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Copywriting Psychology – Sales Triggers

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In the last installment of this series, we discussed how finding the hidden psychological triggers that effect a person’s buying decisions can be used, by copywriters, to create sales copy that makes profits.

In this article, I’m going to introduce you to two basic concepts of psychological selling.  I consider these to be the two primary triggers that effect a person’s willingness and desire to purchase.

Most people are driven by two primary psychological states.  The first is fear, and the second is desire for something more, or better – a desire for gain.

These two states have been used to create two primary selling “positions” that most if not all sales copy works towards.  In other words, your sales copy needs to either eliminate a person’s “fear of loss”, or it has to convey a “promise of gain”.

These two, basic states – fear of loss, and, promise of gain – form the foundations on top of which nearly all sales copy is created.

In most cases, a piece of sales copy will chose one or the other.  In some cases, both are used together.  Either way, these two basic positions are the base triggers that people react to.

Consider any advertising you’ve seen over the last little while.  Whether it was a TV ad or an ad you saw on the Internet, heard on the radio, or read in a paper or magazine, think back to the basic promise that the ad was making to you.  Did it promise to keep you from losing something, or did it promise that you would gain something?

Here are some simple examples of Google ads that I’ve seen over the last while.  See if you can figure out which selling position they are taking?

Copywriting
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(Fear Of Loss, or, Promise Of Gain)

(Fear Of Loss, or, Promise Of Gain)

(Fear Of Loss, or, Promise Of Gain)

The first two are pretty straight forward examples of “promise of gain”.

The last one, which is most likely targeted at people who are experiencing a mortgage crisis,  I’d categorize as a “fear of loss” approach because, even though it’s making an implied promise that you’ll gain the knowledge of how to keep your home, the basic trigger is the fear of losing your home in the first place.

In each of these ads, the basic premise is either fear of loss, or promise of gain and, if we were to look at the copy of the rest of the campaigns that go along with these ads, we’d find that they build on one or both of those basic triggers.

So, how do you decide which position to take when you’re writing your copy?  That’s often not an easy answer to come up with, but here’s a basic guideline that I find helpful.

“All things being equal, the fear of loss is seen as a stronger trigger than the promise of gain”

So, should all of your sales copy be driving at fear of loss?  Absolutely not.  Promise of gain is a very effective motivator as well.  However, if you’re in doubt as to which approach to take, keep in mind that people are more likely to pay attention to something that eases their fear.

The best thing to do is to write towards both selling positions and see which one fits best with the product or service you’re promoting.

If it has amazing benefits that truly will make a person’s life better, then promise of gain might be your best approach.

If there’s a limited time that it will be available, then you might want to work on fear of loss.

Again, try both and see which works best.

One thing that you want to keep in mind as you learn the skills of copywriting is that there are no hard and fast rules.  Your best teacher will be experience, so don’t be afraid to try different approaches and test the results of each.  You’ll learn more this way, by actually applying the theories and examining real-life results, than you will by reading any number of articles.

To close out this installment, here’s an exercise for you.

Let’s say that I’m offering a cruise vacation to a Carribean resort.  Write two short ads, no more than 100 words, that promote this cruise.  In one take the fear of loss approach.  In the second, work on promise of gain.  I’ll leave it to you to come up with details of the trip.

If you want to submit your ads, in the form of comments, I’d be happy to critique them for you.  Just remember that they’ll be left on this blog for all to see.  Don’t let that stop you.  You need to get used to people seeing your work and, remember, there’s no one right answer here.  We learn best by doing, so, just do it!

See you next time.

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