Ten brilliantly effective persuasion techniques to market your business
It’s hugely useful to have a basic understanding of persuasion techniques that you can tap into when you're writing your marketing material.
Repeat Repeat Repeat
The first of these will be recognised by anyone who has studied psychology.
The art of effective repetition is not about – for example – using the recipient’s name over and over again but rather explaining the same thing in several different ways because if your target market doesn’t understand what you’re selling they won’t be buying!
Why should I?
Persuasion often requires a bridge, and this is where the word “because” comes into its own. Well if it’s good enough for L’Oréal…”Because you’re worth it”...
The reason for this is quite simple – when someone asks us to do something we like to be given a reason. How about trying out the word in your next e-shot?
Sometimes the word doesn’t actually need to be used – it can be inferred. For example sharing testimonials are effectively about saying “Use my services because people like you love them” or a deadline offer is about saying “Buy it by tonight, because you’ll save 20% if you do”
Be consistent
We don’t gain Brownie points (or work!) by appearing insubstantial or flighty, which is why branding is so key. And, by the way, that’s branding in terms of company personality and tone as well as in images and logo.
Social Proof
This has come into its own since the advent of social media with brand ambassadors and Mummy Bloggers. Indeed do we do anything without checking testimonials or recommendations these days? If you don’t then neither will your customers - so make sure you have a system in place to regularly gather feedback (See my blog post on Google My Business)
Go compare…
Could you use metaphors as a way of putting across something more clearly? I was recently complimented on my explanation that marketing is the accelerator pedal of your business. All my workshop attendees immediately understood that they had to keep up their marketing in order to move forward their company.
Sometimes this type of persuasion works better if you comparing apples to bananas! E.g. don’t compare the price of your one-to-one training with other trainers, compare it to the hourly rate your client will haemorrhage whilst they battle to learn something unaided.
Niggle and solve
This has to be done in an empathetic way – effectively it’s about how all marketing should be approached “Your problem, my solution”
Foresee the future
Spell out what might happen if your target market doesn’t take up your product or service. If you can back this up with case studies about similar clients even better!
Create a Tribe
We love being part of a group of like-minded people, so make sure you create an opportunity to build “your gang” this is the power of forums like Mumsnet and of Facebook groups.
Your tribe will be even happier if you're able to offer them something which is not available to the mere mortals who are not in your gang. This is a well-known device for encouraging people to sign up for newsletters.
One final thing, I love the expression “Your vibe is your tribe” this takes in the previous piece of advice about being consistent in your tone…
Overcome Objections
You should know your target market well enough to anticipate what their objections are likely to be. Make sure you address these – often a great place to do this is in an FAQ page where you can devise the questions around probable objections to tee up your well thought through answers!
Tell a story
This reminds me of another quote I love about being effective in a networking environment – “Facts tell, stories sell” . Cue your case studies, your survey results and your video sharing of client's experiences
I hope that has been helpful ( *)>