Words To Avoid When Hunting For Referrals

[MarioShamir]

Hey what's up? I haven't had anything interesting to say for a while... and so I took the time to publish a new post on my site, which I'm also publishing here. I hope you find this tip Useful and feel free to dis agree...

Words to Avoid When Hunting For Referrals

Whether you’re getting referrals for a Free iPod, Free iPhone 4, Free Xbox 360 Slim, or any freebie in trainn, freebiejeebies, xpango, kudos, and any other freebie website, there are very important fundamentals you need to know that will make your life so much easier. Among these important fundamentals of referral hunting, are the use of words and understanding people’s relationship and association with these words.

Now this is something I’ve learned when I was studying sales copy, and I found this to be a very powerful thing to know. So I’m going to teach you a little bit about what words you want to avoid when hunting for referrals for your freebie site – starting with…

Scam

I’ve said this plenty of times before and I’ll say it again – stay away from the word “Scam!” I can understand that people you talk to may be sensitive about free websites for many reasons, whether they don’t know how it works, or because they think it’s too good to be true. However, you should always avoid telling people, “It’s Not Scam!” Scam is a very ugly word to most people no matter how you use it. Even if you said, “Anti-Scam”, “Not a Scam”, “No Scam”, “No Scamming”, “Unlike Most Freebie Scams, this is not one of them!”, “You have every right to be wary of scams, but I can assure you, this is legit”, or etc. people won’t feel relieved after reading any of that. In fact, it will only magnify their insecurity by 100x.

So, my advice for this would be to ignore the skeptics and do your best to avoid using that word. Simply highlight the things that make your freebie site legitimate and rewarding. Encourage people to contact you if they have questions or concerns and leave an email address or be responsive to their comments. Introduce them to a forum so that you give them a sense of community where they won’t feel like they’re taking a risk, all by themselves. That’s pretty much it. Spend absolutely no time on the haters.

Legit

“Legit” is just a better way of saying, “Not a Scam”, however, it doesn’t do any better than saying, “It’s not a scam”, if you use it too much on your content. When preaching about your freebie site’s legitimacy, keep the word “Legit” to a minimum. Because the more you use it, the more people will think, “Hmmmm.. this means that there are a lot of scams out there!” Then next thing you know, you create a mental spark of skepticism and your viewers are just going to be defensive and critical about your website and content.

Even still, think about all the big companies and business. Have you ever seen a supermarket or a bank with a big sign reading, “We are legit!”? Have you ever purchased a new laptop with a label reading, “Not Broken!”? No! It’s unprofessional trying so hard to defend your company, business, or program. In fact, it’s pretty amateur. Just sell your viewers on all things positive, whether it the number of people who actually received free gadgets from this site, how frequent the freebie site ships free macbooks, and or how long the site has been in business for – anything that’ll keep your prospects interested.

Prize

This was actually brought to my attention from a friend in a forum. I had a bad habit of using the word “prizes” all the time in my articles at one point, completely unaware of this simple and obvious factor; the word, prize, is associated with reward programs and shows offering freebies to a select few for completing a task or competition. Meaning, with prizes, you’re only given the opportunity to win something – not guaranteed! This is not the case with incentive freebie websites, because, with freebie sites like xpango, freebiejeebies, trainn, kudos, or etc, you are guaranteed to receive your free gift.

So it’s better to stay away from the word, Prize, because you don’t want people to think or assume that they risk getting nothing after completing all the steps to earn it. This factor alone increased my sign up ratio by a long, long shot.

Better words to use are the following; “Free Gift”, “Freebie”, “Free Reward”, “Gift”, “Free Gadget”, free xbox 360, etc. You get the point!

Win

Assuming that your website doesn’t consist of competing for an auction, like lockerz, then you want stay away from the word, “win”. As I’ve said before, IFWs have an obligation to reward it’s users if the requirements are completed correctly. There’s no “Winning”, here. It’s all about, “Do This, and you Shall Receive!”. When people see the word, WIN, they’ll think about lotteries, in which most people won’t get anything. All it takes is action to get a free gadget, not luck. People need to know that.

credit card

If you’re trying to convince someone to sign up to your freebie network via your referral link, you should try your best to avoid saying anything about credit cards. Even though it’s generally standard to use a CC or DC to complete an offer, you still want to avoid saying, “Credit Card!” Why? Well, most people have a negative association with the word, “Credit Card”. When you hear, “Credit Card”, most people immediately think the following; Debt, Risk of Debt, Losing Money, unwanted or unexpected charges, owing money, scams, risk of identity theft, security risk, etc. Even when people use their credit cards, they have an obligation to pay it back and no one likes to Owe Money!

So, here are some better word alternatives: Bank Card, Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, debit card, money card, etc. I’m sure there are more words you can think of.

Convince | Sign People Up

The word, “convince”, indicates to your prospects that there will be a lot of annoying work involved to get people involved, and that’s not an impression you want to leave to your first time visitors. In fact, when some people hear, “Sign People Up as your referral…” they tend to think about “Pyramid Schemes”. No body wants to feel or think that they’ll have to use other people to get what they want, which is really not the case at all. Better wording alternatives would be the following; “Share”, “Offer”, “Show”, “Give”, etc. – I’m sure you get the idea – anything that sounds simple to people’s ears.

Tip - Provide people with a sense of simplicity and you will increase your sign up ratio. Make the requirements sound complicated, and you will scare people off.

Please | Help Me

Unless your credibility with friends and family is strong, don’t beg for help. Any time you say, please, to anyone you promote a service or program to, you’ll turn them off. People will assume that you’re struggling and having a tough time getting referrals. So naturally, they will expect the same for themselves if they were to get involved. No body wants to have to beg 20+ people to complete an offer to get a free Macbook pro or an iMac. So do your best to make your site’s content more about the rewards and share other people’s success stories – make it less about yourself. You don’t want to sound like you’re begging.

Work

The Idea of work for most people means, be miserable. Telling your viewers that it will be a lot of work will only intimidate them. Even though your intention is genuine and it may be based on your experience, limit the amount of time you say, “Work”, or “Hard Work!” Work means misery, especially to me. Better word alternatives would be, “Action”, “Take Action”, “Do It”, “Determination”, “Dedication”, etc.

OK...
That's pretty much it, i think.... feel free to disagree. I don't claim authority or anything. If you have anything to add, go right ahead. It's an open discussion I definitely would love to know your thoughts and ideas..

[FurbtasticM]

"You need 25 referrals to all complete an offer" is another phrase I tend to avoid

[corky20]

First paragraph of my homepage contained the word legit lol. Is gone now!

[zemanel]

I agree with you on the most of it, but I belive that some of those words should not be avoided, but yes USED, let me give you an example...
For example if you don't talk about "credit card", the person will signup to freebiejeebies and choose an offer, most certain they will choose one that requires credit card information and when they see that with no previous warning, but a spash page for them to insert their personnal information, will make them think twice about doing it, they will even figure out that information was being omited from them, growing the almost removed idea of scam on their heads, making them just close the window and forget freebiejeebies.
Let's say that instead you tell them, " you'll need to complete ONE offer, ..., this can be free or paid, the free ones usually require a credit card and the paid ones can be as cheap as 3 usd, choose the most suitable to you".
In that case people will know that they are not interested on their credit cards and they will also know that they can choose for giving credit card info or not.
Well i could give examples for other words such as "work", but I think that I was able to make a point, that what matters is the way and context you use the words and not the words by themselves.
Anyways this is just my opinion ...

[wesley1234]

What do you think about "earn"?

I've been using that instead of Free so they know that at least little effort is required. I think its better but i dont know about anyone else.

[MarioShamir]

ur right.. there has to be a warning.. which is why I recommended alternatives phrases.

as far as "work", it's true.. it depends on the context it's being used.

[Pharaodium]

This is really valuable information, simple steps towards greatness...
I agree with ZeManel on the credit card thing, that's the big obstacle, the hinderer of the referral hunt. In a nutshell, my humble opinion is: give room to the person, be supportive, be honest...

[Sufiyan]

Thanks Mario!
I'll make some changes to my site too.....

[firethewild]

Good tips.

[Nero]

Thanks for these Mario!

[MJ10]

A nice list there.

I'm not sure if I do use any of those, certainly not "win" or "prize"! It's about time I have a sort through my site! (Look out DJOscar, some new images may end up being requested )

[sam the man]

nice list...thanks for that!

[Ojaser6]

Terrific advice, Mario!

[rapid]

Some good tips, seen a few of your posts and they have been really helpful so thanks

[Miracle]

Thanks for the informative post. Its good to look at the similar things you see on the web and ask yourself "what bothers me about that site that's promoting that [offer]?"

You might want to also add this:


- Exclamatory (!) sentences

It doesn't look good to see that (!) at the end of every sentence. It instantly registers in our minds that it is fake.

-

[nazas1224]

Nice list! Gave me a lot of good advices in using words on my website and videos. Thnk you very mutch.