Author Archives: Jodi Kaplan

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40 Emotional Triggers That Will Boost Your Sales

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Selling to businesses has some differences than selling to consumers. Usually, the lead time is longer, more people are involved in the decision-making, and generally (except for a house or a car) the investment is lower.

However, business customers are still people. And, people will respond to the same cues regardless of whether they are deciding to buy a software package or a lawnmower.

Victor Schwab (“Mail Order Strategy”) compiled the following list of 40 emotional triggers that influence decisions. It was written in 1956, but it’s still relevant.

Here’s the list of emotional triggers:

People want to gain:

  1. Health
  2. Popularity
  3. Praise from others
  4. Pride of accomplishment
  5. Self-confidence
  6. Time
  7. Improved appearance
  8. Comfort
  9. Advancement: social-business
  10. Money
  11. Security in old age
  12. Leisure
  13. Increased enjoyment
  14. Personal prestige

They want to save:

  1. Time
  2. Discomfort
  3. Risks
  4. Money
  5. Worry
  6. Embarrassment
  7. Work
  8. Doubts

They want to be:

  1. Good parents
  2. Creative
  3. Efficient
  4. Recognized authorities
  5. Up-to-date
  6. Gregarious
  7. “First” in things
  8. Sociable, hospitable
  9. Proud of their possessions
  10. Influential over others

They want to do:

  1. Express their personalities
  2. Satisfy their curiosity
  3. Appreciate beauty
  4. Win others’ affection
  5. Resist domination by others
  6. Emulate the admirable
  7. Acquire or collect things
  8. Improve themselves generally

Tapping into the right emotion (greed, fear, want) can take your message from just OK to truly gripping, and make a world of difference in the results you get.

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How is the Cable Company Like an Evil Witch?

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“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?”

When I turned on my TV the other day for my daily morning news fix, I got a cable company house channel  (channel 1) instead. This puzzled me because I never watch that channel, so I knew I hadn’t left the TV tuned to it. Curious, I changed the channel, waited a few minutes, turned the TV off, then turned it back on again. Back to channel 1.

Then I realized what was going on. The cable company is locked in a death match with satellite companies and phone companies offering TV services. They’re trying to counter the competition by pushing channel 1.

They’re running lots of commercials touting the fact that they have the channel and nobody else does. So, they’ve now programmed the cable box to automatically default to channel 1 when the TV goes on.

Trouble is (at least for me), I never watch channel 1. I have no idea if others do, but the point is I want to watch what I want to watch, not what the cable company chooses for me. Yes, I can easily change the channel, but why should I have to?

Like the witch in the story, the cable company is focusing only on what it wants, rather than what its customers want. Are you selling what’s good for you? Or what’s good for your customers? Are you differentiating yourselves with something your customers find valuable, or something they think is worthless?

Photo: dbking

The Truth About Internet Marketing

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Someone on LinkedIn said that Internet Marketing is “new”, “there’s never been anything like it.”  It’s true that there are lots of new tools, such as SEO, pay per click, social networking, e-mail, or even e-bay that weren’t available 20 years ago.

However, the basic principles of marketing haven’t changed, only the means and the speed.  Regardless of whether you’re using print or pixels, you still need to reach the right people.  If you sell custom car parts for racing enthusiasts, you have to reach out to people in that particular tribe.

You must then establish a conversation with them.  Talk  to them about their interests, their problems, and their enthusiasm for racing.  Show that you share that enthusiasm.  Gain their trust.

Then offer them something of interest (free newsletter with sources for custom paint jobs, new parts or tools on the market), a discount coupon, etc.

Finally, ask for action (join here, call this number).

Photo: web success diva

Is Social Networking Useless?

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social networkLast Thursday, Bob Bly asked his readers
whether they agreed with Kent Lewis, President of Anvil Media that social media is not an effective marketing tool. Mr. Lewis, who was interviewed by DM News, (3/2/09, p.10) stated that he saw social media networks as personal collaboration tools, rather than an information or research source. Commenting on this, Bly said that he’d tried Twitter and found it mostly a bunch of useless gab.

I agree that Twitter (and Facebook and etc.) can certainly be a giant waste of time, but there are opportunities there as well.

For example,

  • an airline sending tweets to passengers that their flight is delayed
  • a popular restaurant announcing that there are a few reservations available for that night (first tweet back, first served)
  • reporters tweeting queries to a service that broadcasts their queries (HARO)
  • a cable company using Twitter to communicate with customers having problems (and get them fixed)
  • a friend used it to get sponsors for a project
  • Tribes, which has not only connected people all over the world, but produced two e-books (group), inspired several more, plus blogs, and collaboration on real-world projects

What do you think? Waste of time? Or useful tool? Chime in!

Photo: luc legay

Is SEO the Answer to All Business Marketing?

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David Meerman Scott’s post yesterday about SEO and your crap filled site reminded me of a recent conversation I had. A client had just hired a new CEO, who was gung ho about SEO. He’d gotten good results at his previous job and was all excited about applying the same principles at his new company.

Sounds good? Well, it wasn’t. The trouble wasn’t lack of traffic. They had a well-known brand, and lots of visitors to the site. The problem was that the site was huge – hundreds and hundreds of pages. The content was hard to find. It took 8-10 pages to register for an event. You couldn’t use credit cards directly, you had to go through paypal (and leave the company’s site). It was confusing and took too much time.

The problem wasn’t an SEO issue, it was a usability issue. The site needed to be streamlined, updated, and re-tuned for the customer (not the company).

Face toward your customers, not toward yourself.

Danard Vincente