Psychological Triggers and Hooks, Storified! LOL

[rapidscc]

Hi folks,

Here's something I crafted a while ago. Will appreciate it much if folks share a similar story embedded with bits and nuggets of wisdom.

Thanks!

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Think that you are beautiful or handsome but YOU are obese. FAT to the point that you are three times the size of an adult your age and this prevented you from going out with friends. YOU want to avoid being the laughing stock of the group which always happens when you are with them.

Continue imagining that you’ve lost the interest of your spouse because it’s physically hard to have an intimate experience with you.

What’s worse is that lately, your spouse has been coming home late almost everyday telling you that he’s either attended an extended meeting or did overtime while leaving very early in the morning to “avoid” traffic.

It hurts! Now keep imagining, this time that you have a next door neighbor who’s just like you. Fat, unhealthy and separated. Suddenly you don’t see or hear anything about this neighbor for a month.

Still wondering what happened when all of a sudden you saw him walk by or is it him? that’s strange, he’s slim! He looks at your direction and YES! it is him! But he’s different, slim, good looking, wearing a calm, confident smile and serene.

You wave at him and great him, he briskly walk towards your direction and greats you with a big grin on his face. That’s probably because of the shocked expression he’s now seeing on your face.

He’s not like you now, not by a long shot. He’s not fat, ugly and depressed. He’s confident with a brilliant aura of serenity around him.

He’s maintaining that grin on his face because he can still see how stunned you are at what you’re seeing. Suddenly he whisper and say “I know, I’m slim now. Isn’t it great?”.

You wanted to say “Hell NO!”, you suddenly envy him, how can that be. How can he get fit so fast? So with all the calm you can muster, you asked, “How did you do it?”

He answers back and tell you, “It’s easy, I did it in one month but almost cost me an arm and a leg to do it. It’s mostly based on a method I developed myself” then he added “I’ll share the secret with you but on several conditions.

One, you cannot share it with someone else, and two, I’ll give you the step by step method but you must pay me $7. I’ll give you until tomorrow morning to decide, if you haven’t decided yet by that time, then forget it! However, I’ll give you a guarantee, if you don’t slim down within a month, I’ll give your money back!”

Now try to imagine, if you were in that situation what would you do? If I were in that situation, I will draw out my wallet right at that very moment and hand the $7 out to the guy immediately, I might even give him $10, let him keep the change and thank him for it.

I’ll probably laugh my guts out but do it after he turned his back, it’s almost a stupid deal and for $7 I’m going to slim down and most probably be better off than him in a month. Otherwise I’m going get my $7 back and probably knock the air out of this fellow.

Did you enjoy the story? It showed real human nature. Embedded in it are several hooks and triggers.

[DougHughes]

I like it. Great story, powerful, believable but...$7 bucks? Testing yields the final result, but I think this story is good enough to get someone for more money.

Not sure about this..."I’ll give you the step by step method but you must pay me $7. I’ll give you until tomorrow morning to decide, if you haven’t decided yet by that time, then forget it!"

If I were doing this I would stay empathetic while driving home the idea this is valuable, life changing info they need to act on right now!

I also feel you're cheesin' it up a bit here and going a little too colloquial.

"Now try to imagine, if you were in that situation what would you do? If I were in that situation, I will draw out my wallet (also just as a grammatical point, if you say "if I were" in that situation, then you need to say (I would) draw out my wallet. Were, is past tense an "would" rather than "will" is correct.) right at that very moment and hand the $7 out to the guy immediately, I might even give him $10, let him keep the change and thank him for it.

I’ll probably laugh my guts out but do it after he turned his back, it’s almost a stupid deal and for $7 I’m going to slim down and most probably be better off than him in a month. Otherwise I’m going get my $7 back and probably knock the air out of this fellow."

Nice story though.

[michaelhearne]

ok - i see what you are trying to do, but...

not to be a d1ck, but i totally disagree & think this will never convert...

especially if that's your intro - you'll lose them in the first paragraph... it's horribly clunky & hard to read... and to be honest, so is the rest...

also, you're selling this like it's an IM product, but it's not... you can't be all in their face like "you're fat"...

in IM you see it all the time - "you need this, i don;t - so f@#$ off if you don;t buy - i'm still eatin steak tonight"...

in fat loss you want to draw out the pain in a different way - be gentle and empathetic, not "in your face"...

take a look at Richard Simmons infomercials - he's the king of selling to the obese and drawing out the pain in a gentle but powerful way...

i recently did a couple of fat loss video sales letters - one of them is already live here:
Radical Fat Loss Blueprint

now i can;t take all the credit for that video - Benson is a great copywriter and I worked with his, Nate & Deiss's 3 hour webinar to create this - but that's a good example of how a fat loss story can be told to evoke the pain you are going after here...

you want to make them cry because they know that you understand their pain - not because you remind them of the bully who mocked them in high school...

also - just try reading this out loud - better yet, have a 12 year old try to read it out loud and you'll see how clunky it is...

anyways - my two cents...

--michael

[rapidscc]

@Doug,

Thank you for the insight and corrections, I'll actually use the above as an example on how to use triggers and hooks.

The $7 price was to demonstrate a very powerful hook. The irresistible offer

if you haven’t decided yet by that time, then forget it!

- this one is an example of scarcity. Will rewrite and change to a better one.

@michael

not to be a d1ck, but i totally disagree & think this will never convert

No worries michael, though I have to advice folks that a thought or an opinion is mainly based on a state of mind. You can think positively or negatively about one idea and you can even shift your thoughts anytime.

So What's the point?

In terms of conversions, it is a bit dangerous to base judgement on thoughts alone. It's the reason why split testing was invented.

Keep it coming guys.