What is advertising? part 4

Push Their Emotional Hot Buttons
This is where research really pays off. Because in order to push those
buttons, you need to first know what they are.
Listen to this story first, and I’ll tell you what I mean: Once upon a
time a young man walked into a Chevrolet dealer’s showroom to
check out a Chevy Camaro. He had the money, and he was ready to
make a buying decision. But he couldn’t decide if he wanted to buy
the Camaro or the Ford Mustang up the road at the Ford dealer.

A salesman approached him and soon discovered the man’s dilemma.
“Tell me what you like best about the Camaro,” said the salesman.
“It’s a fast car. I like it for its speed.”
After some more discussion, the salesman learned the man had just
started dating a cute college cheerleader. So what did the salesman
do?
Simple. He changed his pitch accordingly, to push the hot buttons he
knew would help advance the sale. He told the man about how
impressed his new girlfriend would be when he came home with this
car! He placed the mental image in the man’s mind of he and his
girlfriend cruising to the beach in the Camaro. How all of his friends
will be envious when they see him riding around with a beautiful girl
in a beautiful car.
And suddenly the man saw it. He got it. And the salesman recognized
this and piled it on even more. Before you know it, the man wrote a
nice fat check to the Chevy dealership, because he was sold!
The salesman found those hot buttons and pushed them like never
before until the man realized he wanted the Camaro more than he
wanted his money.
I know what you’re thinking…the man said he liked the car because it
was fast, didn’t he?
Yes, he did. But subconsciously, what he really desired was a car that
would impress his girlfriend, his friends, and in his mind make them
love him more! In his mind he equated speed with thrill. Not because
he wanted an endless supply of speeding tickets, but because he
thought that thrill would make him more attractive, more likeable.

Perhaps the man didn’t even realize this fact himself. But the
salesman sure did. And he knew which emotional hot buttons to
press to get the sale.
Now, where does the research pay off?
Well, a good salesman knows how to ask the kinds of questions that
will tell him which buttons to press on the fly. When you’re writing
copy, you don’t have that luxury. It’s therefore very important to
know upfront the wants, needs, and desires of your prospects for
that very reason. If you haven’t done your homework, your prospect
is going to decide that he’d rather keep his money than buy your
product. Remember, copywriting is salesmanship in print!
It’s been said many times: People don’t like to be sold.
But they do like to buy.
And they buy based on emotion first and foremost. Then they justify
their decision with logic, even after they are already sold emotionally.
So be sure to back up your emotional pitch with logic to nurture that
justification at the end.
And while we’re on the subject, let’s talk a moment about perceived
“hype” in a sales letter. A lot of more “conservative” advertisers have
decided that they don’t like hype, because they consider hype to be
old news, been-there-and-done-that, my customers won’t fall for
hype, it’s not believable anymore.
What they should realize is that hype itself does not sell well. Some
less experienced copywriters often try to compensate for their lack of
research or not fully understanding their target market or the product
itself by adding tons of adjectives and adverbs and exclamation
points and big bold type.
Whew! If you do your job right, it’s just not needed.
Page 10 of 27
That’s not to say some adverbs or adjectives don’t have their
place…only if they’re used sparingly, and only if they advance the
sale.
But I think you’d agree that backing up your copy with proof and
believability will go a lot farther in convincing your prospects than
“power words” alone. I say power words, because there are certain
adverbs and adjectives that have been proven to make a difference
when they’re included. This by itself is not hype. But repeated too
often, they become less effective, and they take away (at least in
your prospect’s mind) from the proof.
Which brings us into our next tip…