9 Ways to Discover the Hot Buttons That
Convince the Target Market to Buy Now
by Marcia Yudkin
When
marketing, you inevitably experience some
campaigns succeeding far beyond your
expectations while others hit without much
response at all. What makes the difference?
In many cases, it's whether or not you
appealed to the hot buttons of buyers - the
emotional needs, values and concerns that
convince people they simply have to spend
money on certain items.
Apart from
reading up on common motivational drives,
you can carry out a series of action steps
that sensitize you to observe such drives at
work in yourself, in others and most
especially in the population you are hoping
to sell to. Try these exercises.
1. To warm up
to the idea of emotional hot buttons, go to
your closet at home and pull out four items
of clothing you haven't worn in a year. Then
ask yourself: Why did I buy this? Why have I
kept it? Listen for wishes, hopes and fears
in your answers.
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Learn From the
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In 2013 and 2014, Marcia Yudkin
convened the most articulate and
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copywriting for an exchange of ideas
on writing copy that persuades
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Presenters included Peter Bowerman,
Nick Usborne, Shel Horowitz, Karon
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2. Find a marketing pitch of
yours that didn't work well and identify the
emotional needs it appealed to. Then look at one
that did persuade buyers and identify which
needs it targeted. Jot down any insights that
emerge.
3. Get a bunch of friends
together and open up the Yellow Pages to a
random page. Imagine that you had to compete
with those vendors with an offering that cost
twice as much as theirs. How would you persuade
customers to prefer doing business with you?
Repeat on another page. What did you learn about
emotional reasons for buying?
4. Attend an industry meeting
or conference and during the coffee breaks, ask
everyone what their biggest challenge or
obstacle is this year. Also ask your informants
what business issue has most kept them awake at
night over the years.
5. Create a free report
related to what you sell. Sign up for a Google
AdWords account, if you don't already have one.
Create at least three little text ads for your
report that appeal to different emotional needs.
Test these against each other to find out which
hot button reigns supreme in your market.
6. Once you've identified your
strongest text ad, create another version of it
for the same report that's somewhat more
rational and straight-laced, and yet another
version with more emotional hot sauce. Then test
these against each other to determine what level
of enthusiasm clicks most with your crowd.
7. Find or buy a small
notebook. Then tomorrow, throughout the day, pay
attention to all the ads that come your way. Jot
down the reasons to buy presented in each ad.
The day after tomorrow, scan through your list
for at least three fresh reasons to buy that
might make sense for your business.
8. Go to Trendhunter.com and
browse its lists and sublists of trend reports.
Phrases like "experiential eating," "hobbitats,"
"nerdy nuptials" and "pity journaling" will jolt
your creative thinking about motivators into
overdrive.
9. At a networking meeting or
any other business get-together, identify the
difference between people discussing something
they very much care about and those delivering
their information from habit. How did you tell
which was which? Research shows that people get
much more animated and engaged in reference to
the values, needs, beliefs, feelings and
experiences that truly drive buying behavior.
Copyright 2013 Marcia Yudkin. All rights reserved.
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