-

When making a purchase, humans function in a basic, instinctive way. The key to closing a sale is tapping into those basic human emotions.

There are several things that motivate people:

• Sex
• Greed
• Flattery
• Fear
• Self-improvement
• Love
• Better health
• Weight loss
• Longevity
• Exclusivity
• Fame
• Uncertainty
• Doubt

The 60 Second Marketer did a piece on how to effectively use these emotional triggers in a marketing campaign. The following are some examples they came up with:

Putting the 13 Emotional Triggers to Use

• Sex: “The secret to better and more frequent sex”
• Greed: “How to make millions on the internet and retire wealthy”
• Flattery: “Why people with blue eyes attract more attention from the opposite sex”
• Fear: “1 out of 4 homes will be the victim of a burglary this year”
• Self-improvement: “How you can get twice as much reading done in half as much time”
• Love: “What the Eskimos know about love that you should know, too”
• Better health: “How 3 simple ingredients in your home can help strengthen your heart”
• Weight loss: “The secret to weight loss may be staring you right in the face”
• Longevity: “7 secrets the French know that can help you live 20 years longer”
• Exclusivity: “The fine wine for people who don’t have to ask ‘how much?’”
• Fame: “How Julia Roberts got famous. And how you can get famous, too”
• Uncertainty: “Why risk Lasik surgery on someone who is offering cut-rate prices?”
• Doubt: “Would you want your children to drive in a car with unsafe brakes?”

Focus on one or two of these emotions and you’ll be sure to grab the attention of your audience.

Marketing is a vital part in growing your business. Often, companies focus too much on right now and neglect to think about the bigger picture and where they may be five years from now. There is a simple solution to this: devise a five year marketing plan.

The first step is knowing where you want your business to be in five years. Once you have established that, the next step is to draw the path to get there. Start with one marketing tool and gradually add on from there. For instance, in the first six months, promote the business through newspaper advertisements. At the one year mark, continue with the ads and get your website up and running. From there, you can supplement with other marketing materials such as email blasts, brochures and other marketing collateral at specified time increments.

Whatever marketing tools you choose to use, the main point is sticking with the plan. Knowing when and where you need to be in your marketing approach can make all the difference in you reaching your long-term business goals.

Secret #1: Novelty is the single most effective factor in capturing our brain’s precious attention. Humans want to buy your products and services. And the way to get them to do that is to point out what makes your product new and different. When people see something new, they’re curious. And if they like what they see, they purchase it. How are you making your product or service seem new and different? That could be the key to your future success.

The female brain is structured to deal with many different issues at once. The much simpler male brain is structured to deal with only 3 issues — Is the game on? Is the beer cold? Am I going to have sex tonight?

Secret #2: The female brain has 25% more connections between the right and left hemispheres than the male brain. Because of this, women are much better than men at communication and multitasking. Men’s brains are not as complex as women’s, which explains why men are only capable of holding three thoughts in their brain.

Secret #3: Humans often don’t know why they prefer one brand over another. We have a great article about this on the site called “Coke vs. Pepsi. The Taste Test they Don’t Want You to Know About.” The article discusses why Coke beat Pepsi in a small non-blind taste test a few years ago but came out Even-Steven in a blind taste test to the same group. Interesting, eh? For more details, check out the article on the site.

Secret #4: People buy for emotional reasons then rationalize their purchase with logic. Here’s a fact — men don’t buy Porsches for logical reasons, they buy them to make up for some sort of shortcoming. But if you interview them after their purchase, they’re able to rationalize their purchase in very logical terms. If you’re smart (which you are), you’ll use this secret to help you uncover the emotional triggers that get people to buy your product or service.

Secret #5: Different parts of the brain control different stimuli responses. Our instincts are controlled by the Sub cortical and Limbic areas, also known as our Lizard Brain. The Lizard Brain responds to stimuli based on the 4 Fs — Fight, Flight, Food and Procreation. By appealing to the Lizard Brain, you can create an emotional bond between your consumer and your brand.

Secret #6: Data indicates that humans respond best to 13 specific words in advertising. This data is based on years and years of testing by direct response agencies like BKV. The words are (drumroll, please) Free, You, Save, Money, Easy, Guarantee, Health, Results, New, Love, Discovery, Proven, Safety. You’ll notice I used 3 of them in the headline of this article. Did they draw you in?

Secret #7: We take in 11 million bits of information per second, but the brain can only process 40 bits per second. Essentially, what this means is that the brain is on over-load much of the time. If you want to stick out in the crowd, simplify. It’s what Steve Jobs does and, hey, he’s a billionaire.

Posted by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine of BKV Digital and Direct Response.

Here are 7½ simple rules to help ensure success:

1. Get a Plan: One email blast will not generate quality leads or drive customer loyalty. Draft a plan to continuously engage prospects and customers. Send to prospects and follow up within 3 to 4 weeks with those who did not respond to your first message. Engage customers with a periodic e-newsletter to nurture the relationship, seek their input, and drive up-sell opportunities.

2. Get Delivered: Keep your email file size small—40K or under is recommended, but definitely no more than 300K. Avoid spam-trigger words like “free” and “offer”. Limit use of images, which can raise your spam score. Include a physical address and an “unsubscribe” link.

3. Get Help: The e-marketing landscape is littered with failed in-house initiatives. Invest in help from a trusted advisor with the tools and track record to help ensure your success.

4. Get Read: Keep your message and design simple. Recipients will not scroll through lengthy adjective-laden paragraphs. Give them one compelling thought with a link to read more. Too many images can distract from your message. Keep them to a minimum—a logo or one relevant image. Strive for one screen, no scrolling, with important links at the top.

5. Get It Together: Integrate your online and offline campaigns to leverage branding as well as to track offline campaign results.

6. Get Feedback: Encourage recipients to respond via links, surveys, and forms. Encourage click-throughs, especially newsletter signups and forwarding to friends.

7. Get Results: Track deliveries, bounces, opens, click-throughs, forwards, and act on those results. Move hot leads directly to Sales. Nurture the not-yet-hot leads as well as your valued customers.

7½. GET DELIVERED!!! This one is so important it deserves repeating. Nothing happens unless your messages get through to your targets. Reread Rules 2

Article from Marketer’s B2B Blog

Marketing and advertising are very efficient ways to get new customers. But once you get them, how do you maintain them? The key ingredient is providing excellent customer service. After all, happy customers equal long term customers.

Try these techniques to improve your service skills:

• Get to know your customers
• Gage your conversations to their likings, not yours
• Invest in your customers
• Elevate your customer service role

What we’re getting at is listen to what your customers want. Don’t try to push them onto what you want. Your business wouldn’t exist without customers so let them have a say in what goes on.

Your customers will have a lot to say, they just need an outlet in which to do so. Sell to your customers, not at them.

A-1 Steak Sauce allegedly changed a minor line of copy on their labels and grew their sales significantly.
What did A-1 change? They put “Refrigerate After Opening” on the label.

Why did that grow sales? Because for every one time people open their pantry, they open their refrigerator eight times. As a result, they were in front of hungry consumers eight times more frequently than before they changed the label.

It’s a great example of how paying attention to small details can sometimes make big changes in your marketing program.

Don’t try to change behavior. Preach to the converted. It’s easier to sell worms to a fisherman than it is to sell aspirin to a fisherman.
Study your sales data. All the qualitative and quantitative research in the world won’t teach you as much as sales data.
There are only four reasons people don’t buy your product. The four reasons are: I don’t need this, I don’t have time for this, I don’t have money for this or I don’t trust you. That’s all. Just four reasons.
The subject of any good campaign isn’t the product or service. The subject is you, the consumer. Anyone who ignores this maxim is doomed.
People buy from faces more readily than they buy from corporations. Just ask Martha Stewart. Or Betty Crocker. Or Aunt Jemima.
Write copy as though you’re writing to one person. It changes the tone from one of selling to one of friendship.
Think backwards. Get inside the mind of your consumer. What’s their pain point? What problem is your product actually solving?
It takes hard writing to make easy reading. First said by Robert Louis Stevenson. I wish I had more time to craft my blog posts and emails. I don’t. So please forgive me, Mr. Stevenson.”

Written by the 60 Second Marketer