Friday, April 19th, 2024
The mystery of commerce is, why do people buy things. Why consumers decide to spend their hard earned money, and make a purchase. This hopefully your product, from your Affiliate Marketing blog. Do you know the reasons why they decided to spend it with you? Learn what contributes to buyer motivation, if you’re wanting to sell more.
Three of the most common phrases when it comes to the language of sales letters, blog posts and advertisements, is Buy Now, Order Now, and Call Now.
Copywriters insist that the use of the phrase ?Buy Now? will instantly increase their sales, which at times is true.
But the majority won’t buy, just because they were told to do so.
They do so because they wanted the darn product, and they wanted it now. They felt an overwhelming sense of urgency, to get it.
So what makes people want something right now, rather than later. What can we do to help them feel more urgency, by pushing their panic button.
What also needs to be understood, is why those people who need the product right now, resist and don’t buy it immediately, even though they’ve got money in hand?
The easy answer is hesitation and inaction, is always easier than making a decision and taking action.
In other words, given the opportunity, most people will put off making a buying decision by procrastinating.
3 Reasons Why People Don’t Buy
1. Familiarity vs Uncertainty – Most decisions or actions involve a change of some kind, and it’s usually easier to deal with the status quo (the current state) rather than the new effects of a change. We prefer the comfort of familiarity, rather than the uncertainty of change.
2. Decisions And Action Requires Energy – What many do is avoid the physical and mental energy that it takes to make a decision, by weighing out the pros and cons of their options, and negativity usually wins out.
3. The Opinion Or Impact On Others – What we consider is the impact of our decisions that we make, based on how it may potentially affect others. ?How will other people view me, think of me, if I purchased this product? What impact will this have??
The Consequences Of Putting Things Off
Imagine if you had a magical power that every marketer wants… and that’s the ability to read the thoughts of your potential customer.
This at the very moment your buyers mouse hovers over your “Buy Now” button, and they’re contemplating whether to buy or not.
You’d then be able to discover the precise reason why they didn’t buy, and even discern the exact moment you started to lose them.
Susan Wants Your Product
Now let’s imagine you’re able to do that with your next potential customer ? we’ll call her Susan.
Susan comes to your blog.
She reads your sales copy or product review with great interest and thinks, ?Hey, this sounds exactly like what I need.?
She gets excited about the idea of buying what you have to offer, as she calculates her budget.
She checks the price and thinks, ?Yes, I can afford this!? She hovers her mouse over to the “Order Now Button.”
It sounds like everything is in place for a sale, right?
Ah, not quite.
She hesitates, as something in her mind trips, which stops her from clicking the order button.
As she pauses to consider the purchase she’s about to make, her mind drifts to something that she was thinking about doing earlier in the day.
She tries to recall “why” she needed to look into that other issue.
Then it comes to her, that it was for the vacation she booked last month.
She then remembers the promise that she made to her friend, to check the location of the hotel they’ll be staying at.
So she switches browser tabs, and visits the vacation website to get the details.
She calls up her friend to tell her the name and location of the hotel ? and after talking for a while about the vacation, they make plans to go out for a drink later that evening.
She no longer has the time to buy your “thing” right now, so she bookmarks the web address of your site, making a mental note to come back to it tomorrow.
Over the next few days she thinks about your product ? it’s still something she’d like to buy.
She gets distracted, and never quite finds the time to go back to your blog and order.
Other things then begin making demands on her money, such as the bills, entertainment, shopping, and things she needs for her vacation.
Susan never does buy your product. as It becomes a vague memory. The “bookmark” gets buried.
You can’t read Susan’s mind, so you never knew what she went through, let alone she even existed.
Susan Almost Bought
To you, she’s simply just another statistic on your web analytics program.
She’s one of the 98 out of 100 visitors to your blog who didn’t buy, since your product or service has a 2% conversion rate.
Each of those 98 visitors who didn’t buy will have their own story, something similar to Susan’s.
So what went wrong? What was missing?
The answer, the reason in Susan’s case, was she didn’t have a strong sense of urgency to buy.
She didn’t feel enough urge to buy immediately, so she didn’t, even though on your blog, you clearly told her to ?Buy Now!?
How To Create Urgency
You as a copywriter, knows that your sales copy needs to build some type of desire with a Call to Action, such as a “Buy Now ” button.
But that’s not enough to compel them to take action. They need to feel an overwhelming sense of urgency.
Creating this panic is where most sales letters fail miserably.
Two Issues About Desire And Urgency
1. Urgency Without Prior Desire Is Pointless
What most marketers and copywriters will do is make this classic mistake:
They make the “limited” nature of their offer the prime focus of their copy, without first building a desire, a hunger for it.
The simple truth being: If a potential customer isn’t interested and doesn’t want your widget, why should they care that your 50% discount, lasts until this Friday?
Make sure that the desire is there first, to make the urgency effective.
2. Desire Without Urgency Becomes Risky
You can take your potential customer to the peak of desire, want, as you did with Susan.
But if you don’t provide compelling reasons for them to act immediately, at that precise moment, they’ll hesitate and put off their decision.
This hesitation leads to a loss of desire, that you worked so hard to build.
Things or events are constantly competing for the prospect’s time, money and attention. Other issues present themselves, life gets in the way.
Whatever the reason is, they don’t come back and buy.
So you not only need to build desire for your product, you also need to create a sense of overwhelming urgency.
The question you’re probably asking at this point is, ?How do I build this urgency??
The 3 Urgency Accelerators
1. Give them painful reasons to buy right now rather than later, what they will potentially lose
2. Explain the consequences that they’ll feel and experience, if they don’t buy right now
3. Create an offer that compels them to take action ASAP, rather than later
The Need To Create Urgency
On a graph, place the buyers demands on their money, where the “present” is today or the near future.
Place the present to the left of the graph, and place the “future” to the right of the graph.
Plot on the graph, all of the things that they need or want to buy or pay for, in the present or the future.
For example, food and drink, the mortgage payment and living expenses, will be on the left side of the graph, on the ?present? side.
These are the set things that they need to pay for either right now, or very soon.
To the right, the future, are things such as a vacation, a new car, a new washing machine and so on.
The further to the right an item is, the more distant the purchase is perceived to be. It’s less of a urgent need in the prospect’s mind.
The role of your sales copy, is to move your product from the right to the left of the graph, so your buyer perceives it not only as a need, but something they need right now.
Your copy can do this, by providing them with reasons to buy now, by explaining the consequences if they don’t.
Reasons To Buy Now
Your copy should answer questions such as:
• So What Is Buyer Motivation What will your product do for them?
• So What Is Buyer Motivation What will they get out of it?
• So What Is Buyer Motivation What problems will it solve?
• What pain points will it relieve?
• What feelings will it give them?
In other words, it needs to explain the benefits.
However, it’s important to understand that benefits are reasons to buy at some time, but they are not necessarily reasons to buy right now.
Your copy must staple in the potential customers mind, with reasons to buy right now.
So what you need to explain is:
• What are the advantages of buying right now instead of later?
• What problems will be solved immediately by buying now?
• What kind of relief or pleasure will they experience from they taking action immediately?
For example, let’s say you’re marketing an Affiliate Marketing Training program, such as the Affiliorama program.
You can explain all of the features and the benefits of the program, but you’re not giving them reasons to buy now.
What you need, is to list why they need this program right now, rather than later, such as:
• Setting up an online Affiliate Marketing business takes time. So even if you’re not going to be ready until next month, it helps to know everything in advance, so you can plan ahead
• You can then get things off on the right foot immediately, from the day that you start
• The faster that you start, the quicker you can be turning a profit (by studying the information from the training beforehand)
• You can be lining up potential customers or set up your blog even before you start ? in fact, right away
• You can use the resources in the program, to research, evaluate the competition and find customers immediately, even before you start
• You can determine right now if your niche is likely to be profitable or not, before you spend any money on the marketing
These are just some ideas. You would want to phrase them much more persuasively, when incorporating them into your sales copy.
Hopefully, you can see that they’re not simply benefits, but reasons to buy right now, rather than later.
Consequences Of Not Buying Now
The strategy for most people when it comes to their life, including their buying decisions, is to move towards pleasure and away from pain.
So along with supplying reasons to buy now, your copy needs to explain the pain and the consequences, if they don’t buy now.
• What will they lose out on, if they don’t buy right away?
• What problems might get worse for them if they don’t buy right now?
• What pain will they experience, or continue to experience down the road?
• What will be the ultimate outcome, of continuing down the same path for the foreseeable future?
Going back to the previous Affiliorama training example, what are the consequences of not buying now?
Give Reasons To Buy Right Now
• You need to implement the tests right now in Lesson X, to find out whether your niche is a moneymaker or not. If you don’t, it could cost you a lot of money
• 90% of new online Affiliate Marketing businesses fail within the first year if you don’t take this training. It’s often because you don’t do the things in Lesson Y before starting up, which you need to learn right now
• Most new online Affiliate Marketing businesses initially start off with a small loss, so if you don’t start now, you may sustain additional losses you didn’t need to
• The longer that you wait to get started, the longer it will take to make a profit, or you may even abandon your idea ? which is why you need to get this now
• (The biggest hurdle for most people is the fear of the unknown), which is the reason why you need this program right now, so you’ll be fully aware of everything you need to know. If you don’t, you will be swimming with the sharks
Once again, these are just vague outlines of the consequences. You would want to phrase them much more persuasively, in your sales copy.
Spending Money Is Stressful
For many, the decision to spend money and buy something is a pain. After all, it means sacrificing a portion of their hard earned money.
So the job of you the copywriter, is to get the prospect to feel the pain of NOT buying, is going to be greater than the pain of buying.
Ideally, we want them to take pleasure in the act of buying!
Unfamiliarity Breeds Hesitation
What most people prefer is familiarity, routine, which is why some people will put up with the pain that they’re currently experiencing.
Familiarity is comfortable, while uncertainty of the unknown is scary.
This explains our quirky human behavior, especially when it comes making a buying decision and shelling out cash.
If those prospects on your blog is not familiar with something such your new product, then they are uncertain and skeptical about it.
It costs too much, it won’t work, my wife/husband won’t like it…
So what needs to be eliminated, is the unfamiliarity.
You need to make a potential customer feel comfortable with what you have to offer, right before they buy.
How To Make People Feel Comfortable
• Get the product (or at least part of it) into their hands somehow
• If you’re selling digital goods, allow them to try it for a limited period of time, so they become familiar with it
• If you’re selling an information product, give them a part of the product (maybe a chapter or two) for free
• If you sell a membership such as Affilorama, give them a free 7 or 14 day trial
If you’re selling software, you can use videos and screenshots to show them how it works, so once they buy, it isn’t completely new to them.
Use Analogies And Social Proof
You need to explain every feature and benefit of your product, in a way that your potential customers can completely understand.
If you think there might be a problem with this, consider using an analogy, and think of something that it’s similar to, so they could relate.
For example, instead of selling A WordPress Self-hosted Web Service, get them to think of it as having their own virtual assistant, that takes care of all their technical issues.
Get others who previously bought the product or membership, to recommend it, by providing testimonials or reviews.
Word of mouth, unbiased user opinion, are an awfully important part of the buying decision.
We often buy things based on recommendations, from those that we trust, or who are authority figures.
Create Urgency
Your sales page or blog, can easily become blunt and boring, if you fail to provide some type of painful loss they’ll experience, while making sure it creates urgency.
Bring your reader to the present moment, and force them to feel the hurt, angst or loss they’ll feel right now, unless they “Buy Right Now!”
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