By Yanik Silver
tinyurl.com/69naqm========================================================
Do you remember the stupid beer commercial a few years backwith the tagline "Why Ask Why?" Well, completely unknown tothe ad agency -- they had almost stumbled onto abreakthrough marketing concept.
Telling people the reason why you are doing something isone of the most powerful influencers of human behavior.
Robert Cialdini, Ph.D. in his book "Influence: ThePsychology of Persuasion" talks about an experiment byHarvard social psychologist, Ellen Langer, that concludedpeople like to have a reason for what they do.
Her experiment consisted of people waiting in line to use alibrary copy machine and then having experimenters ask toget 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?" Thisrequest coupled with a reason was successful 94% of thetime. However when the experimenter made a request only:"Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xeroxmachine?" this request was only granted 60% of the time. Asignificant drop.
Okay now for the shocker.
It may seem like the difference between those two requestswas 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 machinebecause I have to make some copies?" There's no reasonmentioned or new information presented, just the words"because".
This time a full 93% of the people said yes simply due tothe word 'BECAUSE'! And it didn't even matter that therewas no reason given. Just the word because triggered amagic response.
Using this psychological 'trigger' can massively increaseyour Marketing success.
Here's an example: John E. Powers, one of the topcopywriters in the 1900's, wrote this ad for a Pittsburghdepartment store in severe financial trouble:
"We are bankrupt. We owe $125,000 more than we can pay, andthis announcement will bring our creditors down on ournecks. But if you come and *buy* tomorrow, we shall havethe 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 spendtheir money at this store. And this ad was said to beresponsible for saving the store.
Another ad written by Powers, for a different merchant,proclaimed "We have a lot of rotten raincoats we want toget rid of." This sold out the entire inventory ofraincoats by the next morning.
Max Sackheim, famous for the long-running ad "Do You MakeThese Mistakes In English" and originator of the book-of-the-month concept, says this: "Whenever you make a claim orspecial offer in your advertising, come up with an honestreason why, and then state it sincerely. You'll sell manymore products this way."
And this powerful strategy works just as well today.
Using this secret weapon for a medical equipment company, Ihelped them produce a massive 1,073% return on investmentsimply using "reason-why" copy.
The premise was how can we sell a product for theincredibly low price of only $477? (Regularly this productsells for about $695 - $895.) Then the ad went on toexplain that the reason why the price was so low wasbecause the manufacturer wanted to gain market share andget 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 toincrease your business during this period. Well, write asimple letter to your customers making a special offer,only good during your slow period.
Maybe you'll throw in an extra free bonus, an extraservice, 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 somereason customers only want the deluxe widget - but youordered tons of the basic one?
* Did you have a flood and you need to liquidate (pardonthe pun) your inventory?
* Do you need to raise cash so you can pay for yournosejob?
Whatever the reason. Tell them the truth.
For some reason everyone wants to be mysterious about theirbusiness. If you're lowering the price nobody thinks you'redoing it just because you're "such a nice guy". So letpeople in the reason why.
I know this probably goes against every grain of businesssense, but I promise if you give people a good, believablereason why they'll respond with open wallets.
(c) Surefire Marketing, Inc
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Yanik Silver is recognized as the leading expert on creating automatic, moneymaking websites...and he stilldoesn't know how to put up a website.
He is the author, co-author or creator of several best-selling products. Plus his newest resource to cover 21Psychological Hot Buttons is
http://tinyurl.com/69naqm
