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How a Hidden Psychological
"Trigger" By Yanik Silver Do you remember the stupid beer commercial a few years back with
the tagline "Why Ask Why?" Well, completely unknown to the ad
agency -- they had almost stumbled onto a breakthrough marketing
concept.
Telling people the reason why you are doing something is one of
the most powerful influencers of human behavior.
Robert Cialdini, Ph.D. in his book "Influence: The Psychology of
Persuasion" talks about an experiment by Harvard social
psychologist, Ellen Langer, that concluded people like to have a
reason for what they do.
Her experiment consisted of people waiting in line to use a
library copy machine and then having experimenters ask to get
ahead in line.
The first excuse used was "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I
use the Xerox machine because I'm in a rush?" This request
coupled with a reason was successful 94% of the time. However
when the experimenter made a request only: "Excuse me, I have
five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?" this request was only
granted 60% of the time. A significant drop.
Okay now for the shocker.
It may seem like the difference between those two requests was
the additional information of "because I'm in a rush", but that's
just not the case.
Because in a third experimenter, the experimenter asks "Excuse me,
I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to
make some copies?" There's no reason mentioned or new information
presented, just the words "because".
This time a full 93% of the people said yes simply due to
the word 'BECAUSE'! And it didn't even matter that there was no
reason given. Just the word because triggered a magic response.
Using this psychological 'trigger' can massively increase your
Marketing success.
"We are bankrupt. We owe $125,000 more than we can pay, and this
announcement will bring our creditors down on our necks. But if
you come and *buy* tomorrow, we shall have the money to meet
them. If not, we shall go to the wall."
Instead of yelling 'SALE' like so many other stores would,
there's a legitimate reason given why people should spend their
money at this store. And this ad was said to be responsible for
saving the store.
Another ad written by Powers, for a different merchant,
proclaimed "We have a lot of rotten raincoats we want to get
rid of." This sold out the entire inventory of raincoats by the
next morning.
Max Sackheim, famous for the long-running ad "Do You Make These
Mistakes In English" and originator of the book-of-the-month
concept, says this: "Whenever you make a claim or special offer
in your advertising, come up with an honest reason why, and then
state it sincerely. You'll sell many more products this way."
And this powerful strategy works just as well today.
Using this secret weapon for a medical equipment company, I
helped them produce a massive 1,073% return on investment simply
using "reason-why" copy.
The premise was how can we sell a product for the incredibly
low price of only $477? (Regularly this product sells for
about $695 - $895.) Then the ad went on to explain that the
reason why the price was so low was because the manufacturer
wanted to gain market share and get nurses and doctors
accustomed to using their product. It was a huge winner and a
big money-maker for the client.
So how can you apply all of this to your business? Easy. Let's
say you have a slow time of year and you want to increase your
business during this period. Well, write a simple letter to your
customers making a special offer, only good during your slow
period.
Maybe you'll throw in an extra free bonus, an extra service,
or a special discount simply because it is your "slow time" and
you need to pay your staff anyway.
Let people in "behind the scenes" at your company...
Are you overstocked on merchandise because for some reason
customers only want the deluxe widget - but you ordered tons of
the basic one? Did you have a flood and you need to liquidate (pardon the pun)
your inventory? Do you need to raise cash so you can pay for your nosejob? Whatever the reason. Tell them the truth.
For some reason everyone wants to be mysterious about their
business. If you're lowering the price nobody thinks you're doing
it just because you're "such a nice guy". So let people in the
reason why.
I know this probably goes against every grain of business sense,
but I promise if you give people a good, believable reason why
they'll respond with open wallets.
(c) 2000 Surefire Marketing, Inc. All rights reserved.
Makes Prospects Practically Line up
and Beg to do Business With You
guest columnist
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Here's an example: John E. Powers, one of the top copywriters in
the 1900's, wrote this ad for a Pittsburgh department store in
severe financial trouble:
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