promising benefits you can't deliver on is wrong. And again Joe does not say (this is a fact) nor imply (this is my opinion) you should do that in any of his books or related information.

What he is saying is that if your returns are minimal your copy could be made stronger to flag a wider audience. With any ad you have a wide variety of prospects that may purchse. Consider for a moment that you have people that "want" your product, have an "urgency" to buy it and have the "means" in order to pay for. These folks are a slam dunk...they buy and the returns are low. Now consider the person that has a "want" and an "urgency" but they don't have the
"means" to buy--at least not buy without injurying their current financial position. Your ad is so strong that many of these folks take a chance, risk their financial situation and buy. They receive the package...many of them keep it, they like the package and are happy. Others return it...it's not what they are looking for under their current financial circumstances. Does this mean your copy is making promises your product can't keep? No, absolutely not. Your returns go up but you end up selling a lot more product. Is this a bad thing? Only if your returns are astronomically high or you don't return the money to those folks that are unhappy.

There is nothing wrong with getting more people to buy (and risking higher returns) using more powerful sale's copy. And "more powerful" doesn't mean make promises you can't keep. It could be something as simple as a new headline.

Take care,

Mike Winicki