Do you want to attract more sales from your website?
Learn the Secret Language of Influence
When a new prospect comes to me for digital marketing services, quite often they are pleased with the current level of traffic they get to their websites but if they’re not, then I can usually find a way to fix that for them.
However, one of the most common questions they ask is, how can they turn more visitors to their website into becoming paying clients? Or in other words, ‘How to turn browsers into buyers?’
Faced with that question on numerous occasions, I’ve decided to compile a list of 10 tips that cover the first four stages on the hierarchy of marketing needs (see graphic). Each of the tips will have a positive impact individually but when applied synergistically, will increase your chance of converting more browsers into buyers exponentially. The fifth stage of my graphic will be covered in a future topic.
So let’s take a deeper look at how you can shape and feed your marketing content with powerful Subliminals, subtle pre-suppositions and predicates to massively impact your audience to take your call to action.
1. Striking a rapport is all-important in the trust-building process, but before you can do that you first need to know, who you are looking to strike a rapport with. Or, put another way, who and what makes your ideal prospect or your market if you will?
There is no exact science to this but what I do is imagine what my ideal prospect would look like. Are they male or female, how old are they and what kind of home do they live in? Do they own a business, do they have a family…? Try to create a virtual profile with as much information as you can imagine such as; their social standing, education, location, career, hobbies and interests and so on…You will also have your own experience from past and current clients to help form a base reference point to start with.
2 Once you have a clear reference point or profile of your ideal prospect and the demographic they belong to, go ahead and delve deeper by using a ‘free to use’ analytics tool - Audience Insights (see tutorial here) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDbnYMhbTBY into understanding the common interests, aspirations, concerns and traits of your target demographic. You will learn so much from this exercise and gain valuable insights, which will help you learn to communicate much more effectively towards meeting your audience on their path of travel.
Take this knowledge and infuse your web copy, blog posts, emails and videos with references to the wider interests or concerns that are likely to apply to a large proportion of your demographic. Nothing builds rapport more quickly than showing an interest in what interests or concerns are expressed by your prospects. Remember the saying? ‘People like people - like themselves!’
3. Next, open up a word document or similar and draw up a list of the features your offering provides and then match those features up with the benefits they will undoubtedly gain.
The aim here is to relate or empathise with your target markets’ most pressing needs, wants, concerns, desires, worries, or problems. Remember, it’s the ‘benefits’ that motivate people to take action and buy - not the features!
A lot of people are only really interested in the features of a product or service if they are comparing like for like or to justify their buying decision in the eyes of others.
4. Now you should be ready to craft or rework any existing web or other marketing copy content and aim it with laser-like precision directly at your chosen audience.
Always start with a strong headline that in no uncertain terms will tell your target market exactly what they can expect from your service.
5. Make your headline short and use an analyser to score your creation for overall effectiveness. Here is one I use - https://coschedule.com/headline-analyzer
6. Always fire your big guns first! This means stating the most powerful benefit or promise you are making in the very first sentence of your content. So even if they only skim-read the rest of your copy you’ve at least fed in your strongest benefit right from the outset.
Ensure your page or other content includes sub-headings to break your copy into smaller chunks which makes it easier to read. Also, highlight your subheadings in bold to make them stand out.
By doing this you create a secondary reading path which is proven to help increase memory retention and indelibly ingrain your key message into their subconscious. This also benefits time-poor speed readers who want their information in a hurry or on the go.
Add bullet points as reinforcers and start them with a verb. Action words or directives will help motivate prospects toward taking action.
7. Try and feed the body of your copy content with action-orientated bullet points and headlines that focus on ‘away from’ and ‘towards’ motivation types. Addressing the needs of both will ensure you don’t leave anybody out!
8. Use a ‘yes set’ to claim unconscious micro-commitments along the way.
For example; “I am sure that you like so many other people in your situation will look forward to a positive (outcome whatever that may be) to your particular needs/problem right now…” or words along similar lines.
Repeat similar pre-suppositions for example; “ Don’t be too surprised at how easy you find it” or, “Before you choose which (service) you’d like, I’d like you to show you even more of the benefits you will gain…”
9. Use words and phrases known to connect with the prime predicates that visual, auditory and kinaesthetic (VAK) people use such as; look, see, visualise, listen, hear, say, shout, sing, feel, understand, know, gut feeling, instinct etc.
We all lean towards predicates at either a larger or a lesser degree. The challenge is because we don’t know which predicates are most dominant in our readers, we need to try and include as many VAKs from above. If you do, you won’t go too far wrong.
10. Consider the hierarchy of needs as defined by Maslow.
The graphic I’ve used in this piece was inspired by Maslow's hierarchy of needs which is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five (or eight) tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid.
If you can write your copy content that addresses at least three of the primary needs as defined by Maslow for your audience, then you will have gone a long way towards subtly influencing the rate of your conversions of browsers into buyers.
In summary:
1. To craft effective copy seek first to understand before being understood. This is where research into your market is so important. Once understood, apply carefully chosen words and use appropriate images to reinforce your message and close the gap between you and your prospects. Remember it is always about them and their needs.
2. We are here to make the process of buying easy for our prospects and to help them make buying decisions from a well-informed state of being - both conscious and unconscious.
3. We are not here to convince anybody about how marvelous we are or how wonderful our service is. All that matters is we address the pressing needs and wants of our target audience.
Our perception of what is right for them is just that, a perception!
But by working from as deep an understanding as possible of their frame of reference (seeing the world as they see it) will help us deliver our message as clearly and as effectively as possible and without recourse to subversive sales methods as used by snake oil salesmen or smoke and mirrors!
Following reading this, you may want to revisit your home page and think about whether your content is fully aligned with your perceived needs or wants of your target audience.
Or, you may decide to hand over the task to a well seasoned and experienced copywriter who specialises in sales psychology and copywriting to sharpen up your content.
For more information on how to use powerful NLP techniques in sales psychology to get the best return on your marketing efforts and elevate your understanding of effective communication go here…
https://blueskymultimedia.co.uk/excel-in-sales-psychology/
Bio update:
Starting in 2006 and developing user-friendly websites optimised for local search results, videos to encourage interest and engagement and targeted copywriting is what I believed to be fundamental to achieving success online.
I still hold to those fundamentals today but as Internet marketing is constantly evolving so too must Bluesky Multimedia.
To that aim, I now additionally offer consultancy services to businesses who want to focus on the opportunities within their local markets and who may want help to develop their strategic plans.
Website development, explainer videos and content marketing services are all still available as too is a new and growing resource centre available on my website.
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