In Part 2 of this series, we learned the two most common reasons people buy. Now we’ll cover a few of the less popular reasons and discuss how we can use these switches together to help us make a sale.

Switch #3: To make life easier

With the “save money” switch, we talked about how someone might buy an oven so they can make their own food and save money by not having to eat out. This switch is kind of the opposite of that.

In this case, somebody might decide to eat out, even though it costs more, because he doesn’t want the hassle of preparing his own food. It’s easier to eat out.

You’ve probably heard the saying, “Life sucks, then you die.” I always like to add, “but not before paying taxes,” to the end of that, but that’s another story.

Life is full of hardships, which is why we spend so much money trying to make it easier.

Switch #4 is, “to gain comfort and lessen pain,” but it’s very closely related to #3, so I’m going to skip it.

Switch # 5: To be more popular

This switch is actually also very closely related to the next one, which is, “to attract a potential mate.”

Everybody wants to be loved. Just look at all the dating sites that are out there and the huge amounts of money they all are making. If your product or service can help somebody get the popularity they crave, then you’re well on your way to making the sale.

People buy iPods over any other MP3 player, even though they cost more and in some cases aren’t as feature rich, because it’s the hip thing to have. People buy Harley’s over other cruiser motorcycles because you are shunned if you don’t. Men buy fast cars, not for their practicality, but for their ability to attract women.

I think by this point, you’re starting to get the idea of how you can apply these switches to your product or service. For a quick lesson from the experts, watch a late-night infomercial and count the number of psychological switches they are attempting to flip.

A new pillow can make your life better by helping you sleep better, but what else does it do for you? Count the ways and find out.

Here’s a list of the top dozen reasons people buy. The more of them you incorporate into your marketing, the better chance you’ll have of making the sale.

1. Make money
2. Save money
3. Avoid effort and make life easier
4. Gain comfort and lessen pain (closely related to #3)
5. Gain praise and popularity
6. Attract or impress a potential mate
7. Curiosity
8. Protect or improve the lives of loved ones
9. Be in style and avoid criticism (closely related to #5)
10. Emulate others
11. Be individual (the opposite of #10)
12. Improve one’s reputation (again, related to #5)

Be wise in your marketing. A new pillow that uses the latest in sleep technology can potentially improve your life. But can it help you attract a mate? That would be quite a stretch, and saying that it does may simply insult and turn away potential customers.

Look for ways to implement the above switches into your marketing, but don’t go overboard.

So what do you think? Leave a comment and discuss the ways to improve conversions with influential advertising.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 9:36 pm and is filed under Online Marketing, Making the Sale. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.