I sell ice in the winter, I sell fire in hell
I am a hustler baby, I’ll sell water to a well
– You Don’t Know by Jay-Z

You might marvel at the adverts during the Superbowl but on the whole advertising sucks.

To prove my point…

When was the last time you saw an advert which convinced you to actually buy something?

That question probably took you a long time to answer or may have left you completely stumped and you might say that’s not the point of advertising but, I’m going to tell you that it is.

The fundamental goal of advertising is to make money.

The reason why advertising today sucks is because; most people in advertising don’t understand what makes people buy. Advertisers/Advertising Agencies like to win awards for the most creative adverts (as highlighted by my Superbowl point) but if they’re not persuading and influencing people to buy… all it does is waste thousands of their client’s money.

Right now, you’re probably thinking that I’m being a harsh on the advertisers and ad agencies and I’d agree as there are some who know how to make people buy.

“There are very few men of genius in advertising agencies. But we need all we can find. Almost without exception they are disagreeable. Don’t destroy them. They lay golden eggs.”
- David Ogilvy

The advertising agencies and advertisers, who do know how to make people buy, use these tactics every single day. These ad agencies and advertisers implement tactics to persuade and influence consumers to buy, by exploiting consumer psychology.

You may think that sounds evil but personally I believe that it isn’t.

Exploiting consumer psychology to improve your ad effectiveness isn’t evil because, it’s teaching you consumer’s wants and desires and how they act in the way that they do. Once you are able to harness those things, you can understand how to meet their needs and persuade more of them to buy.

Humans are selfish. There I said it!

We only care about what the product or service will do for me.

<sarcasm>WOW! Nick you’ve revealed humans are selfish… this is a great post</sarcasm>

Well… it might seem like common sense but look around you.  Turn your TV on and watch a couple of ads or even look in your e-mail inbox and look at some of those ads.  What sounds like common sense, most advertisers and advertising agencies haven’t seemed to notice that all people care about is what’s in it for them!

Now to understand what people want, we need to look at Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs – I’m not going to fully go into them but what I will say is… those needs result in more sales than the combined wants and desires of everything else.

There’s a reason, Dave McClure mentions in ‘How to Pitch a VC (aka Startup Viagra: How to Give a VC a Hard-On)’  that Great Companies do 1+ of 3 things – Get you Laid, Get you Paid or Get you Made.

It isn’t a coincidence that they are on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

The most effective way to exploit, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is to create an advert which consumers can understand your product or service visually in their mind as this will help to create the desire for them to buy your product/service!

Now that I have provided you with an overview we need to briefly look at the core aspects of core consumer psychology in order to get inside people’s minds so we can use them to influence and persuade them buy. These aspects are:

• Highlight The Fear Factor
  – People are scared of missing out or something happening to them!
• Boost People’s Ego
• Highlight That You’re Trustworthy
  - Provide Your Telephone Number etc.
• Exploit People’s Laziness
  - Do the hard work, so they don’t have to!
• Exploit People’s Feeling Of Wanting To Belong
  - We all want to have friends and belong.
• Exploit People’s Familiarity Factor
  - Repeat yourself so people become familiar with you!
• If You Can’t Sell The Benefit. Sell A Secondary One.
  - Look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
  Example: Buying Flowers, Chocolates for your partner = Possible secondary benefit for you!
• Break It Down Into Steps.
  - Don’t complicate things. Keep it simple. Break it down if necessary.
• Sell A Better Life.
• Don’t Try To Change People’s Beliefs. Change Their Importance.
  - We’re a fickle bunch, we don’t like change.
• Ask A Rhetorical Question!
• Know When To Use Examples Or Statistics

Now I’ve helped you to understand some aspects of consumer psychology and the importance of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs we can now focus on the quote at the start of this post:

I sell ice in the winter, I sell fire in hell
I am a hustler baby, I’ll sell water to a well
– You Don’t Know by Jay-Z

Being able to sell is one of the most important things you will ever learn and there is no need to reinvent the wheel when it has already been invented!

What I mean by this is why go out and spend thousands of dollars experimenting on advertising, when the experimenting has already been done for you?

So what are some useful tips and techniques which will influence and persuade people to buy?

Tip #1: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Remember when I said earlier that the fundamental goal of advertising is to make money?
Well in order to make money we need to get people to act and in order to that, we have to ensure that the advert is really simple.

Your advert has to be so simple that, literally a 5 year old can understand it. This also highlights the ‘break it down into steps’ I mentioned in the consumer psychology aspects and if you have to break it down into steps, then do it.

In fact, this point is so important if you don’t do this then you shouldn’t bother.

In order to ensure your advert simple… Dr. Rudolph Flesch comes to the rescue with the Flesch Reading Ease Formula!

However, since humans are lazy and most of us have Microsoft Word, you can use Microsoft Word to calculate it, instead of doing it by hand. To do so:

• Click the Microsoft Office Button
• Then going to Word Options and selecting Proofing.
• Once you are there make sure ‘Check grammar with spelling’ is selected and select ‘show readability statistics’ underneath it.

Once you have done this, check your advert for spelling and then the readability score will show afterwards.

Tip #2: Have a Unique Selling Point

If you can’t be distinguished from your competition then, consumers don’t have a reason to choose or prefer you.

You want people to choose your product.

Tip #3: Your Number 1 Benefit Has To Be In The Headline

“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”
- David Ogilvy

There’s a reason the media uses link bait articles, they want to entice you to read the article. The same should be done on your advert/website by placing your number 1 benefit in the headline but remember Tip #1… Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Ensure you know the difference between a feature and a benefit.

A feature is an attributes whereas a benefit, is what you get from those attributes.

A good headline will highlight a person’s interest, provide them news, make them curious or exploit laziness.

Tip #4: Once You’ve Highlighted Your Number 1 Benefit, Highlight More!

Benefits encourage people to buy because, don’t forget when you are reading an advert you are thinking (even subconsciously thinking) what’s in it for me? And the more benefits there are, the more they are getting ready to buy!

Tip #5: Bring In The Fear Factor

Looking at the consumer psychology points again, people are scared of missing out. So make sure you have call to actions which exploit the fear factor e.g. “Offer Expires April 12th” or “First 100 People Only” etc

Tip #6: Make Sure You Stand Out

Don’t follow the crowd because, everyone is doing it.

Do something to stand out.

For instance, if you have a small advert… don’t try and pack too much information into it rather create an unusual shape etc so it highlights people’s attention.

Tip #7: Be Specific But Don’t Be Boring!

“The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.”
- David Ogilvy

Don’t place your business card in your ad!

Tip #8: Use The Ogilvy Layout Principle

See: http://50.58.3.78/2008/08/28/ogilvy-on-advertising-layout-and-writing-tips/

Tip #9: Take Advantage Of Questions

If you’re trying to sell a product/service say “What Does It Do?”

What Happens?

People continue to read your advert/website so you can highlight more benefits and persuade and influence them to buy!

As highlighted by you reading What Happens?

Tip #10: Use AIDA

Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.

Build up a rapport with consumers, so you get their attention. Highlight the benefits to get them interested and desiring your product before, you bring in your call to action to make them buy.

Tip #11: Use Social Proof

Not everyone is an early-adopter. People love testimonials and social proof.

Leverage Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook etc.

Tip #12: It’s All About The Faces

Dave McClure says it best: http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2009/05/the-faces-the-faces-its-all-about-the-fking-faces-or-the-avatars-icons.html

Tip #13: Use Visual Objectives

People can relate to things easier when it’s visual.

As highlighted earlier – this will help to create the desire for them to buy your product/service!

Tip #14: Make It Easy For People To Act… Then Ask Them To

It doesn’t guarantee that they will… but if you make it easy for people to do something then they most likely will.

This means keeping your website and as clutter free!

Have big call to action buttons so users know exactly what to do. Remove the guess work.

Tip #15: Be Regarded As An Authority

Tip #16: When Advertising… Use Pictures!

A picture really is worth 1,000 words. The seven best types of photos to use are:

• Children and Babies
• Mothers and Babies
• A Group of Adults
• Animals
• Food
• Celebrities
• Sporting Scenes/Events

Remember though pictures are only effective in influencing when there is a clear connection between the brand and the message you are trying to portray!

Tip #17: Long Copy Beats Short Copy

Yes, I hate those long copy sites but they work!

If you’re thinking right now, “No-one reads long copy… I better keep it short!” don’t.

Remember in Tip #7 I mentioned ‘don’t be boring’…
well copy can never be too long, it can only be too boring!

Why?

Well you don’t go into a car dealership and the salesman says “hi” and immediately hands you a form to pay for the car.

That same logic applies to long and short copy and long copy immediately has the upper hand as; it can contain more reasons to justify the purchase which means increasing the likelihood of the person buying.

So you pile in the benefits (tip #3 and #4), you show pictures (tip #13 and #16) to help them visualise the product and show the social proof (tip #11) and back it up with a warranty etc to highlight the fear factor (tip #5).

By the time you’ve done all of that you’ve wrote a convincing and lengthy sales piece!

Tip #18: Test Your Offers!

Just like you A/B test your website… you should test your offers too!

If people don’t respond it doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t want what you’re selling!

Remember you’re finding product/market fit… you don’t tell the market, it tells you!

Tip #19: Don’t Be Afraid To Ask People

If you’re not sure what people want, don’t be afraid… survey them!

You can spend thousands of dollars on advertising trying to guess what people want… or you can ask them and then build your product/ads around their answers!

Tip #20: Coupons!

Everyone loves coupons!

Why?

Well… generally people think of coupons you think of savings.
This mean that it’s a good buy, it means you’re being a savvy shopper

Tip #21: Repeat Your Way To Success!

Every time adverts run on the television… advertisers have the minimal amount of your attention.

They’re aware of this which not only highlights the exploiting of the familiarity point I mentioned earlier but also because they know that the more you see something the more you are likely to buy!

Tip #22: Offer A Longer Guarantee!

If the same product is being sold in Shop 1 for £599 with a 2 year guarantee or its being sold in Shop 2 for £599 with a 5 year guarantee, which shop do you choose? Shop 2 of course!

Offering a longer guarantee shows you believe in your product, and increases the likelihood that consumers will too which increases their chances of buying!

Tip #23: Use Psychological Pricing Strategies

For instance: £39.99 seems so much cheaper than £40… I don’t mean by £0.01!

Tip #24: Wrap Adverts In White!

Instead of using all your advertising space to stuff as many words as you can, wrap the advert in white. It works.

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Remember the information above should be read at face value, I’m just providing you with information that I have used and have seen others use as well. You are free to use this information as much as you are free to completely discard it and disagree with me. However, I hope that the information above or even some of it has helped you to understand and think about how to apply it so, that you too can use it to influence and persuade more people to buy your product or service!

Why Advertising Sucks & Tips To Ensure Your Ads Don’t! by Nicholas James. You can also follow me on Twitter.

Hello! by Nicholas James. You can also follow me on Twitter.