How to Be More Than Just Interesting

Stand OutAs you might have noticed in recent blogs, I’ve been talking about some of the actual aspects of business rather than the mind of the millionaire side. The concepts of both the tactics of business and the psychological prerequisites can’t be summed up in a few pages of blogging.

However, your feedback has been great as usual. I’m thrilled to see some of you exchanging questions and ideas on these really complex subjects, so I thought I’d keep it going by focusing on marketing a little bit more—something that’s so easy to know is a necessary thing to get right, but not always so easy to execute effectively.

Last week we looked at making clear, concise statements in a marketing message. To go into some more detail, there are four basic elements that make a message highly effective: attention, interest, desire, and action. If you cover those four elements, you’ll build success more than most others.

For now let’s focus on interest because gaining a prospective customer’s interest will play a huge part in the other three elements. Interest has to come at the beginning of the message. If you don’t hook them immediately after you’ve got their attention, they’re gone.

So what gets people’s interest? That one’s easy enough: pleasure and pain. No matter what we’re doing in life, it has to do with either finding ways to increase pleasure or avoid pain. These are mind-based motivators with some emotional elements attached as well.

A pleasure-based opening for a marketing message is actually very simple. You’re capturing interest based on a positive benefit. For example: “Get ripped fast!” The message: get in shape. The benefit: it can happen quickly.

You definitely want to point out benefits, but research shows that messages about how to avoid pain have a much more profound effect on sales than the pleasurable benefits of your product or service. Pain-based marketing can triple a business’s income. Pain-based messages identify a problem and then offer remedies. It’s the problem-solution opening.

There are three types of problem-solution openings:

  1. You-based
  2. Me-based
  3. Them- or People-based problem

An example of the You-based opening: Do you have [fill in the blank] problems? What you’re implying in just a few words is that if the prospective customer had been looking, they’d have already found a solution by now. Your solution could be just that more appealing.

The Me-Based opening tells your own story or that of your client’s. Telling the story of how I went from one failed business to another, then becoming a millionaire adds credibility—“I’ve been where you are.”

 

The Them-based problem-solution creates an instant line of connection whereby you ask the prospective customer a question and they can identify with it immediately, kind of like Seinfeld doing a stand-up about common things that everybody can identify with yet may not think about too often. For example: “You know how so many people today are stressed about their retirement savings? Well there’s an amazing informational product out there that’s helping thousands of people right now…”

As an exercise, write five openings for a marketing message: pleasure-based; pain-avoidance-based; You-based; Me-based story; Their problem (“You know how …?”).  One great place to start is with your headlines—because if you can get your reader to notice you via your headline, you’re success rate of capturing their attention to actually read your message skyrockets.

Here’s a great resource to help you become a master at crafting headlines: https://www.copyblogger.com/magnetic-headlines/

Anyone can come up with dozens of these messages, but your challenge is to be more than just interesting. Be absolutely convincing. Be creative, effective, productive, and then be rich!

Tell me your thoughts.  Have you had great success with crafting messages that work?  Let us all know your strategies.  Have you struggled in this area?  Share your challenges here and let our online community support you and give you ideas to move you in the right direction.