Already On The Supermarket Shelves
Crikey.
We’ve hardly recovered from hearty Christmas dinners and Easter eggs have already appeared in the supermarkets.
They claim in the article “they are just giving in to consumer demand”.
I’d LOVE to know how they figured that one out.
If the Easter products weren’t on the shelves, I’m sure consumers wouldn’t notice for at least a month or more!
Just who buys Easter eggs six days into the new year?
Copy Tip 27: Openings I
Today we’re moving from the headline of your copy into the opening.
As mentioned before, the job of every word in your copy is to get your prospects to keep reading.
Your opening does this by talking directly to your prospect from their point of view.
Remember, it’s all about THEM.
Not you.
You learned yesterday about using Emotional and Logical reasons to buy now in your copy.
You learned in the MOOVE marketing formula that you’ve got to KNOW your Market.
One of the best approaches to to remember the big “E” word.
Empathy
Empathy helps build TRUST, because you demonstrate and prove that you know what it’s like to be “in the customer’s shoes.”
You know their fears and frustrations. You know what motivates them. You express empathy for their situation.
You build trust this way, because you engage and connect with your prospect on a deeper level.
They find themselves agreeing with what you say … associating with you, knowing that you understand them.
When you do this, you’re more persuasive.
The connection and engagement you create is more intimate. Prospects are more willing to let you in because they perceive and FEEL you are on their side — you’re their advocate.
They’re hanging on what you have to say next.
You understand them … how they think, see, hear, smell, taste and touch.
When you do this … and focus on THEM, not you … your copy is at its most effective.
Okay Dean, I need to use empathy. HOW do I do this?
One of the best ways is to use words that connect you as the copy author to your prospects.
Using phrases such as:
“Just like you, I know how it feels to _______”
Words like “we” in reference to you and the reader (not in reference to you and your company!).
“If you’re anything like me, _______”
“Perhaps, like me, you have also discovered _______”
The fears, frustrations and motivations you talk about then must RESONATE with your reader.
They’ll be nodding in agreement as they read.
And you can use one of several writing “formulas” (we’ll get to these later) to present your copy.
Now you know more about using empathy!
There are several approaches to the opening of your copy that we’ll cover in the upcoming copy tips … stay tuned!
Copy Tip 26: Persuasive Sales Factors
Several years back I completed a multi-day Tony Robbins sales training event called Power To Influence. It was a very valuable investment in sales training and I loved every minute of it.
The overall approach outlined in this training really is congruent with good copy: when a sales situation is approached the right way … when you stack up massive value for your prospects … there’s no need to “hard sell” because you’ve established and properly qualified your prospect well before the “end” of the sale (which is in fact not an end at all, but instead the beginning of a long-term client relationship).
In terms of getting a prospect to respond — to meet your Objective — you need to combine the following two approaches:
EMOTION and LOGIC
Customers need Emotional Reasons to Buy Now (ERBN) and Logical Reasons to Buy Now (LRBN).
You might have heard this another way:
People buy on emotion and back it up with logic.
Tony Robbins describes it as a seesaw — on one side, you have your Emotional and Logical reasons to buy now (predominantly Emotional reasons), and on the other side is a client’s Dominant Reasons to Avoid Buying (DRAB).
I’m away from the office (and all of my graphics tools!), so here’s a really basic hand-drawn sketch I’ve scanned in to show you what I mean:
The drawing above shows how you need to stack up the emotional and logical reasons to buy now, outweighing the dominant reasons to avoid buying.
It’s a really simple formula to get someone to buy:
Give them MORE ERBN’s and LRBN’s than they have DRAB’s!
In other words, once they feel that there are more reasons to buy than avoid buying, you have a sale… the balance of the seesaw tips to your side.
It might be an easy way for you to help discover the three lots of “reasons” you need to know — the emotional and logical reasons that help convince your prospect to take the action you want them to take, and the objections they have that are their dominant reasons to avoid buying.
You need to know ALL THREE.
Each then needs to be illustrated with proof and other credibility elements to make a convincing and effective presentation to your prospect.
So here’s what you need to do …
All of these (emotional and logical reasons and objections) are then incorporated into your copy to persuade your prospect to take the action you planned in your Objective.
Quite often, objections are overlooked or avoided in copy. I think this is the wrong thing to do, for two reasons.
Firstly, it sends a message to your prospect that you don’t really understand the situation from their point of view. Otherwise you’d be more empathetic towards them, knowing what both attracts them AND their potential objections.
Secondly, if YOU raise the objection, you also get to provide an answer – an answer than can help demonstrate why that objection shouldn’t dominate the decision to act. You can put the objection in perspective, and show how it is outweighed by the positive emotional and logical reasons to buy now.
There’s more also going on here — by admitting a perceived fault with your product or service, and raising it as an objection, you are perceived as being more believable in what else you say because you are being truthful (you should always be truthful of course, but this shows you both being truthful and being seen to be truthful).
I wanted to mention this formula as we go deeper into our copy tips … yesterday we talked about what motivates buyers, and today is more on how to get a prospect to go from “not buying” to “buying” — tipping the seesaw in your favour — which means reasons to take the action you want them to take, now!
Weekly Twitter Tweets at 2009-01-04
- Happy 2009 from Melbourne downunder!!!!! May it be all that you want it to be! #
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Copy Tip 25: Motivation
We’ve wrapped up headlines, but there’s one area I want to cover that I haven’t yet touched on.
It’s all about what motivates people to take action.
What gets them to respond to your compelling offer.
Copy superstar Brian Keith Voiles points out a quote from Napoleon on motivation:
There are two motives to action: self-interest and fear
When I’ve been at Tony Robbins’ events (Unleash The Power Within as a participant and crew member in several countries; Power To Influence sales event plus Mastery University — Date With Destiny, Wealth Mastery and Life Mastery) the driving force of human behaviour, as Tony would say, is the desire to either avoid pain or gain pleasure.
The “avoid pain” behaviour or the “fear” motive of Napoleon are the dominant drivers of human nature.
Knowing that helps make your copy more effective — you can help motivate your prospects by highlighting problems, frustrations, fear, anxiety, lack of something (money, freedom, time, family, love) or anger … in fact, there’s a great formula for writing your copy that does this for you.
(I’ll reveal this in a future copy tip!).
When you KNOW your prospects and their fears and pain … you can demonstrate how your product or service solves their problems — ideally in a quick and easy way (people LOVE quick and easy).
When you can combine the appeal of quick and easy with solving a prospect’s fear/pain … and guarantee your product or service (using a risk-reversal strategy we’ll cover in more detail) … then your chances of success are maximised.
You’ll be able to use the fear/pain of loss (a greater motivator than gaining pleasure) — and demonstrate specifically how you can help your prospect.
Knowing this … and incorporating it in your copy … is a great strategy.
Tomorrow, I’ll share with you a sales acronym that I discovered many years ago that I use to help boost response. It’ll help you focus on the type of copy you make sure you include in your own messages.