Written by Kevin Hill, Professor of High Response
It’s one thing to have copy that merely says, “Buy this gadget now!” but it’s another thing to use certain “sneaky” devices that nudge people toward a purchase decision. These emotional triggers that urge people to buy are elements I always use in my copy when I write a sales letter for Russell.
This article will include several emotional triggers I use every time I write a sales letter. Don’t worry, these are all ethical – they just allow you to gently “nudge” your buyer toward a purchase through your copy. This also assumes you’re selling something that brings value to your customer, and not some kind of scammer just trying to get money from people. Ready? Here we go!
Trigger 1: Proof of Value
This is an extremely useful trigger you’ll want to use in your copy over and over again. Let me share a story with you that illustrates this: I am an avid runner. I like to run eight to 10 miles three or four days a week. I’m not an Olympic hopeful or anything like that, but I like to run in road races and have even finished a Marathon.
One of the things I struggle with in running is my time. I feel like I have plenty of endurance but speed is what I lack. Any competitive runner will tell you that in order to race well you need to have both speed and endurance. That’s why any good training program will mix in long endurance runs with speed interval training on the track.
If someone created a DVD entitled, “How To Run a Three-Hour Marathon by Training Only Three Times a Week,” I would buy it because running three times a week is all the time I can devote to running. And in case you’re not familiar with the sport, people who are able to run sub-three hour marathons run much more often than that.
So let’s say this DVD costed $97. To me this would be a lot of money because I’m used to buying DVD movies for $10 to $20.
However, if you told me that after watching this DVD, I’d be able to run a sub-three hour marathon and qualify for the prestigious Boston Marathon, I would plunk down my $97 in a heartbeat. And if you told me that no other training method would give me those results, I’d be further sold.
Further, if you told me the price was only the cost of a monthly electricity bill or a month’s worth of Starbucks, then this would further overcome my price objection.
Do you see where I’m going with this? By reframing the cost of the product around justification for the price, you’re building value around the product in your customer’s mind. You’re not just saying, “The DVD is $97… Click Here To Order!” You’re justifying the price by building value. This is also called “reframing the price.”
This is something I put in every sales letter and you should too. Never tell your customers the price of your offering in a vacuum — always reframe and justify the price in your copy. This is something people always think about when they see the price and you need to be prepared to resolve those objections.
Trigger 2: Establish Authority
Customers love to do business with people who have become established authorities in their industries. That’s why you need to use this emotional trigger in your copy and all your promotions.
This is something many marketers don’t do effectively. You can talk the big talk, but if you don’t establish authority in your copy and your marketing, people may question your knowledge on the subject — and they may not buy from you.
Above you can see a screenshot of the home page for DotComSecrets.com. When people go here they know that Russell is an authority on internet marketing. Here’s how visitors can tell:
Media Exposure: There are “As Seen On…” icons from the networks and magazines Russell has appeared in. Russell has been invited to several news stations to tell his story, so he truly was on these networks. The funny thing about people and this culture is if someone has written a book or appeared on TV, they are considered an authority.
- On a side note: One of the dirty little secrets about our culture is that many books in our bookstores and libraries written by “experts” are horribly written… and just because you’re on TV doesn’t mean you’re an expert.
However, our culture values people who have either appeared on TV, written a book, or are constantly in the public eye. That’s why people fawn over celebrities. Not to put down these people, but a small warning to do your own research into the authority of an individual before you buy from them.
Expert by Association: There’s a video with Russell talking with Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins is considered a household name in the self-improvement industry, and the video of Russell shaking Tony’s hand and interviewing him indicates that he has achieved “expert” status in his field to warrant the opportunity to hang with Tony Robbins.
These elements weren’t put on the front page of our website by accident — we made sure these things were front and center (and “above the fold”) on the DotCom Secrets website so people would instantly associate Russell with authority status. Then they could take it from there and do their own research.
Trigger 3: Feeling of Involvement
One of the things that urges people to buy is a feeling of involvement. You’re more than likely to buy a TV from Wal-Mart if you play with the controls than you are if you don’t touch the set at all.
However, in direct response marketing, you’re selling your product or service where the customer cannot pick it up and try it out. That’s why you need to be as descriptive as possible so they can imagine picking it up and touching it!
That’s one way to get the customer more involved. Another way is to include an “involvement device” in the copy. For example, if you’re selling a weight loss product, you can simply ask a question above the fold that says, “Do you suffer from the following (check all that apply)” and have several symptoms with a check box people can click on.
These check boxes don’t do anything when clicked on, but they allow customers to be more involved in the selling process. It’s like having a customer switch channels on the TV before they buy, or take a new car for a test drive for a weekend before purchase.
In fact, just having people enter their name and email address before they see a sales page can raise conversions. Armand Morin reported in his recent course, “Internet Marketing Explained” that his conversions were higher when visitors passed through a squeeze page than when they were taken to a sales page alone.
There are several reasons for this, but one of them is the simple action of entering an email address meant they would take bigger (and more expensive) actions on the sales page. That’s why we always send traffic to our best selling course, Micro-Continuity, through the squeeze page shown below first:
These are just some of the many emotional triggers you can ethically exploit in your copy and all of your marketing. It’s amazing the power of sales copy when it contains four to five of these emotional triggers in the same copy! So make sure you put these to good use the next time you write your next promotion. I will be revealing more emotional triggers in future issues so stay tuned!
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