But how do we sell it?

I had a brief discussion today with a tech firm about their overall marketing message. This company offers highly secure net connections through encryption. Whereas typical secure connections offer 128bit encryption, this company offers 4092bit encryption. Their website and sales materials tout, 'our method is 32 times greater than standard encryption'.

Great. Except that number is wrong.

With encryption, every extra bit doubles the strength. 129bit is twice as strong as 128bit. 130bit is four times as strong as 128bit. 131bit is eight times as strong as 128bit. 256bit encryption is 300 million, million, million, million times stronger than 128bit encryption. And 257bit encryption is double that. At this rate, you can see how staggeringly more powerful 4096bit encryption is. You also see how ridiculous the company looks claiming their product to be only a mere 32 times stronger.

What's more - they know how incredibly strong their product is and purposefully chose to list it as being only 32 times stronger. Why would they purposefully short sell their product?

Their reasoning was that it was too tough a sale to those who didn't understand the technology. I can see that. Offer to make a system 32 times better and it sounds like you're a miracle worker. Offer to make a system a billion, billion, billion, billion times better and you look like a damn, dirty liar.

Dumb down your marketing and you get your foot in more doors. The flip side, however, is that anyone with the technical know-how will percieve the company as not understanding their own product. Not something that instills trust if you're going to use their product to safegaurd your money and personal records. Learn that they purposefully dumbed things down and you're apt to feel duped. Again, not a feeling you want to have from a company that wants you to watch over your private information.

So we're left with a product that's too amazing. Describe it accurately and people will consider you a raving lunatic or a liar. Describe it inaccurately and people will consider you a fool and a liar. What to do? How do they sell it?

The answer is truthfully and accurately - but in a way that matters to the audience. My recommendation to this company was to reframe the discussion. Move the talk away from a technical, numerical comparison of 128bit vs. 4096bit. Give us something concrete to sink our teeth into, like how long would it take an evil hacker to crack the code? Or what would the computer that could crack the code cost?

"Cracking our system's codes would require the complete computer resources of a major corporation working non-stop for over 150 years."

See. Now that statement inspires confidence. It acknowledges that codes can be cracked, but reassures us that it won't be happening on our watch. That's what really matters to the consumer. Not numbers in the billions and quadrillions or diatrabe on cypher strength. Just tell us we'll be safe, it's all that matters.

Remember, unless you are saying the things that matter to your audience, you won't be able to catch their attention, let alone persuade them.