One of the biggest challenges I face as a copywriter and creative director is how to tap the “emotional triggers” that cause a prospect to buy what you’re selling.
To be frank, I’m strong on seeking out the unique feature and benefits of a product or service. I love to dig deep into the research to find a story.
But when it comes to finding the “emotion” behind why people buy or don’t buy, I have to work a lot harder.
Yet without understanding and using emotion, sales will be limited.
In this excellent book, Triggers: 30 Sales Tools You Can Use to Control the Mind of Your Prospects to Motivate, Influence and Persuade, direct marketing guru Joseph Sugarman writes that an estimated 95% of the reasons a prospect buys involves a subconscious decision.
And to fire up a prospect’s subconscious mind, you have to hit his emotional buttons.
Two of the strongest emotions that can trigger responses—and a flood of orders—are fear and greed.
Fear is a huge motive, often tied to financial loss, but can also be linked to losing freedom and independence that comes with good health.
Take for example a highly successful piece I wrote for PS—The Ultimate Brain Food™.
The headline was:
The New Pill
For Memory Loss
that helps make sure you
don’t end up a mental “vegetable”
Anybody struggling with memory loss and loss of cognitive decline fears the worse—becoming a “vegetable” and losing freedom and independence.
The inside spread started off with the story of an Arizona woman who was saved from the nursing home with this remarkable natural breakthrough.
To be frank, I’m strong on seeking out the unique feature and benefits of a product or service. I love to dig deep into the research to find a story.
But when it comes to finding the “emotion” behind why people buy or don’t buy, I have to work a lot harder.
Yet without understanding and using emotion, sales will be limited.
In this excellent book, Triggers: 30 Sales Tools You Can Use to Control the Mind of Your Prospects to Motivate, Influence and Persuade, direct marketing guru Joseph Sugarman writes that an estimated 95% of the reasons a prospect buys involves a subconscious decision.
And to fire up a prospect’s subconscious mind, you have to hit his emotional buttons.
Two of the strongest emotions that can trigger responses—and a flood of orders—are fear and greed.
Fear is a huge motive, often tied to financial loss, but can also be linked to losing freedom and independence that comes with good health.
Take for example a highly successful piece I wrote for PS—The Ultimate Brain Food™.
The headline was:
The New Pill
For Memory Loss
that helps make sure you
don’t end up a mental “vegetable”
Anybody struggling with memory loss and loss of cognitive decline fears the worse—becoming a “vegetable” and losing freedom and independence.
The inside spread started off with the story of an Arizona woman who was saved from the nursing home with this remarkable natural breakthrough.
This cover and lead-in hit the emotion of fear—and made this piece a big, big winner.
Another dominant emotion that can drive people to read your promotion and order is greed.
The desire for gain can be anything that puts the prospect ahead: Money, health, relationships. To put it another way, people have something good and they want more.
Here’s a good example of a winning piece I wrote selling the book, The Complete Guide to Offshore Money Havens. The front cover featured promises such as…
*How to make, protect and keep MORE OF YOUR MONEY with your own 100% legal offshore wealth haven…
*Make all your dreams come true with profits, privacy, protection and pleasures found offshore…and enjoy tax-free living and secure retirement.
The back cover teased the reader with “greed” copy such as…
*The secret to paying little or no taxes
*A strategy that pays 5-to-1 returns
*“Safe money” yields that are three times higher
*Two ways to keep your assets untouchable from a lawsuit
The theme: How to make more money and keep it from the clutches of the government, lawyers and anybody else.
The desire for gain can be anything that puts the prospect ahead: Money, health, relationships. To put it another way, people have something good and they want more.
Here’s a good example of a winning piece I wrote selling the book, The Complete Guide to Offshore Money Havens. The front cover featured promises such as…
*How to make, protect and keep MORE OF YOUR MONEY with your own 100% legal offshore wealth haven…
*Make all your dreams come true with profits, privacy, protection and pleasures found offshore…and enjoy tax-free living and secure retirement.
The back cover teased the reader with “greed” copy such as…
*The secret to paying little or no taxes
*A strategy that pays 5-to-1 returns
*“Safe money” yields that are three times higher
*Two ways to keep your assets untouchable from a lawsuit
The theme: How to make more money and keep it from the clutches of the government, lawyers and anybody else.
Both the front and back cover of this wining piece focused on the emotion of greed.
Fear and greed. Greed and fear. Both work like magic to stir up prospects, get them to read and most important, get them to buy.
Fear and greed. Greed and fear. Both work like magic to stir up prospects, get them to read and most important, get them to buy.
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