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With Knowledge of Marketing Psychology, You Can Capture Attention and Sell

by Marcia Yudkin

With ever shorter attention spans and today’s dizzying pace of change, it’s hard to imagine consumers stopping long enough to make a considered decision to buy. In that frantic selling environment, however, it’s still possible to capture attention and sell. The key is knowing which techniques cut through the clutter, obtain people’s interest and guide that interest to a purchase.

One unintuitive way to heighten people’s interest in becoming your client is the literary agent strategy – telling them you won’t do business with just anyone. Psychological research also tells us that people are more likely to buy when you narrow their choices, instead of offering a cornucopia of options.

Other powerful ways to lead the right audience for a product or service to a buying decision, using established principles of marketing psychology, include:

* Paint a vivid, truthful picture of the consequences the customer may experience from not buying.

* Make a surprising claim, which arouses curiosity (Just be sure readers won’t feel tricked when you make clear why it’s true).

* Confess a weakness in the seller or the product, which increases credibility as long as the rest of the presentation inspires trust.

* Reduce buyer’s remorse by pointing specific types of customers toward their best option.

* Promote reader involvement through a quiz, a set of questions to answer, a puzzle or checklist you invite them to complete.

* Cut excess verbiage, delete self-indulgent rambles and get quickly to the point.

* Quicken desire by creating timely, relevant, ultra-specific offers with an expiration date.

* Use the power of authenticity by selecting qualities admired by your target market and dramatizing them in your marketing.

* Identify and appeal to emotions such as anger, greed, hope or compassion that resonate with the situations in which potential customers now find themselves.

* Mobilize as many reasons to buy as you can discover or concoct. When Coca-Cola ran an ad campaign around a list of 35 reasons people might want a Coke, sales jumped 50 percent in the next five years.

* Update the buying rationale you appeal to in line with current trends, such as ecological consciousness, the movement for buying local, fear about government changes, rampant unemployment or investment losses.

* Concentrate on selling to those who already understand the kind of value you offer, rather than those who need to be educated on the importance of the needs your wares fulfill.

Marcia Yudkin is the author of more than a dozen books, including 6 Steps to Free Publicity, now in its third edition, and Persuading People to Buy, from which this article is adapted. She helps solo professionals and small-to-medium-sized business owners connect with their target market cost-effectively and creatively. Learn more about her Marketing Insight Guides series on the fundamentals of turning strangers into long-time customers at http://www.yudkin.com/guides/index.htm

Author, Meatier Marketing Copy, available in paperback, Kindle, Nook, Audible audiobook
“There are few genuine thought leaders in the field of copywriting. Marcia Yudkin is one of them. The strategies she presents in Meatier Marketing Copy are all easy to understand and implement, yet profoundly insightful. If you want to write marketing copy that sizzles and sells, this book is a must-read.” - Steve Slaunwhite, Author, Start & Run a Copywriting Business, Co-Author, The Wealthy Freelancer