Your sales copy has one purpose – to persuade someone to buy. The key to getting someone to buy is to resonate with them on an emotional level.
You have probably heard the old saying:
“People buy with emotion and justify with logic”
Put another way, you could say that “logic tells and emotion sells”. Emotions are the driving force behind our purchases, whether we recognise this fact or not.
If you want to sell more products or services you have to market them to your prospects in a way that hits their emotional buttons. The best way to create emotion with your copy is to use the power of meaning.
The power of meaning
We all know about features and benefits.
Features are product attributes or what something is, whilst benefits are what that feature does for your customer.
Feature = what something is
Benefit = what that feature does for them
Meaning is what the combined features and benefits mean to your customer.
Features + Benefits = Meaning
The meaning is where the emotional triggers lie. The meaning is what creates the motivation to buy because it is that feeling that customers really want when they buy your product or service.
Example: Lets say you’re selling a 30 minute workout DVD
Feature: One feature of the DVD is that it contains 7 different 30 minute workout routines.
Benefit: You can vary your daily workout and exercise all your different muscle groups in a week, without getting bored of doing the same routine everyday.
Meaning: Which means that you’ll be more motivated to use the DVD everyday, giving you results faster, and saving you money on expensive gym memberships.
You need to think deeper and wider in order to find out what the features and benefits really mean to your target audience.
When you truly understand your target audience well, you will know exactly what meanings to focus on.
Finding the meaning in your claims
When you start asking “why?” you will start to drill down in to the emotional side of what your product or service can do for your prospects i.e. what it means to them.
Whenever you make a claim, or list a feature or benefit of your product or service, ask yourself:
- Why is this important?
- Why does this matter to my customer?
- Why should they care about this?
When you start drilling down in to what features and benefits really mean to your customer you will start to view your products and services in a new light.
Try writing down 20-30 meanings and then see if you can keep going. The more you write down the more you will uncover. Sometimes its the less obvious answers that will strike the greatest chord with your customers.
You will start to see selling points and angles that you may not have thought of previously. When you start including these angles in your copy you will start to see an uplift in your results.
Can any product be emotionalised?
Yes! Even if you sell something that seems so drab and boring, you can still find some feature or benefit that you can emotionalise by attributing meaning to it.
Its just a matter of listing the features, deriving the benefits of those features, and then digging down into what those combined features and benefits mean to your prospect.
Example: Lets say you are selling an Ebay listing software
Feature: Auto-listing feature enables you to list your products automatically
Benefits: You don’t have to go through the painful process of listing your products manually, saving your up to 10 hours per week
Meaning: Which means you have more time to spend with your kids and spouse, giving them the time and attention they deserve
Start asking “why” or “what does this mean to my customer” every time you mention a feature or benefit of your product. This is how you will find the meaning behind your product or service’s features and benefits, and this is what will persuade people to buy.
What emotions drive sales?
Some emotions are more powerful than others, and tend to drive sales more than others.
Here is a list of some of the most powerful emotions that drive sales and make your copy more compelling:
- Fear
- Desire
- Hate
- Vanity
- Pride
- Love
People have fears of failure, of making mistakes, of looking stupid, of being embarrassed. They have desires for freedom, success, wealth, and health.
People are motivated by a sense of pride, of having some sort of social status, and getting recognition from their peers.
Everyone wants to feel desired at some level. They want to feel confident and have a positive self-image and high self-esteem.
Love is a powerful emotion which can drive people to taking action, especially if you can make meaningful associations between your products and their personal relationships, family, loved ones, etc.
The Life-Force 8 identified by Drew Eric Whitman, are powerful desires that are hardwired in every human being. They are a fundamental part of what makes us humans tick.
If you can tie your product or service to any of these 8 biological desires your copy will be much more effective.
When you understand what your customer desires, you can identify which meanings to attribute to your product’s features and benefits.
Summary
Emotions are what sell products and services, so make sure your copy targets your prospect’s emotions.
You do this by focusing on what your product’s features and benefits mean to your customers.
You identify the meanings by asking questions about your product claims, features, and benefits.
Questions you should ask:
- Why is this important?
- Why does this matter?
- Why should my customer care about this?
You will have to spend some time drilling down in to the answers to these questions in order to get the true meanings that will resonate with your customer’s deepest emotions.
The first answers you write down will normally be the obvious things, but the more answers you write down the more you will uncover, and its these answers that will be the ones you should include in your copy.
When you understand your target market you will know which emotions and desires to focus on, and what meanings you should highlight in your sales copy.
