Posted on: 01 December, 2001
Author: Joe Sugarman
A desire to buy something often involves a subconsciousdecision. In fact, I claim that 95% of buying decisions areindeed subconscious. Knowing the subconscious reasons why people buy, and using thisin... A desire to buy something often involves a subconsciousdecision. In fact, I claim that 95% of buying decisions areindeed subconscious. Knowing the subconscious reasons why people buy, and using thisinformation in a fair and constructive way, will triggergreater sales response -- often far beyond what you couldimagine. I recall a time when I applied one of these subconscious devicesby changing just one word of an ad, and response doubled. Irefer to these subconscious devices as psychologal "triggers." Apsychological trigger is the strongest motivational factor anysalesperson or copywriter can use to evoke a sale. There are 30 triggers in all, some of which I will reveal to youin a moment. Each trigger, when deployed, has the power to increase sales and response beyond what you would normallyexpect. There are triggers, for example, that will cause your prospectto feel guilty if they don't purchase your product. Let me giveyou an example. Whenever you receive in the mail a salessolicitation with free personalized address stickers, you often feel guilty if you use the stickers and don't send somethingback -- often far in excess of the value of the stickers.Fundraising companies use this method a great deal. You receive50 cents worth of stickers and send back a $20 bill. Another example are those surveys that are sent out asking foryou to spend about 20 minutes of your time filling them out.Enclosed in the mailing you, might find a dollar bill includedto encourage you to feel guilty, and entice you to fill out thesurvey. And you often spend a lot more than one dollar of yourtime to do that. Guilt is a strong motivator. I have to admit that I've used guilt in many selling situations, in mail order ads and on TV --with great success, I might add. I call one of the most powerful triggers a "satisfactionconviction," which is a guarantee of satisfaction. But don'tconfuse this with the typical trial period you find in mailorder, i.e., "If your not happy within 30 days, you can returnyour purchase for a full refund." A satisfaction conviction is different. Basically it takes the trial period and addssomething that makes it go well beyond the trial period. For example, if I were offering a subscription, instead ofsaying, "If at anytime you're not happy with your subscription,we'll refund your unused portion," and instead said, "If at anytime you're not happy with your subscription, let us know andwe'll refund your entire subscription price -- even if youdecide to cancel just before the last issue." Basically you're saying to your prospect that you are so surethat they'll like the subscription, that you are willing to gobeyond what is traditionally offered with other subscriptions.This in fact gives the reader the sense that the company reallyknows it has a winning product and solidly stands behind theproduct and your satisfaction. Is this technique effective? You bet. In many tests, I'vedoubled response -- sometimes by adding just one sentence thatconveys a good satisfaction conviction. I received an e-mail from a company, a subsidiary of eBay,requesting my advice. They had an e-mail solicitation thatwasn't drawing the response that they had expected. What waswrong? Looking over what they had created, I saw several mistakes, manyof which would have been avoided if they knew the psychologicaltriggers that cause people to buy. Let me give you just one example. In the subject line of most e-mails that have solicited me, Ihave been able to tell, at a glance, that the solicitation wasfor a specific service or an offer of something that I wasclearly able to determine. Examples such as "Reduce your CD andDVD costs 50%," Or "Lose weight quickly," pretty much told mewhat they were selling. Was this good or bad? The problem with those subject lines is that the reader was ableto quickly determine: 1) that it was an advertisement; and 2)that it was for some specific product or service. Most people don't like advertising. And most people won't makethe effort to open their e-mail solicitation if they think theyare getting an advertising message -- unless they are sincerelyinterested in buying something that the advertisement offers. The subject line of an e-mail is similar to the headline of amail order ad, or the copy on an envelope, or the first fewminutes of an infomercial. You've got to grab somebody'sattention and then get them to take the next step. In the caseof the envelope, you want them to open it. In the case of an infomercial, you want them to keep watching, and in the case ofan e-mail, you want them open up the e-mail and read yourmessage. The key, therefore, is to get a person to want to open yourmessage by putting something into the subject area of youre-mail that does not appear to be an advertising message --one that would compel them to take the next step. And thebest trigger to use for this is the trigger of curiosity. There are a number of ways you can use curiosity to literally force a person to take the next step. You can then use this valuable tool to put a reader in the correct frame of mind tobuy what you have to offer. Once again, all the principles apply to every form ofcommunication -- whether it be advertising, marketing orpersonal selling. And to know these triggers is the key to moreeffective communication and most importantly, the avoidance ofcostly errors that waste time and money. Article Tags: Feel Guilty, Trial Period, Next Step, Want Them Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com