Pain vs. Pleasure
The first trigger that we need to understand is actually quite abstract. The majority of our decisions in life are driven by two things: avoiding pain, and gaining pleasure. Even things that are painful, like working out, are seen as something that’s ‘good for us’ as the end-result is something we can get behind.
But how is all this related to selling products? Well, marketing is no different. If you can show someone how to avoid pain and gain pleasure by buying your product or service, they will be much more likely to put their hand in the pocket. You know your market (hopefully!) and what they are looking for in life. You should, therefore, know roughly what their major pain points in life are.
What do your customers really appreciate about your brand? Is there anything that they find particularly annoying or frustrating that you could help to alleviate? Your customers subconsciously associate what you can offer them as being something to help them find pleasure and/or avoid pain. Instead of marketing your product/service in a manner that’s all about what you can do, think about what problems/pain-points it could prevent. Compare:
- Our new model of electric car accelerates and drives smoother than ever before.
- With our car, bumps and potholes in the road that would usually send your coffee flying into your lap are no longer the problem they once were.
Both say the exact same thing, but which is more compelling?
New vs. Old
Next up, you have to have something to differentiate what you’re offering. This has to be a differentiation between both the other products/services you offer, and a differentiation between you and others. Just by positioning your offer as new and interesting, you’ll gain customers.
The best sales come from showing the customer that they might have tried other options, but your option genuinely works. If you can add in something new, a novelty that the competition lacks this should be your main marketing hook. “It’s like X, but better because of Y!” is a very useful marketing plan.
The psychology of the human mind is to always seek out and find new experiences to enjoy and to paw over. That’s just part of life generally. If you can therefore show off your main extra benefit as being something new – not even necessarily groundbreaking, just new – then you can give a nudge to that part of your customer’s psychology with ease.
The Power of Story
The best thing you can do in any kind of marketing for a product/service, though, is to play on our innate desire for a story. Everything is more believable, exciting and likely to force action from a human being if it comes with a story behind it. Of course, the story has to be plausible and genuine for it to make a real difference.
Stories are the way we can tell our children about how to avoid danger. They might not listen to you when you say “Don’t jump off that ledge!” but if you can tell them that Tommy Tillerson from just down the street jumped and broke both legs, and never walked again, they immediately believe you more. No matter what kind of person you are, human beings are innately emotional beings, and telling a story is a way to draw out (and take advantage of) these emotions.
Stories associate our mind with the senses like sight, sound, taste and even movement. A story allows you to make sure the customer experiences what you need them to experience, enticing them to buy/order/hire, without experiencing anything!
Finding The Cause
One of the main powers of using a solution like this, though, is having something to point the finger at. This isn’t dog whistling or trying to find someone to blame; it’s locating a common enemy that every person you are selling to will struggle with.
You need to find that primary unifying factor that brings people to you in the first place, basically. If you can show people that X negative thing happens because of Y event, but it can be solved by using Z solution, then you are in with a much better chance of success.
If people cannot understand why bad things are happening to them, ostensibly a good person, you need to show them. In your storytelling, you need to find a way of injecting some form of genuine enemy – someone to stand up against, to wish to battle with. It’s simple, easy and tremendously effective!
Setting the Tone
The last part of psychology that you need to work upon in sales is the power of anticipation. The best products and sales are heightened by a wonderfully acute sense of anticipation. Anticipation is so powerful, and it does a tremendous job of setting the right kind of tempo and tone for the individual. Take sporting events – weeks and weeks’ worth of build-up to ‘the big game’ creates ridiculous anticipation.
It’s in their thoughts at work, when driving home, when eating dinner and when lying in bed. Tap into that power. Anticipation and giving people something to look forward to in life is a tremendous sales goal. It creates a sense of “man, when I get that solution, everything will be OK!”
Make them anticipate the release of your new product or using your service. Why? Because when it gets here, they feel like they finally have that solution they craved. You create a sense of what it will be like when it gets here, and how it will change the life and the general day-to-day enjoyment of life for the individual. Hyperbolic? Sure, but what kind of anticipation isn’t at least a little overblown?
Using this solution, you should find it exceptionally easy to begin to make rapid and genuine progress towards long-term improvement. It might be tough to get there, but it’s by no means impossible.
With these five key factors in mind, then, hopefully you’ll be able to better understand what motivates your customers and drives them to buy your products. Understanding these psychological tricks will help you to create more successful marketing campaigns in the future.