Psychological Marketing Blunders Most People Make

By Rodney Brooks, on February 14th, 2007

Contained within this article are 3 psychological marketing tactics which have the power to totally transform almost anyone’s business…
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Have you ever sent out an “advertisement,” and much to your disappointment, received much less of a response than you had hoped for?

Perhaps a little crash course in marketing psychology is in order.

You see, there are several mistakes most people make due to misunderstanding psychology, which result in their ads simply not working.

What is “marketing,” anyway? Here’s a neat way to think about it…

Marketing is actually programming peoples’ brains with your words!

That might sound a little bit harsh, but here’s what I mean.

When you write an advertisement, a web page, an email, or a sales letter, the real reason you are choosing the words you’re choosing is because you want to influence
your reader’s state of mind.

Specifically, most people want to write something that will put the reader’s mind into a state which is “ready to buy” — or “ready to sign up.”

Now, the key idea here is that what you are trying to do is use your words to get your readers to think something.

If your marketing isn’t achieving your desired result, this can literally only mean one thing:

Your words are not causing your readers’ minds to be in the state that you thought they would!

But how could that be?

You wrote out an advertisement so carefully. It even looks like all those other ones out there.

Doesn’t matter. It didn’t work.

So, how do you get your readers to think what you want, then?

Understanding psychology is the key. Because, if you know how brains work, then you’ll really know what to write to influence them the way you want.

Of course, the field of psychology is huge — you can get a Ph.D. in it. But, here are 3 psychological tips you can use to your advantage.

Be warned: Some of them may seem counterintuitive to you. But, remember! Maybe you need to try something counterintuitive.

After all, the techniques you thought were intuitive haven’t worked as well as you wanted, right?

If they had, then you probably wouldn’t have read this article!

TIP #1: At all costs, avoid looking like an advertisement.

In this day and age, when people see something that they know is an advertisement, they immediately tune it out.

For proof of this, just look at your own behavior.

Would you spend your free time reading ads?

Probably not.

An advertisement is usually classified as something whose sole purpose is to sell something.

So, the best way to avoid looking like this is to actually give people some real information, for free.

This way, what you wrote won’t seem like an ad, because it actually isn’t one!

People will read it for your interesting info, and then when it’s time to talk about what you’re selling, they’ll really listen, too.

Try it.

TIP #2: At all costs, avoid looking like everyone else.

Another thing which people completely tune out is things which look just like everyone else’s.

It’s a shame — we see so many people nowadays advertising their sites in the *exact* same way.

YOU WON’T BELIEVE THIS!
$$$$$$ MAKE $10,000 FAST!
THIS IS THE REAL DEAL, IT’S INCREDIBLE!
etc…

Nobody pays attention to things like this anymore.

Make sure you don’t look like anyone else, and you’ll stand out.

You HAVE to stand out in order to succeed in business.

Combine this with Tip #1 to come up with headlines and email subject lines which really communicate something interesting and meaningful.

Remember, you can bait people in to read your ad with headlines and subject lines which convey something people actually want to read, and then later you can still sell them your product or service!

TIP #3: At all costs, avoid making huge promise you know you can’t keep. Don’t hype.

So many people nowadays make huge claims in their marketing; like if you sign up for a certain site it will make you $10,000 per week while you sleep.

This sort of thing is obviously not true, and everyone knows it, even you!

So, when you do things like this it sets off major red flags in peoples’ heads, and they stop reading.

Another big one is promising people that a certain website is the “best” or the “biggest,” etc., when it really isn’t.

Of course, maybe I could send out an email about Google saying that it’s the “most powerful site” out there, but people are tired of hearing all this hype about every little site.

You might even believe that you just found the “best site to come out in the last 10 years,” but so many people *have* worn out this promise that it holds no weight anymore (see Tip #2).

This one can seem counterintuitive, since you might think that you *should* say great things about your website or product to get people to want it.

The problem is, this just isn’t how psychology works.

Instead, you must give people real information so that they actually pay attention, look different from everyone else, and be draw people in more subtly.

Let your actual website or product make them say “wow.”

And if you’re afraid that your actual website or product won’t make them say “wow,” so you need to hype it up in your marketing, then maybe you need to re-evaluate, and figure out how to make whatever you’re selling powerful enough.

Good luck!

- The DesktopLightning.com Marketing Team