Psychology behind selling
The competent advertising man must understand psychology. The more he knows about it the better. He must learn that certain effects lead to certain reactions, and use that knowledge to increase results and avoid mistakes.
Human nature is perpetual. In most respects it is the same today as in the time of Caesar. So the principles of psychology are fixed and enduring. You will never need to unlearn what you learn about them.
We learn, for instance, that curiosity is one of the strongest human incentives. We employ it whenever we can. Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice were made successful largely through curiosity. “Grains puffed to 8 times the normal size.” “Foods shot from guns.” “125 million steam explosions caused in every kernel.” These foods were failures before that factor was discovered.
We learn that cheapness is not a strong appeal. Americans are extravagant. They want bargains but not cheapness. They want to feel that they can afford to eat and have and wear the best. Treat them as if they could not and they resent your attitude.
We learn that people judge largely by price. They are not experts. In the British National Gallery is a painting which is announced in a catalog to have cost $750,000. Most people at first pass it by at a glance.
Then later they get farther on in the catalog and learn what the painting cost. They return then and surround it. A department store advertised at one Easter time a $1,000 hat, and the floor could not hold the women who came to see it.
We often employ this factor in psychology. Perhaps we are advertising a valuable formula. To merely say that would not be impressive. So we state – as a fact – that we paid $100,000 for that formula. That statement when tried has won a wealth of respect.
Scientific Advertising – Headlines – II
Continuing from our last article on Writing headlines.
But people do not read ads for amusement. They don’t read ads which, at a glance, seem to offer nothing interesting. A double-page ad on women’s dresses will not gain a glance from a man. Nor will a shaving cream ad from a woman.
Always bear these facts in mind. People are hurried. The average person worth cultivating has too much to read. They skip three-fourths of the reading matter which they pay to get. They are not going to read your business talk unless you make it worth their while and let the headline show it.
People will not be bored in print. They may listen politely at a dinner table to boasts and personalities, life history, etc. But in print they choose their own companions, their own subjects. They want to be amused or benefited.
They want economy, beauty, labor savings, good things to eat and wear. There may be products which interest them more than anything else in the magazine. But they will never know it unless the headline or picture tells them.
The writer of this chapter spends far more time on headlines than on writing. He often spends hours on a single headline. Often scores of headlines are discarded before the right one is selected. For the entire return from an ad depends on attracting the right sort of readers. The best of salesmanship has no chance whatever unless we get a hearing.
The vast difference in headlines is shown by keyed returns which this book advocates. The identical ad run with various headlines differs tremendously in its returns. It is not uncommon for a change in headlines to multiply returns from five or ten times over.
So we compare headlines until we know what sort of appeal pays best. That differs in every line, of course.
The writer has before him keyed returns on nearly two thousand headlines used on a single product. The story in these ads are nearly identical. But the returns vary enormously, due to the headlines. So with every keyed return in our record appears the headlines that we used.
Thus we learn what type of headline has the most widespread appeal. The product has many uses. It fosters beauty. It prevents disease. It aides daintiness and cleanliness. We learn to exactness which quality most of our readers seek.
This does not mean we neglect the others. One sort of appeal may bring half the returns of another, yet be important enough to be profitable. We overlook no field that pays. But we know what proportion of our ads should, in the headline, attract any certain class.
For this same reason we employ a vast variety of ads. If we are using twenty magazines we may use twenty separate ads. This because circulation’s overlap, and because a considerable percentage of people are attracted by each of several forms of approach. We wish to reach them all.
On a soap, for instance, the headline “Keep Clean” might attract a very small percentage. It is to commonplace. So might the headline, “No animal fat.” People may not care much about that. The headline, “It floats” might prove interesting.
But a headline referring to beauty or complexion might attract many times as many. An automobile ad might refer in the headline to a good universal joint. It might fall flat, because so few buyers think of universal joints.
The same ad with a headline, “The Sportiest of Sport Bodies,” might out pull the other fifty to one.
This is enough to suggest the importance of headlines. Anyone who keys ads will be amazed at the difference. The appeals we like best will rarely prove best, because we do not know enough people to average up their desires. So we learn on each line by experiment.
But back of all lie fixed principles. You are presenting an ad to millions. Among them is a percentage, small or large, whom you hope to interest. Go after that percentage and try to strike the chord that responds. If you are advertising corsets, men and children don’t interest you. If you are advertising cigars, you have no use for non-smokers. Razors won’t attract women, rouge will not interest men.
Don’t think that those millions will read your ads to find out if your product interests. They will decide at a glance – by your headline or your pictures. Address the people you seek, and them only.
Writing Effective Press Releases
The word “Press Release” seems to scare most people to death. On top of that not many people take the time to even think of writing their own Press Release. We hope this brief article will help clear up some of the mysterys surrounding this simple form of marketing.
The first thing you have to remember is that a Press Release is a “news” item.
It needs to “inform” people, NOT sell them something. For example, you are reading this report because you want to learn something that will BENEFIT YOU.
You aren’t reading it just so you can buy something else. If money is the deriving force in your business – you won’t go too far. Your main goals should be in pleasing customers, providing them with a high-quality product and more than their money’s worth.
The trick is to do all this while still making money. People don’t care what mountains you had to climb, what seas you had to cross or what tribe of people you had to learn the ways of just to find a secret formula. Instead – they want to know WHAT the secret formula is.
The sales circulars you print and mail sell your product. A Press Release informs others about your product. Instead of your main objective being to sell the product and have the customer send in an order immediately, a Press Release informs the customer exactly how your product will benefit their lives.
This must be conveyed in the form of a “newsworthy” Press Release. If you have a sales circular to sell a product, you can easily turn it into a Press Release without much difficulty. It’s just a new marketing angle of
presenting your product to the public.
Here’s a great test for a real press release.
Since your final sales pitch is included in the last paragraph – read the Press Release aloud. Would it still
be worth reading WITHOUT your sales pitch? If so, it’s probably a Press Release.
Press Releases come in many forms due to the product you are writing about.
However, the basic rule of thumb still applies. If you’ve never wrote one before – it may be a little difficult. Don’t despair. Grab the latest daily newspaper and read some of their informational articles. Notice how each
article is written and pattern yours after the same format. After you do a few of them – you’ll be able to “get the picture.”
When your Press Release is written to your satisfaction, the proper way to submit it to a publisher is: Be sure and type it on a typewriter or computer. Standard format is double-spaced and not longer than two 8 1/2×11 pages. Be sure and put your name, address and page number at the top of each page.
Write the note: “For Immediate Release.” at the top. If you are only sending the press release to one publication – tell them it’s a “first run.”
To Submit your Press Release to many websites, you can use Press Equalizer. If you want to learn how to write effective press releases then check out Press Release fire.
My 5 Key points of designing website.
When it comes to your website, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its purpose. Here are seven important rules of thumb to observe to make sure your website performs well.
1) Do not use splash pages
Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They normally have a very beautiful image with words like “welcome” or “click here to enter”. In fact, they are just that — pretty vases with no real purpose. Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the “back” button! Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.
2) Do not use excessive banner advertisements
Even the least net savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements so you will be wasting valuable website real estate. Instead, provide more valueable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy.
3) Have a simple and clear navigation
You have to provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors don’t know how to navigate, they will leave your site.
4) Have a clear indication of where the user is
When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will want to make sure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don’t confuse your visitors because confusion means “abandon ship”!
5) Should have a content management system which provides RSS feeds.
RSS feeds will help you promote your website. Whenever you update your website, RSS feed let the whole world know about the updation. Its like Self-promotion on steroids. In a nutshell – you’re nuts NOT to use an RSS feed. The Internet is changing, just like everything else
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