolate Chip).

Here’s why demonstrating expertise matters for Highkey.com (and we’re 99% 100% positive you can relate to this to some degree). I Googled “healthy chocolate chip cookies” and this is what I saw (watch the video below—it’s just 46 seconds):

There are countless competitors out there, and most shoppers are fully aware of this. Even if your business only has one or two major competitors, you’re still not immune to the bargain hunter: between 70% and 80% of online shoppers are comparing prices.

You don’t want them to rely on price alone because price doesn’t tell the whole story (see our article on price justification).

Users on your page are aware of what’s out there so if they don’t get a compelling reason to stick around, they will bounce. This is where demonstrating expertise comes into play.

What’s the Solution?

To demonstrate expertise I’d focus on the following details if I were Highkey.com:

– We started this project thinking, “We’ve been making low carb snacks for the last 4 years. We have 26,000 customer reviews, how hard could creating a healthy Chocolate Chip cookie be? Turns out, really friggin’ hard.“

– Talk about all the proportions we tried that failed in taste tests. I’d talk about recipes that showed great promise but then eventually failed.

– How we taste-tested everything that was available at our local grocery store, locations that were a 2-hour car drive, and specialty online stores. I would praise these alternatives. Praise?! the consumer expects us to criticize the competition. By not doing that we’re fighting their expectations– which gets them to notice us.

– The science of metabolism.

– Interesting facts about sugar. An example: sugar used to be very rare in nature, but it’s a vital energy source. Since our bodies didn’t know when they would get sugar again we evolved to store it. This strategy was a crucial survival tool 100,000 years ago. In the modern world, this is not as necessary.

– I’d talk about the sugar lobby and how we are fighting the big sugar industry that is taking advantage of people’s health to make an extra dollar.

These are just some of the things I considered. It’s very likely you will end up with a completely different (and just as effective) list of copy angles to pursue.

You’re probably wondering: isn’t this too much content? It’s a valid point. In this article, we reveal a unique strategy that uses smart logic to only show this content to shoppers who care: Tell Me More About Skimmers and Diggers.

The 3 Major Aspects of Demonstrating Expertise Effectively

In order to start constructing sales copy around expertise demonstration, here are the things I could focus on:

– Things that let the readers know we are subject matter experts.

– Things that let the reader know cracking the nut wasn’t easy. There is a psychological principle called Labor Illusion and it basically means this: difficult challenges increase perceived value. The harder it is to do something the more enjoyable it is for the consumer.

– Surprising (counterintuitive) details about this problem. In my HighKey assignment, you’ll notice I talked about how sugar was vital in our survival 100,000 years ago. Surprising details act as mini energy boosts, giving the reader a burst of excitement that propels them to continue exploring our sales pitch. Using surprising details is #4 in our sales pitch building kit.

Why Marketers Don’t Rely On Demonstrating Expertise As Much

Here’s what marketers say: Make the buyer the hero of the story. Don’t make yourself the hero.

This is very good advice, but there is a little asterisk (*) here. Before you can make the buyer the hero of the story you need to prove you are worthy of their undivided attention. You need to demonstrate expertise.

In the video below I discuss this idea:

Demonstrate Expertise- A Discussion

Don’t Have Time to Revamp Your Copy & Demonstrate Expertise? We’ve Got Your Back…

Copywriting and boosting conversion rates is our bread and butter. Just about every A/B test or split URL test we run at Frictionless Commerce uses this critically important copywriting tactic. Check out our Case Studies and feel free to reach out to us. We’d love to chat.

Digging Deeper

Now that you’ve mastered demonstrating expertise we should tell you about the two remaining building blocks of the ultimate sales pitch. The full picture can be found in our sales pitch construction kit article.

About Us

We deliver an unfair advantage to technical product DTC brands (for example, Dyson) by improving advertising effectiveness by 20% in 90 days. This is achieved using a buyer psychology conversion copywriting framework. All paid traffic eventually reaches the product page and this is where we strike. Our process.

If you like doing the hard work yourself, our founder Rishi shares conversion ideas on LinkedIn every day. Connect with him here.

If you want to make your life easier and still increase conversions, jump on a call.