Psychology Behind Advertising

Today’s magic announcement

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“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
— Arthur C. Clarke

Maybe you heard today’s news:

This year’s Nobel Prize for chemistry is going to UC Berkeley professor Jennifer Doudna for her 2011 discovery of the CRISPR/Cas9 mechanism.

From what I understand, CRISPR is a set of “genetic scissors” that allow you to turn an elephant into a mouse, and a mouse into a louse. In other words, it’s pure magic.

I don’t doubt CRISPR works or that it might one day cure HIV, Huntington’s disease, or sickle cell anemia. But the fact is, I have no idea how it works. On a deep level, I never will. And yet, I’m incredibly excited to read about it, and marvel at the sorcery that is possible today.

My point in bringing this up is something I heard copywriter Parris Lampropoulos say once:

We all believe in magic in one form or another.

Maybe it’s your brand of religion… maybe it’s 34th-century science like CRISPR… maybe it’s karma or vibrations or Wicca or whatever.

But one way or another, human beings want magic in their lives.

They don’t want mundane solutions that improve things a reasonable amount. They want magic — a button to push or a wand to wave or a pill to swallow — which will achieve the impossible, and thrill them in the process.

You might think that’s a tall order. But it’s a good target to shoot for, if you’re in the business of selling people what they want.

Speaking of which:

If you’re looking to be thrilled and surprised, every day, then you might like my email newsletter. To make it magically appear in your inbox, simply click here and fill out the form which pops up out of nowhere.

Try not to enjoy reading this post

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Hypnotist Mike Mandel says that there is a magic power word, which you can use to get people to fail. What’s more, if you find yourself using this word to describe your own actions, expect that you will fail also.

What is this magic word?

I’ll tell you but be careful. The word is “try.”

Mike has all sorts of technical explanations for the destructive power of try. But my best evidence (and maybe yours, if you give it a try) is just by looking inside my own brain software. Whenever I found myself saying, “I’ll give it a try,” or “I’ll try my best,” deep down, I found I was expecting to fail. And often, fail I did.

I’m telling you this for two reasons:

First, it might be worth kicking the word “try” out of your own vocabulary, down to the curb with the rest of the head trash. It might take some time to find other words that will express what you want to say. But when you do, you will probably find the effort was worth it.

Second, if you write copy, then you can use the word “try” to get other people to fail. Why would you want to do such a cruel thing? Well, a classic example is the three-pronged road at the end of so many sales letters:

“So here are your options now. Option one is you can go back to what you were doing before, pulling your hair out and picking at your skin while your unsolved problem mounts and your family looks at you with growing suspicion each passing day.

“​​Option two is you take the breakthrough system I’ve just described to you and TRY to implement it yourself. But you know how that’s going to turn out, don’t you?

“​​And then finally, you’ve got option three, which is to accept the risk-free offer I’m making you today. And then just try not to shout with joy when your problem is finally solved…”

Finally, I’d like to announce that I write a daily email newsletter. Try not to sign up for it. But if you find you aren’t successful, then click here and follow the instructions.

Challenging the “easy” norm in direct response marketing

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“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.”
— Apocryphal Ernest Shackleton ad

I had a miserable hike up a mountain yesterday.

Right at the start, I had to scramble up steep boulders. I was soon out of breath. Then the wind picked up, and whipped my ears until my head hurt. Then the fog rolled in, and it got cold and damp. Large frost crystals appeared on the occasional plants. And yet I, along with a growing mass of other people around me, trudged up in silence to the top of the mountain.

At the top, all that waited for me was a tiny and steamy hut, where they served hot tea. It was great, and totally worth it.

My point being:

A good number of human beings want a chance to prove themselves, to test their strength, even to suffer in order to achieve some goal.

And yet direct response marketing is all about making things easy and push-button, and appealing to the greedy sloth in people.

Is there space for a little noble sado-masochism in the slothful world of marketing?

Maybe.

​​I remember reading how marketer Sean D’Souza accidentally made his article-writing course much harder than he first intended it to be. I forget the details, but he mistakenly told his course attendants to write much more, in a much shorter period of time, than what was reasonable.

People taking the course suffered… lost sleep… got tense and nervous.

​​And when it was all over, they raved about the course, and became evangelists for it. Sean now has a waiting list for the course, which he markets as being famously difficult.

Direct marketing industry norms say that you have to provide easier, cheaper, faster solutions. But as marketer Dan Kennedy says, norms reinforce average.

​​So maybe, if you are looking for a market position that gets you above-average results, then promising your clients and customers struggle, expense, and many weeks and months of it, well, maybe it’s not a crazy idea to try.

Speaking of which:

Men (and women) wanted to subscribe to my daily email newsletter. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours spent reading the emails I send each day. Marketing lessons doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success. If interested, apply here.

Taking your reader on a rewarding flight to nowhere

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This July, two Taiwanese airlines, Eva Air and StarLux, started offering flights to nowhere.

This means you could schlep to the airport, have the discomfort of going through security, waiting to board, cramming yourself onto the plane with a bunch of other junkies… only to have the airplane take off, circle around for a couple hours, and land in the exact same damn spot from whence you took off.

The point is that people are so starved for novelty, excitement, and newness that they are willing to pay to be uncomfortable and to pretend to travel somewhere.

Fact is, novelty and uncertainty are one of a few fundamental human needs. And most of us aren’t getting our fill.

Which is why, sadly enough, your sales copy can outperform others, if only it takes your reader on a tiny journey, all while he doesn’t even move from his La-Z Boy. Or as A-list copywriter Jim Rutz put it:

“You must surprise the reader at the outset and at every turn of the copy.”

But perhaps you are wondering about the mechanics of taking your reader on an rewarding flight to nowhere… or exactly what Jim means by surprising the reader at every turn.

If that’s the case, here’s a surprise for you:

I’ve written about this in detail in Commandment VII of my new book, 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters. If you’d like to find out more about this book, or even get a copy for yourself, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

The emotional manipulation of covid-sniffing dogs

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I read an article today about covid-sniffing dogs at airports in Finland.

Right away, I started fantasizing about being sniffed by some professional beagles and Jack Russels as we roll around the baggage claim area. But just as I was about to start checking flights to Helsinki, my bubble brast.

It turns out you don’t get to play with the dogs as they sniff you for virus load.

Instead, airport personnel take a swab of your scent and then take it to an office, where, I imagine, a very serious dog sits behind a desk piled with tons of other swabs. “Just put it over there,” the serious dog says, “I’ll take care of it in a second.”

Reading this entire article was quite the emotional rollercoaster, and it reminded me I want to get a dog.

But before I lose you, I want to say there is a copywriting lesson here.

I heard Internet marketer Ken McCarthy say once that you want to paint a beautiful picture of success for your prospect, and then throw a wrench into it. First you get the reader to already feel and imagine the glorious outcome… and then you disappoint him, and show him why he’s not there yet. (Because of course, the only way to really get to that glorious outcome is through your offer.)

And vice versa.

Lots of times it makes more sense to glorify pain and shame instead of success.

​​So you paint a picture that makes your reader feel just lousy. But if you do this, you immediately have to hold out an olive branch to him, in the form of an offer (or at least a promise) that can that can take that pain and shame away.

In both cases, it’s emotional contrast that does the manipulation — I mean, persuasion. So the next time you’re writing a story, or trying to close a sale, give ’em the old push & pull, good cop/bad kawp, covid-sniffing dogs routine. Though your prospects won’t admit it, it’s the way they want to be sold.

But be careful. Do this wrong and you can piss off your prospects, and lose them forever. To make sure that never happens to you, sign up for my daily marketing and copywriting newsletter.

Selling fake diamond rings because Christmas

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My client in the ecommerce space is now selling fake diamond rings.

So I just wrote some Christmas-focused Facebook video ads for these fabulous pieces of jewelry, targeting the women who buy fake diamond rings for themselves (yes, it’s not cheap husbands and boyfriends who are the target audience here).

Will this “Treat yourself because it’s Christmas” campaign work?

I believe it’s got a good shot. Here’s why.

You probably know the famous “copy machine” experiments from Harvard University.

They showed you can get people to do your bidding if you just give them a “because” and some kind of reason why. The reason why doesn’t even have to be any good.

Of course, these experiments are not just about the magical power of the word “because.” They are also about fundamental human psychology, which also applies to making sales.

Think of your prospect’s desire like a volcano, lying dormant at first. Your copy — “a gorgeous ring with an optically flawless stone” — gets the magma boiling and bubbling under the surface, inside the volcano.

But all that hot desire still needs to be released.

So you start to drill different tiny tunnels in the cone of the volcano. Some of these tunnels don’t do anything. But finally you drill the right tiny tunnel… and the volcano wall ruptures. All that boiling lava comes pouring out and scorching everything in its way.

In less geological terms, it’s not enough to just stir up tons of desire. You also have to give people a way to justify acting on that desire. There are lots of ways to make the volcano finally explode… but an occasion, even if it really makes no sense, is a good one to try.

Speaking of which:

I write a daily email newsletter about marketing and persuasion. Sign up for it here. You know… because Christmas.

Fast and Furry-ous choices for surprising readers

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Picture this scene from The Fast and the Furry-ous, the first Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoon:

Wile E. Coyote draws road markers on the ground leading to a cliff. Then he paints a tunnel on the cliff, and hides.

​​MEEP MEEP. The Road Runner comes rushing up, and runs straight through the painted-on tunnel.

​​Wile E. Coyote comes out of hiding, puzzled. ​​He takes a step back, gets a running start – and slams himself into the painted-on cliff. Of course there’s no tunnel there. And just as he’s staggering back to his feet, MEEP MEEP, the Road Runner comes rushing back out of the tunnel, and runs over Coyote again.

Screenwriter William Goldman once wrote the following:

“In a sense, a screenplay, whether a romance or a detective story, is a series of surprises. We detonate these as we go along. But for a surprise to be valid, we must first set the ground rules, indicate expectations.”

Like a screenplay, a sales letter is also a series of surprises. And if you want to know how to detonate those surprises in your sales letters, MEEP MEEP, it’s all there in that scene from the Fast and the Furry-ous. You’ve got two choices. Can you see them?

You might expect me to tell you. But no, I will subvert those expectations. You’re on your own for this one.

But for other tunnels and other copywriting lessons, you might like to get my daily email newsletter. Simply send $0 to the ACME company, and you will get something in the mail very soon.

The one weird trick to making easy sales

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Today I listened to an interview with a marketing dynamo called Kim Walsh Phillips. I’d never even heard of her before today, but I was very impressed.

The long of it is, Kim ran a kind of virtual event, which she peopled by running ads to cold Facebook traffic. The result was revenues of $250k on $6k ad spend — a 40x return.

I won’t go through the details of how Kim did this. For one thing, it’s available inside this month’s Steal Our Winners, and is worth your $4. For another, the whole system was so complex that I’m sure I’d miss 90% of the important stuff.

Which brings me to something Kim said during this interview. She said people will often ask her some version of, “What was the one thing that made the most impact?”

To which she answers, “There were 17.”

The fact is, the human brain loves simplicity, and it loves extremes. When I write copy, I always have to catch myself and beat this fact into my own head.

Because people don’t want systems, nuanced answers, or anything that smacks of work. They want tactics, opportunities, and the “one weird trick.”

Maybe your market is more grown up than this. But you’d be surprised.

​​It takes time and discipline to train your customers and prospects to stop being opportunity seekers… to accept the complex reality behind any kind of success… and to not backslide as soon as you turn your back.

​​But that sounds like work to me. And who the hell wants that?

Here’s something that won’t take any work at all:

I write a daily email newsletter. In other words, you just sit there, and my emails arrive to your inbox, to entertain you and show you new marketing opportunities. And all you have to do is press this magic button.

“I’ve made a huge mistake”

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I loved the original run of the TV show Arrested Development, in large part because I identified with the no-good character of Gob Bluth.

If you’ve never seen the show, I can’t do it justice here. So let me just say Gob is an irresponsible, childish, struggling stage magician.

He doesn’t think too far ahead and he consistently jumps into problem situations, such as making unintended marriage proposals or voluntarily going to prison. This sets him up for his catchphrase:

“I’ve made a huge mistake.”

Like I said, it might not be funny here in this post, but it’s funny in the show. And it’s funny because I, and I guess many other people, know that sinking feeling.

It happens when you’re here on your grassy but dull knoll… looking at that other grassy but sparkling knoll over there.

Your desire builds until it becomes unbearable. So you charge down your grassy knoll and up the other grassy knoll. And once you reach the top, all sweaty and winded, you notice this new grassy knoll is no better, and is probably worse, than where you started.

“I’ve made a huge mistake.”

Thing is, this pre-existing condition in the human mind — that anything else must be better than what you’ve currently got — can be exploited for sales.

Don’t take my word for it. It’s an idea that many successful marketers have expressed in slightly different ways.

Todd Brown advises not selling improvement on what your prospect already has, but a new solution.

Rich Schefren’s koan for this is, “Different is better than better.”

And Dan Kenendy says, “Sell escape, and not improvement.”

But doesn’t that mean setting your prospect up for a huge mistake? It certainly can. But if you are more forward-thinking than Gob Bluth, then you will water and prune your grassy knoll… so when your prospect arrives, all sweaty and winded, he will see the grass truly is greener there.

And now for something completely different:

I write a daily email newsletter. It can help you escape the dull and mundane workday for a few minutes. Click here to sign up.

The “knitted eyebrows” copywriting technique

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If you ever wished you had the nerve to engage in more risk-seeking behaviors such as unprotected sex or high-stakes roulette, here’s some good news:

Scientists have found a way to help you out.

According to a study published by researchers at the University of Ohio earlier this summer, a 1,000-mg dose of acetaminophen — ie. Tylenol, Panadol, etc. — not only reduced physical pain such as headaches, but also increased risk-seeking behaviors in a batch of 545 college students.

So the next time you find yourself nervously turning away from a suspect sexual partner, or walking away from the big bets table at the Casino in Monte Carlo, just pop a couple Tylenol and you will be good to go.

You might think I’m being foolish or trivial, and perhaps you’re right. But there is a point I’m trying to get to, if only my fingers would follow my brain.

I’ve read somewhere, and I think the Tylenol study above supports it, that we humans have grafted modern brain processes onto old physical hardware.

In other words, when we have the intellectual or emotional experience of, say, trusting somebody, this is connected to physical sensation of warmth in our bodies. The link goes both ways — trust inspires warmth, and warmth inspires trust. (Again, some scientists have run experiments to prove this.)

Similarly, other human emotions such as fear, disgust, anger, and joy, can and do trigger — and are triggered by — physical cues.

“So why is this relevant to me,” I hear you asking as your eyes roll to the back of your head.

Well, if you’re in the business of writing some frightening or infuriating or energizing sales copy, your first move might be to reach for adjectives. Like “frightening.” Or “infuriating.” But that’s for kids.

What grownup copywriters do is pay attention to their own bodies.

​​Dry swallowing… gritted teeth… a fully expanded chest… these are just some of the hundreds of physical cues you can include in your copy, and play your readers’ emotions like a keyboard. ​​Or if you want them to focus and read on, just talk to them about their eyebrows knitting together.

Maybe your face is forming into a frown right now. But maybe you’re nodding along after your eyebrows have shot up. If your reaction is the latter, you might like to sign up for my daily email newsletter.