Daniel Levis’ latest ‘Total Package’ article is titled “The Secret Obsession That Keeps Us
Buying and Buying and Buying”. [Copywriting Article]


Daniel Levis’ latest ‘Total Package’ article:

The Secret Obsession That Keeps Us
Buying and Buying and Buying

Dear Web Business-Builder,

Behind every human action lurks a concealed craving for an emotional-nectar prized above all others.

… Wars are waged over it.

… Miraculous discoveries and wondrous achievements are the result of it.

… Relationships of all kinds live and die by it.

… Billions in products and services move on it.

Masquerading as critical thought … hiding behind reason … it drives our every move.

Imagine the power available to you as a marketer if you could bottle such a thing. And use it as a carrot ““ or a stick.

Of course, the emotional nectar I am referring to is a sense of self-worth, value, and importance.

Rodney Dangerfield built his entire career around the fact that none of us have enough.

People identified with him when he said things like:

“My mother never breast fed me. She told me she only liked me as a friend.”

“My father carried around the picture of the kid who came with his wallet.”

“When I played in the sandbox, the cat kept trying to cover me up.”

It’s true. We are all totally obsessed with anything that makes us feel more significant … respected … and valued. The desire to experience these intoxicating feelings motivates us more than anything else.

It’s your job as a marketer to look at the products and services you sell and discover the connection.

Ultimately, it’s also your job to build up your prospect’s self-esteem through the words you use to persuade. You do this by empathizing with him. And by validating his existing feelings and beliefs.

It may be useful ““ even necessary ““ at times, to seek to momentarily diminish your prospect’s self-esteem by focusing him on his pain, but you must rescue him well before the close if you are to create a successful promotion.

You are not selling things. You are not even selling results. You are selling that feeling of self-worth.

For proof, consider this split test I ran over the weekend.

I was endorsing an info-marketing course by Doug Savage. So I’m sitting there at my computer trying to figure out what to write.

“Why might people want this information” I thought? “To make money from home, of course” … so I wrote:

Version A:

Recently I had the pleasure of meeting a truly extraordinary info-marketing success story …

His name is Doug Savage.

Doug is just a regular guy who not so long ago was driving a cab for a living.

Today, Doug works just a few hours a day from home and earns over $400,000 a year.

His unusual story is proof positive that anyone with a little drive and determination can break free from economic bondage to create a lifestyle made to order.

Now, I have the beginning of a third person story. My goal is to get the person reading to identify with Doug. The tacit message is: “Hey, if a taxi driver can do this, why not me?”

I paused and looked at what I had written. And I asked myself, “What does this mean to a person’s self-worth?” After thinking a moment, I added the copy in red.

Version B:

Recently I had the pleasure of meeting a truly extraordinary info-marketing success story …

His name is Doug Savage.

Doug is just a regular guy who not so long ago was driving a cab for a living.

As a cabbie, he didn’t make much money, and people didn’t give him much respect or appreciation. Some barely acknowledged him.

Today, Doug works just a few hours a day from home and earns over $400,000 a year.

And barely a day goes by he doesn’t get a letter, fax, or e-mail from someone expressing profound gratitude for the positive impact he’s had on their life.

His unusual story is proof positive that anyone with a little drive and determination can break free from economic bondage to create a lifestyle made to order ““ filled to the brim with wealth and personal satisfaction.

There was more to the endorsement of course, but besides this red text, both versions were identical.

Here are the results:

Version A = 543 clicks

Version B = 740 clicks

So it’s clear. Bringing the promise of enhanced self-worth to the equation can give you a nice little lift.

Granted, it is much easier to write copy that promises tangible features, advantages, and results from a product. You can simply explain what it is, how it works, and what it does for the prospect in an exciting way.

But you can’t just come out and say to someone, “Hey, feeling insignificant? Buy BRAND X and your troubles are over.” That won’t work. The promise of increased self-esteem requires an oblique approach.

Here’s another example from the legendary Robert Collier. Again, the message is couched in story. Collier invites the reader to project themselves into the drama. I’ve highlighted the ego jabs in red.

I used to be an ordinary man. I spent the early part of my life stumbling around in the dark, trying to find a way to make all the dreams I had as a young man come true. I wanted, like most young people, to be wealthy, admired, respected. I wanted love and happiness. I also had many questions about life and I wanted answers. Yet, no matter how hard I tried, everything always seemed to be kept from me. As though it were hidden somewhere in the very next room: a room whose door was impenetrable without the right key.

After years of being kept from the things that I wanted most in the world my spirit could have easily broken had I allowed myself to be consumed by failure and rejection. Little could I have known then how lucky I was for this to have happened to me. For something grew inside me that would not let me rest until I found the answers that would bring me all of the things I so desperately wanted.

This was the beginning of a search that would become an obsession. To find the knowledge I so desperately longed for and knew must exist somewhere. The inspiration of the great men of the past took much of the torment away. The multimillionaires and recluse billionaires that seemed to have the world at their beck and call. The men that were able to control the very destinies of nations. How they held respect and admiration, how they were rich and powerful but not me, never me. What did all these great men have that I didn’t? I knew there must be an answer and I dedicated my life to finding it: because I knew there could be no true life for me until I did.

Whatever a person desires from life, ultimately it can be boiled down to a need for more self -worth. A new car, a new dress, new knowledge, new capabilities, a new mate, we desire these things because when people see us with them it has an impact.

It doesn’t even have to be a positive impact. Sure we like to be loved and accepted. But we don’t mind in the least if our social standing and possessions cause other people to hate us or fear us a little either, as long as it makes us feel more significant.

The one thing we can’t stand is to be trivialized and ignored. To be so, is to be relegated to the very bottom rung of the social ladder, and we will do almost anything to climb out.

As you write your copy … you are characterizing your prospect as a certain kind of person. You are slotting them on the social hierarchy that exists within the niche you are working with. And the more significant and important you can make the person feel when in possession of your product the more sales you’ll make.

This space ad written by Gene Schwartz offers another great example. Pay close attention to how cleverly it draws the prospect’s attention to their current (inadequate) position within their social hierarchy.

Any one of these “smart money secrets” may make you $20,000 … $50,000 … $100,000 richer … this year alone!

They have been used by some of the world’s top investors to turn $1,000 into $10,000 in as little as a single year. To turn $10,000 into $250,000 in as little 30 months.

Yet the odds are that you’re not familiar with a single one of them today.

Take this sixty second test right now and see how your money-making skill compares with some of America’s top investors.

There are at least four ways to buy a going business without cash, and without borrowing one cent from a bank. Can you name them?

At what point do smart money men start selling stocks that are still going up?

Every day, opportunities arise where you can make a lifelong annuity, without investing a cent, simply by making a phone call. Do you know how to detect and exploit them?

Where in your daily newspaper ““ and not in the financial pages ““ is the best source of 100% profit opportunities?

Can you name the 5 Bonus sources of income you should get from your business negotiations ““ where other people pay you to let them make money for you?

Three tiny mistakes in negotiation mark you as an “amateur” to smart money men. How do you avoid them?

And most important of all, there are at last four simple demands you should make in speculative negotiations that are almost certain to make you a profit. Do you know what they are, and exactly when you should make them?

Welcome to the

World of the Insider

The ad goes on to sell a book about money-making.

Of course, the implication in the copy is that if you buy the product you become somebody worthy of insider status ““ important and significant.

Isn’t that what we all want more than anything else?

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis

Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor

THE TOTAL PACKAGE

Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant & direct response copywriter based in Toronto, Canada and publisher of the world famous copywriting anthology Masters of Copywriting featuring the selling wisdom of 44 of the “Top Money” marketing minds of all time, including Clayton Makepeace, Dan Kennedy, Joe Sugarman, John Carlton, Joe Vitale, Michel Fortin, Richard Armstrong and dozens more! For a FREE excerpt visit http://www.SellingtoHumanNature.com.

He is also one of the leading Web conversion experts operating online today, and originator of the 5R System (TM), a strategic process for engineering enhanced Internet profits. For a free overview of Daniel’s system, click here.

Attribution Statement: This article was first published in The Total Package. To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to The Total Package and claim four FREE money making e-books go to www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.

The Total Package

*IMNewsWatch would like to thank Clayton Makepeace for granting permission to reprint this article.

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