“Thanks so much for subscribing to our website! I want to help you be as successful as possible. To help me know how to help you, please reply to this email and tell me what your biggest struggle is. I can’t promise to reply to every email I receive, but I sure do read every one!”
How many of these emails have you received? If your inbox looks anything like mine, quite a lot!
And when people do reply to you, telling you about their biggest struggles, whether it be losing weight, finding love, starting a business, or getting their roses to grow in a hostile environment, you are hearing their concerns at a top level. This is what they want, intellectually.
But there is a lot more to it than that. You need to ask yourself…
What do my prospects really want?
What emotions do they want to experience? What emotions and feelings do they want to eliminate? THESE are the questions you should be asking yourself. And even though it is hard for your prospects to articulate it, this is what they are buying.
For example, how many times have you seen a car advertisement where you hardly even see the car? All you see is some fancy, good-looking couple driving through the countryside, hair flying, music blasting. When you see that commercial, do you really care what’s under the hood? Or how much legroom is in the back seat? No, you just want to be able to live life like they do!
Or at least, that is the idea behind those types of commercials. Even someone like me, who really doesn’t care what kind of car I drive, would aspire to be able to have that kind of freedom in my life.
So the car advertisement isn’t selling a car.
It’s selling FREEDOM!
Freedom isn’t a feature, and it’s not even a benefit. A benefit would be “having the ability to drive fast down uninhabited country roads, knowing that the car will handle all the turns really well.”
However, the benefit of THAT benefit, is that that kind of car, with that kind of handling (on that kind of uninhabited road), gives you FREEDOM. How else can you buy a feeling like that??
Not just selling a product
So the point is this: you aren’t just selling a product. You are selling how that product makes your prospect feel. You are selling how it will improve their life.
The key to remember is that there are always underlying emotional needs being addressed by the products in which we invest. It’s your job to identify what those underlying needs are.
— THESE are the questions you should be asking yourself! —
For instance, when someone invests in a retirement plan, they may say that they want to be able to provide for their family, which, of course, they do. But what they are really doing is investing in a feeling of security, knowing that they are all set for their future. When you don’t have that worry hanging over your head for the future, it makes it a lot easier to breathe today!
And if someone buys a home security system, yes, they are protecting their property. But the feeling of security they get, that feeling of being protected and guarded, knowing that they have done everything they can to protect their family, is the benefit of the benefit.
Sell the dream
When you write marketing copy, and you reach out to your prospects, always remember that you are not selling a product. You are selling a dream, a vision. A hope for a better life and a better future.
When you can really dig down deep to these core feelings and emotions, THEN you will have prospects lining up to become customers.
It’s your turn! When people buy your product, what is the core emotion they want to experience? Please share in the comments below!
This post is just a taste of what Todd and the MFA team shares with our private coaching clients. Would you like to be able to get direct feedback on your marketing funnel from Todd and the MFA team? Go here and grab your own private Funnel Optimization Call today!
