When you speak or write to persuade, what do you say? As a marketing copywriter, I’ve come to realize that you must strike a delicate balance between the positive and the negative.
Sure, your product or service offers benefits like proven results and a low total cost of ownership, but before you even get there, you must point out what your prospects will not be able to avoid if they don’t buy from you.
Jessica Swanson of Shoestring Marketing University wrote about negative emotions a while back in her article “50 Painful Emotions People Want to Avoid.” As she put it, “People buy for one of two main reasons: to improve their lives or to avoid pain.” She lists 50 emotions people want to avoid. Among them anxiety, confusion, a sense of failure, or a feeling of inferiority. If you’re doing any marketing writing or just want to be reminded of how humans function, print her list and pin it up in your workspace.
In your copy or in your selling, bring the FUD factor into play. That is, carefully instill a sense of fear, uncertainty, and doubt in your audience. Salespeople learn this technique early on in their careers. (I have fond memories of using FUD to position Dictaphone’s electronic marking feature against Lanier’s paper system.) As a copywriter, you certainly don’t want to be unsubtle or thuggish about this. In fact, you probably won’t mention emotions at all. What you will do, instead, is to talk about the challenges or concerns your business/employer faces and how your product or service can help you avoid them. From there, it’s a fairly short distance to “Oh, I can probably get a larger raise and better position my career for growth if I make smart decisions or recommendations.” The benefits of being “smart” are right out front, while the negatives hover, ever so subtly in the background.
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