If you have studied copy writing and advertising, then you have probably heard about the experiment with the line for the copier and giving reasons for cutting in line.  In case you haven’t I will paraphrase it.

It is from a book about persuasion (I forget which one).  In the experiment the researchers tried to cut in the line to make copies at the school Xerox machine.  The first time they simply asked someone if they could cut them in line.  Around 15-20% of people allowed this.  The next time they asked, they gave a reason.   “Can I cut you, BECAUSE I am late for class and I have to have this copy?”  This time the result was much better, something like 92% of people allowed the person to cut.

Now the researchers figured that the people allowed the cut because of the logical appeal, so to prove it they tried a line similar to this, with a non-sense reason: “May I cut in line, BECAUSE I really need to use the copier?”  Surprisingly, almost the same number of people allowed the cut, about 88%.  The conclusion is that people simply need a reason (no matter how illogical) to do something.  When it comes to marketing, BECAUSE is much more magical than PLEASE.

This principal is key in good copy writing.  If you say that you normally sell an item for $500.00 but for a limited time you are selling it for only $35.00, then you’d better give a reason, or it’s not going to fly.  Use any crazy reason and you will have better results than no reason, like “I need more testimonials that it works,” or “My brother bet me I couldn’t sell 1000 copies by the end of the year.”

It is Christmas Eve as I write this, and that reminds me of a great reason for a sale: holidays.  “For our special Christmas sale, you can get everything for 20% off.  Offer expires December 25!”  See there, we have created urgency and provided a reason for the sale, all by using the holiday.  Aren’t the holidays great?

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If you are marketing a new product, or one that nobody has heard of, you have to create interest in the product and make it stand out from the crowd. Usually you’ve got a headline in which to capture attention, so using the right words is very critical.

Most Internet marketers suck at writing good headlines. Check out advertisements on Google and you’ll see words like “amazing”, “incredible”, “best,” “easiest,” and “fastest.” They seem like good words, but since we know that we are getting a biased opinion from a company trying to sell us their junk, these words have no power. “Free” was once a good word, but now everyone knows that free stuff is usually a free trial, so it has lost its power.

Here is my list of the top 10 words that still capture attention (and I think always will.) Litter these words around in your advertisements for new products, and watch your click-through rate take a huge jump.

10. Limited. Why is it that we want stuff that no one else can get? Try: “Limited offer - only 200 copies are being sold in this special market test.”

9. New. Or “Never before seen.” Everybody wants the latest thing. “Try the NEW cleaner from the makers of Super Clean.”

8. Any percentage. I am not sure why percentages work so well, but they are powerful. “Boost your vertical leap over 80% or your money back.”

7. Revolutionary. I think this is such a strong word that people come check out your product just to see if it really is revolutionary or if you were exaggerating. “The revolutionary new system that is changing affiliate marketing forever.”

6. Best-selling. Or “popular,” or “hot.” If everyone else is doing it, then it must be good. “The best-selling new system to instantly boost your traffic.”

5. Groundbreaking. This is sort of like revolutionary, people will want to know if the product is actually breaking new ground. “Our groundbreaking new classified advertising software will…”

4. Any dollar amount. When you give an exact dollar amount, it makes it sound sure and scientific. It even works on lower dollar amounts. “Make an extra $50.00 per week completing surveys on the Internet.” Or, “How a geek made $32,000 in 2 months running classified ads.”

3. Banned. Or “illegal” or “black-market,” or “black-hat.” These are very good keywords! “The poker software that has been explicitly banned by 3 Internet Casinos.”

2. Controversial. Man, if I can think of one reason that the product in question is controversial, I am dropping this bad boy. Everybody wants controversial stuff! “The controversial new system that allows you to STEAL traffic from the super-affiliates!”

1. Secret. It’s still the best word even though it is incredibly overused. Try to find a sales letter without the word secret in boldface somewhere (and for good reason, it sells!) “The double secret tactics that allowed a high-school dropout to make a million dollars in 2 years with NO investment.”

And that’s it, the 10 Best Words to Create Instant Interest. Use these words in your ads liberally, because they really work!

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Mirroring is a technique used by hypnotists and NLP practitioners to create rapport very quickly with clients. The technique was developed by Milton Erikson, the father of modern hypnosis, and basically involves the practitioner trying to mirror the client’s actions.

If a client was slouching in his chair, Erikson would subtly slouch himself. If the client used certain grammatical nuances, Erikson would do the same. Milton would mirror how the client sat, spoke, moved his hands, made facial expression, tapped his feet, etc. The clients wouldn’t consciously notice what he was doing, but it created instant rapport, as they subconsciously came to the conclusion that Erikson was a normal person just like them.

This same technique can be used to create rapport in advertising. Using less formal writing makes it seem as though you are just talking to the person. If you are trying to tell your reader that your product beats another in a test, write something like “Cleano kicks Cleanclean’s butt in every test,” instead of “The evidence presented by the research is statistically undeniable, Cleano is vastly superior to Cleanclean.”

Also, tell the reader that you are just like them! Use phrases like “3 years ago, I was just like you. I wanted to get into X, but I didn’t have a clue how to get started.” After you create rapport, they will feel very comfortable hitting the buy button. advertisments  sds

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One technique that is central to the field of NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) is the use of a story within a story (within another story, sometimes.) Richard Bandler, one of the founders of NLP, uses this technique quite a lot (and explains it) in the book The Adventures of Anybody.

Basically the idea is you tell a story, and within it, one of the characters tells a story. (or they read a story, or see a movie about the story, etc.) This technique can distract the conscious mind that is constantly remembering the fact that they are reading an advertisement, and allow the inner story to more effectively communicate with the subconscious.

Here is an example sales story within a story:

I rarely do face-to-face meetings with my clients, I am sort of a digital-age person, so when I received an email from a customer saying he would like to fly into my hometown and meet me, I nearly turned him down. But, when he insisted that he did not want coaching or to start any kind of joint venture, that he simply wanted to buy me dinner at the nicest restaurant in town, I decided to take the appointment.

I wasn’t ready for what he had to tell me. You see, Martin lost his wife at the age of 39 to an aggressive form of Cancer. He was suddenly left with two small children, an inadequate income, and a huge stack of both medical and funeral bills. In the middle of the most desperate time of his life, he was forced to figure out how to get his children to and from school and daycare, work longer hours to pay the bills, and take care of all the little chores that his wife had always done. He knew that he couldn’t do it for long.

Then Martin stumbled across the Niche Marketing System. He told me that the system changed his life in unbelievable ways. He used the techniques to build a website for cancer widowers where he could write about his experiences and share with others in the forums. The writing and sharing, he told me, has been the best medicine for hundreds of his members all trying to heal the grief that they all share.

Martin told me that if this healing were all he ever received from creating the website, then it was well worth the effort. But Martin had built the website per the specifications detailed in the Niche Marketing System. Within a month of building the website, he was making $100.00 per day from advertising. He was able to pay off his bills and spend more time with the children.

As he promoted the site further, he eventually increased his revenue from this website alone to over $250.00 a day! Since then he has used the exact same formula to create other niche websites that have allowed Martin to quit his job and raise his family in the way he likes. Martin had flown half-way across the country just to tell me thanks for creating the Niche Marketing System.

I was so touched by Martin’s story (I’ll admit it, I was crying by the end) that I decided that for the next week, I am going to offer the “Martin Bonus.” Everyone who buys NMS will receive a detailed account of every step Martin took to achieve his success. I am talking about a DAY-BY DAY account of everything he did, you can use it to create a community exactly like Martin’s in your Niche of choice.

….Etc …etc. Create urgency and close the sale.

I have just started using this type of story in my real sales letters, and haven’t had time to really see how effective they are.  I do think they get the reader deeper into the story and have a lot of potential.  Try it out and let me know how it works for you.

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One cool way I’ve found to draw attention to advertisements on a page is by using the “pop-out effect.” Basically, when we see a gradient with a much lighter color at the top transitioning into a darker color at the bottom, it appears to “pop” out at us. If the gradient is darker on top, it appears to sink away from us.

Through millions of years of evolution, our brains have come to the conclusion that the light (sun) is up, and shadows are down. As part of Windows 3.0, Susan Kare with Microsoft developed a button with a light bar at the top and left, and a dark bar at the bottom and right. This 3-d effect has been copied by every operating system since then, because it gives an immediate clue as to where we are supposed to click (and everyone says Microsoft is the copycat!)

I have experimented with this effect and was surprised to find that even when I cheated by making it look like the light was coming from below ( I created a gradient background, with light coming from below), objects lit from above still had the greater pop-out effect.

Check out this picture. In figure B, notice that the light source appears to be coming from below, but the objects lit from below still don’t pop-out very well. Figure A makes it obvious that the light is coming from above, but the objects don’t pop-out any better than they do on a flat background. The hard-coded mechanism is more powerful.

A study of this effect found that people can find items that are colored to pop-out faster on a page. Our eyes seem to jump quickly to the popped out things. This is probably another evolutionary defense mechanism as we subconsciously give more importance to 3-d objects than we do to flat backgrounds.

Using a light on top, dark on bottom gradient background can cause the eye to jump to an advertisement. I use this type of gradient quite a lot for advertisement backgrounds, and even though it doesn’t really look 3-d in a rectangle, it captures attention more and produces better results than a flat background.

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It is always exciting for me to launch a new site, no matter the content. It becomes a journey to tweak and refine the site until it becomes something I am truly proud of. It is especially true of this blog, a place to talk about what I like most (and am best at), advertising.

I have found that most traditional advertising agencies are slow to adapt to the changing nature of the Internet, and it leaves a lot of room for the little guys (read me) to discover new ways to market and be on the cutting edge. I like it here on the edge, and I love trying new strategies.

My training in psychology, hypnosis, and NLP have given me a unique perspective into the minds of consumers, and my skills in computer programming allow me to conduct very advanced experiments in effectiveness (I have a B.S. in Computer Science). I would like to share my tools and strategies I use here on this blog to benefit other Internet marketers, and hopefully get some feedback.

I hope that you find yourself interested in the Richer Thinking blog and add a bookmark.  Thanks for checking it out.

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