7 neuroscience promoting suggestions that can make your gross sales skyrocket
Selling can be challenging because it is a complex process of human behavior and cognition.
Most likely, marketers who are struggling to get customers either haven't looked the right way or haven't tried hard enough.
Learn How To Harness The Power Of The Human Brain With Neuroscience Selling Tips In This In-depth Article.
Whether you're selling a digital product online or running a brick and mortar business, these behavioral neuroscience principles work for you. They will help you attract more visitors to your marketing funnel and convert occasional visits into sales.
1. Influence increases the value of your product
Influence marketing is here to stay, so embrace it.
Influence is your ability to convince others to take your own perspective. You believe in your product (e.g. online course, e-book, software) and of course you want others to believe in it too.
Your ability to convince others in this way by addressing their emotions will increase your sales. Influence increases the perceived value of your products.
You see, influential people tend to sell more products. It's not because they created the best product – sometimes that's just not true – but because they've built credibility over the years. People trust their opinion.
For example, in the world of digital marketing, people trust Seth Godin. That's because Seth Godin wrote over 20 bestsellers. He is a sought-after speaker and social media influencer.
Seth doesn't waste words. Most of his posts are less than 200 words, like the one below, but the social sharing and engagement for these posts is amazing.
Remember, influence does not equate to popularity. They are not interchangeable, although many people consider them to be.
Brian Solis reports that one person who responded to a survey he conducted with Vocus put it this way:
Popularity is just that when they listen to you, people like you make an impact.
If you are selling online, becoming popular shouldn't be your number one goal. Spend time building your influence. It takes time, but it's worth the effort.
In the book Influence: The Psychology of Belief, author Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D., identifies the 6 factors that cause people's brains to do something they normally wouldn't have done.
In my experience as a content marketer who has built a loyal audience, influence can be achieved by consistently creating useful content for your target audience and building relationships with influencers and readers.
If you're a blogger, you've already taken the first hurdle of building authority and influencing people. Macallan convinced 32 people to do marketing for the company. This resulted in a tremendous increase in awareness and influence with an audience of 150,000 people.
Next, give plenty of time to content creation and friendship. Reply to comments, answer questions, and visit a reader's blog from time to time and give them free feedback or tips on how to improve their website.
Public speaking is another way to establish your personal brand and build a loyal following.
2. You have to sell yourself before you can sell your product
Make no mistake: you are a product. and as with any product, you need to successfully communicate the value of that product. Until then, you will find it difficult to sell your actual product or service.
Geoffrey James put it best:
Before anyone can shop from you or your company, they must “buy” the idea that you are someone worth working with. In other words, just like with a job applicant, your first job is to sell yourself.
Email marketing is the most effective lead generation tactic, followed by websites / landing pages and then content marketing. But guess what? Any of these tactics work better if you sell yourself first, then the product.
Selling yourself is not an insurmountable challenge. In today's world of marketing, there are many ways to appeal to the human brain. However, with many opportunities comes an increase in competition.
In a sea of writers, bloggers, freelancers, consultants, speakers, etc., how do you stand out from the crowd?
It's simple: get passionate about your product.
If you are selling yourself, don't worry about the money. Your job is to educate the human spirit of others while delivering your brand's core message.
HelpScout is not just trying to sell help desk software. Instead, it also sells as a brand.
Learning how to sell yourself first is critical to your success. Regardless of what product you have for sale, do your best to connect and communicate your potential brand values to your potential customers.
3. Build interest with functions; Build desire with benefits
Sell the benefits, not the features.
Most people and companies believe that products and services sell because of their excellent properties. That's not the case.
Harvard Business School conducted a research study and found that products of all kinds sell because of their benefits. However, the benefits that increase sales are not always obvious from the customer's point of view.
Whether you are selling via email, direct mail, or social selling, highlight the benefits as well as the features of your product.
When you start with the strongest benefits of your product, you can reassure customers that you care about them, not (just) their hard earned money, and ensuring social security.
Selling with benefits means that you are transparent to your customers. This is exactly what their cognitive function wants.
Copywriters know how to sell benefits.
For example, Dan Kennedy wrote a retail copy that had sales of over $ 10 million over the years. It is similar with Eben Pagan, Frank Kern and several leading digital entrepreneurs.
These people succeeded because they focused on benefits, not features. Successful sales boil down to one thing: Show your customers how your offer / product meets their needs.
Kat Night agrees that quantifying the benefits of a product is more likely to result in a sale than describing its features.
However, to avoid misleading prospects and customers, you need to first generate interest in features. Then increase your desire for your product with benefits.
When people look for a solution that suits their needs, their brain function is actually looking for a future that appeals to them. According to BufferApp, "people don't buy products, they buy better versions of themselves."
Consumers love to spend money on products that make their lives better. Before the iPod was invented, there were MP3 players on the market. So the iPod sold the advantage: "1,000 songs in your pocket."
What is the difference between an advantage and a function?
This is how the people at User Onboard explain:
In short, benefits are what you (or your potential customers) can do with a product. Functions are what the product can do. They sound similar, don't they? However, they are completely different things.
“With an elliptical trainer you can get fit without putting any strain on your joints,” aims at the benefit. "Easy glide movement, timer and adjustable intensity settings" are all functions.
See the difference
Customers' cognitive functions differ depending on where they are on the buying journey. Your human brain must first identify a need, then look for possible solutions, evaluate the solutions, take action, and finally make the purchase.
Use the features in stages 1 and 2. The benefits have a better impact on brain activity when actually making purchase decisions (stages 4 and 5).
Professor Albert Wenben of the University of Wisconsin-Madison conducted a study on “Consumer Values, Product Use, and Customer Value: An Approach to Consumer Behavior”.
He noted that “products are seen as a set of benefits rather than attributes from a customer perspective” (features).
MBA Skool suggests that a product benefit is usually the answer to customer questions. You probably already know that questions are driven by the psychological phenomenon of an emotional desire for more knowledge.
The level of satisfaction derived from a product depends on human behavior and cognitive neuroscience. After all, two people might need a product, but one may need it urgently while the other could do without it.
For the best results, highlight 70% of the benefits of your product and 30% of the features.
Let's look at an example in the world of marketing advice and products.
For most retailers with optimized and high-functioning websites, SEO and email marketing are more beneficial than a Facebook page. This does not always apply to other retailers.
When helping companies set up a Facebook marketing campaign (including a fan page), you need to sell at benefits while targeting your ideal customers (e.g., customers with no working website or with poorly performing websites).
People buy products emotionally and logically justify the purchases. When you use brain research to stimulate interest in function and a strong craving for benefit, you will meet your prospects where they are and give them the social security and social proof they need to be around to feel safe when buying.
If you evoke the appropriate emotions, customers may not even know why they are responding to your product. But they will buy it.
Remember that benefits are what you can do with a product while features are what the product can do. Let's look at some real-world examples:
Twitter is a unique microblogging platform. It helps you update your timeline in real time. It all started with their value proposition based on the platform's benefits: "Start a conversation, explore your interests, and be up to date."
Volusion.com has a unique value proposition that simply and powerfully projects the core benefits of its software.
It is your responsibility to research your product and understand its features, benefits, and advantages over your competitor's product.
4. Sell the results by drawing a clear picture
Are you selling the results of your product?
If you don't do this consistently, you will likely struggle to attract qualified leads and increase conversion and sales.
Today, most of us are selling to a new generation of customers: the millennials.
Millennials are a unique group of people born between 1982 and 2000 who make up 26% of the world's population. Over 23% of Millennials have a bachelor's degree or higher, making them the most educated generation in history.
Even if today's consumers haven't graduated from college, they know what to look for in a product. They want results and not let their human brain function be affected by a fancy copy that doesn't give at least a small glimpse of the results they can expect.
To successfully market this group of consumers, you need solid research and data.
A study conducted by Harvey Research on "Selling With Ad Reader Studies" found that "one of the top reasons you should conduct an ad reader study is to get research that will help your business sell advertisements".
When this research is documented and the data shared with advertisers, it becomes a marketing partner.
In advertising, the result is the data, that is, the actionable metrics. If your product helped a customer increase lead generation by 27%, you can use this metric to get more customers.
Have you ever wondered how introverts sell successfully? An introvert is a person whose motives, actions, social preferences, and functions of the human brain are directed inward. Introverts generally do not enjoy the human behavior associated with persuading or negotiating.
You are reserved. Selling is not their preferred job, but many of them become top sellers and industry players.
Brian Tracy was introverted, but by studying consumer psychology and cognitive science and learning about the social signals that drive people to buy, neuroscientific selling principles made him immensely successful.
One of the sales secrets that the introverted masters know is that it is much better to sell the results of a product than the product itself.
Selling the result can be compared to drawing a clear picture of your goal in an ideal future environment – a time when they have mastered their challenge or successfully solved their problem – and display it on a shelf.
People who know this person will be intrigued by the painting's promise.
That way, drawing the picture of your product's results and showing people how easy it is to use it will generate interest and stimulate action.
According to Tara Gentle
People aren't looking for your service (or your product or program). They are looking for results.
In other words, your product isn't the selling point. Then why should you put it in the spotlight? For example, instead of using your product name in your headings, focus on the results of the product.
Some ways to sell results instead of products are:
Lead with the value of the product, not with the title: If your product helps people cut their workweek by 5 hours, lead with it. This is your competitive advantage.
If your offering (e.g., service, program, online course, etc) is helping people lose 10 pounds in 60 days, let your copy focus on that key benefit.
Derek Halpern sells the result of his online course "Yes Engines". Do you see the captivating title ?:
Present before and after the results: Fitness trainers know how to use “before” and “after” pictures and videos to improve self-esteem, stimulate action, and improve positive cognitive function.
If you are looking to lose weight, would you love to see amazing case study results from people like you and then find out that you can do the same thing?
The same applies to makeup products or tutorials. If you've been looking for a makeup workout routine and came across the before and after pictures below, want to know more?
When selling the results of a product, not the product itself, you need to use graphics that allow your customers to see how they are getting the results they want. Don't just describe what the end result will be. Represent it with visuals.
Even scientists are on sale. How do scientists sell brain research, cellular neuroscience, or experimental psychology to the public? The public is of course not interested in topics such as developmental neurobiology, computational neuroscience, functional magnetic resonance imaging or neural systems.
It can also be difficult to sell difficult and disruptive topics like Alzheimer's, brain damage, post-traumatic stress disorder, or other mental health issues to a reader.
Are there typical results that you need to show like a blogger would do who created an online course on "Getting 1000 Email Subscribers"?
Most likely, the scientists have no visual results to show. Instead, they sell the validity of a case study and its relevance to appeal to the reader's cognitive psychology.
A study from Vanderbilt University concluded that scientists sell scientific data and ideas by convincing their peers of the validity and importance of the study.
Since the general public cannot fully understand all of the implications of scientific data, a scientist's “pitch” is often translated by the news media into something that a lay audience can understand.
In many niches, before you can sell a product, you must first acquire, nurture, and persuade leads to buy.
Selling is not a one-way street. Several factors play a crucial role. The platforms on which you generate your leads are important. Most people have generated more leads from Facebook Ads than from Google Ads.
On the other hand, the quality of leads from Google Ads tends to be higher.
When it comes to giving people value for their time and money, Google leads the way. Google sells ads, not search results.
Because of this, paid ads are clearly marked on Google and are different from actual search results. When it comes to showing the right results, this is what Google says:
The Google search results take into account who is referring to a website and how relevant the content of this page is to your search. Our results reflect what the online community thinks is important, not what you think we or our partners should see.
As you can see, Google sells advertising on its search engine but delivers the most relevant, valuable, and helpful search results in its organic listings. Website owners can't pay to stay on top of search results pages or manipulate their rankings (at least not for long).
Google is the leading digital advertising company because, firstly, it understands what users want and, secondly, it delivers the best search results.
5. Credibility depends on trust and expertise
You are more likely to make sales once you've built credibility.
There are a number of ways you can build credibility, including through great customer service.
Customers want an agent who can help them resolve problems quickly. You also want to interact with real people and have access to information to help solve the problem on your own.
Trust + expertise = credibility.
You cannot be successful in business if you are not credible. Top brands can boast of their products because they have become known and credible over the years, and they offer social security.
Because of this, it is difficult for a new marketer, organization, or business to dominate the market.
Customers' cognitive functions are afraid to trust you or your product. Eventually, you could take your money and leave. Customer service is the hallmark of credibility. It creates credibility from the ground up.
The viral effects of poor customer service are alarming. More people share negative than good experiences. 66% of customers who have had a negative (bad) customer experience want to discourage others from buying from this company.
86% of people have completely stopped doing business with companies because of poor customer experiences. It negatively affects their human brain functions.
Every day I wake up and ask myself: "What can I do best for my customers today?"
It's a simple, slightly dramatic exercise that, to me, underscores the importance of building trust in the minds of potential customers. People won't trust you unless you've proven yourself and delivered immense value over a period of time.
How do you build credibility when you are an online business owner?
Stanford Web Credibility Research has compiled 10 guidelines for building a website's credibility. This can be applied to your product, personality, and brand.
Most local businesses know how to build credibility. They use the feeling to influence human behavior. While others struggle to gain a customer's trust, local businesses donate to schools, sponsor children's sports teams, and participate in bulletin boards for community events.
Be willing to work hard. People respect people who work hard. But don't do everything about yourself. Credibility is best earned by looking after the interests of others.
Here are some easy ways to improve your credibility:
Answer the questions correctly: Trust and transparency are just as important for a company's reputation as the quality of products and services. If you give wrong answers, it will damage your reputation.
If people ask you questions and you don't know the right answer, say so. Offer to do some research and come back to them.
Whatever you do, don't splash out on something you're not sure if it just sounds smart. The more you answer questions correctly, the more people will trust you.
Regularly produce valuable content: There is no link to content creation. You either do it yourself or outsource it to a knowledgeable freelance writer.
Always publish new content that will make it easier for people to achieve their goals. Your credibility will increase.
Don't just create generic content. Instead, focus on creating custom content that is relevant to your audience and in sync with your goal.
Offer to solve relevant problems: If you have unique skills, you can offer to solve relevant problems for your target audience.
For example, if you're a website developer, you can help readers tweak their WordPress themes or show them how to easily do it themselves.
Build relationships: We all need to treat others fairly, recognize their inherent worth, and respect them.
Don't let your human behavior consume only the amount of money you can make. Instead, every now and then, help people for free. Brenton Hayden recommends that you use a few specific strategies if you want to increase your credibility:
In today's marketplace, brands and products are disappearing as quickly as they appear. Most of them will not stand the test of time.
It goes without saying that the way to improve your credibility is to build relationships with prospects and gain their trust.
You can also build credibility by presenting customer success stories. When you have no authority at all, you can be difficult for people to trust. The best approach to addressing their cognitive functions is to show that your product really works.
Drew Manning, founder of Fit2Fat2Fit, knows how to present real-world results. He discovered that most of the people who sell fitness programs and products are athletic, healthy people who have never been overweight.
How can they possibly understand the functions of the human brain that are behind the struggles that obese people endure and what that feels like?
Drew Manning did things differently. He spent 6 months gaining over 70 pounds. Then he spent another 6 months losing the weight.
This transformation was a source of trust for potential customers. They thought, "If it works for him, it works for me too."
6. Sales is a give and give relationship
Giving is usually the focus of attention during the holiday season.
In The Science of Giving: Experimental Approaches to the Study of Charity, author Daniel M. Oppenheimer estimated that Americans donate over $ 300 billion to charity every year.
When selling a product online or offline, the giving should come in the form of value.
For example, you can provide 1 to 10 GB for free to customers who register your cloud storage solution, such as pCloud.
If you are an author, you can give away the first two chapters of your book for free.
Giving is what I do every day because it's the only way I can build a sales relationship with prospects.
I spent $ 30,000 on content creation. and instead of selling it, I gave the content away for free.
Your customers are your best salespeople. Before they can recommend your product to others, you have to decide to give and to give. That is the relationship between you and customers.
According to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, there is one way to sell that is rewarding, positive, and even fun. Es heißt Beziehungsmarketing und ist eine Botschaft, die Dale Carnegie vor über 80 Jahren zu übermitteln begann.
Wenn Sie zum ersten Mal eine Beziehung zu potenziellen Kunden herstellen, wirkt sich dies auf deren neuronale Entwicklung aus und lässt sich leichter an diese verkaufen. Die besten Verkäufer sind die besten Geber.
Im Gegensatz zu dem, was die meisten Leute denken, handelt es sich nicht um eine "Geben und Nehmen" -Beziehung, da Sie Ihrem Publikum nichts wegnehmen.
Wenn Sie Ihre Kunden lieben (natürlich sollten Sie das tun), suchen Sie nach Möglichkeiten, ihnen so viel Wert wie möglich zu geben, und lassen Sie es mehr sein, als sie bezahlen werden.
Auch wenn sie Ihr Produkt kaufen, heißt das nicht, dass Sie es ihnen abnehmen. Es wird erwartet, dass der Wert Ihres Produkts / Ihrer Dienstleistung höher ist als der Preis, den sie dafür bezahlt haben.
Sei nicht müde zu geben. Es ist Ihr Leben als Unternehmer, ob Sie ein stationäres Unternehmen betreiben oder ein Online-Vermarkter sind.
Das Erstellen von Beziehungen, die den Umsatz steigern, ist für Ihr Unternehmen von entscheidender Bedeutung. So gedeihen Top-Marken wie Amazon, Zappos, Home Depot und dergleichen in diesem wettbewerbsintensiven Zeitalter.
Die bestehende gehirnwissenschaftliche Forschung in Psychologie, Wirtschaft und Neurowissenschaften, die die Vorteile des Spendens für wohltätige Zwecke untersucht, war weitgehend korrelativ. Verursacht es mehr Glück und Erfüllung? Oder ist die Verbindung zwischen Glück und einem glücklichen Unfall?
Glück ist eine positive Form der Emotion, der Provinz und der Funktion der limbischen Gehirnregion.
Um mehr Produkte zu verkaufen, geben Sie mehr Wert kostenlos. Laut Dunn und Norton zeigt eine Studie zum Glück, dass der zufriedenstellendste Weg, Geld zu verwenden, darin besteht, in andere zu investieren. Dies könnte erklären, warum so viele Menschen für Wohltätigkeitsorganisationen spenden, die in Entwicklungsländern arbeiten.
Sie können von zwei der führenden Milliardäre Amerikas lernen: Bill Gates und Warren Buffett. Buffett spendete 99% seines Vermögens für wohltätige Zwecke und sagte: "Ich könnte mit dieser Entscheidung nicht zufriedener sein."
Beide Milliardäre geben der Welt einiges. Doch hier haben sie sich bereitwillig von Milliardären zu Millionären entwickelt. Herzliches Geben bringt mehr in Ihr Leben und Ihr Geschäft.
Erfolgreiche Internet-Vermarkter, die bei der Online-Einführung ihrer Produkte ein sechs- oder siebenstelliges Einkommen erzielten, folgten dieser Strategie.
Sie begannen damit, einen enormen Wert zu geben, lange bevor sie verkauften. Eben Pagan, Frank Kern, Jeff Goins, Bill Baren und andere haben ihre Produkte auf diese Weise auf den Markt gebracht.
Bevor Brian Dean beispielsweise seinen Premium-Kurs „SEO That Works“ eröffnete, lehrte er zunächst in einem Blog-Beitrag, wie man am besten kostenlos Top-Platzierungen erzielt. Ich habe seine E-Mail-Liste abonniert, daher kann ich Ihnen sagen, dass der Wert, den er bereitgestellt hat, den Kauf seines Online-Kurses zu einer sehr einfachen Entscheidung gemacht hat. weil er schon tonnenweise wert für mich geschaffen hatte.
Wenn Sie im Moment kein Produkt zum Verkauf haben, sollte es Sie nicht davon abhalten, Ihren potenziellen Kunden eine reichhaltigere Erfahrung zu bieten. Erstellen Sie konsistent qualitativ hochwertige Inhalte.
Ich blogge seit über einem Jahrzehnt. Seitdem erstelle ich jede Woche 3 bis 5 detaillierte, relevante und wertvolle Inhalte für mein Publikum.
Aus diesem Grund sehen Sie in meinen Blogs enorme Verkehrsspitzen und eine wachsende Kundenbasis für meine Software-Unternehmen.
Neue Studien belegen, dass Spenden nicht nur für die Empfänger, sondern auch für die Gesundheit und das Glück der Geber von Vorteil ist. Geben fördert die Zusammenarbeit, das positive menschliche Verhalten und die soziale Verbindung.
Dies ist, was Sie brauchen, um den Umsatz zu steigern.
Eine Studie der Soziologen Brent Simpson und Robb Willer hat gezeigt, dass "wenn Sie anderen etwas geben, Ihre Großzügigkeit wahrscheinlich von anderen auf der ganzen Linie belohnt wird – manchmal von der Person, der Sie gegeben haben, manchmal von jemand anderem."
7. Um weitere Verkäufe abzuschließen, beenden Sie den Verkauf
Brian Dean, der Gründer von Backlinko und SEO That Works, versteht es, Menschen davon zu überzeugen, sich für seinen Online-Kurs anzumelden.
Obwohl sein Online-Kurs geschlossen ist, verkauft er immer noch, indem er Sie auffordert, sich auf die Warteliste zu setzen.
Why does he do this?
Well, when people join his waiting list, they get quality advice and case studies of people achieving first page rankings, etc. By the time the course re-opens again, subscribers who joined the waiting list will be desperate for the online course.
The majority of them will eagerly enroll. After all, they’ve already received tremendous value, free of charge.
In other words, stop pushing your products to the target audience. Instead, push high-value content. Answer questions and show the results of your services or products.
One company that sells its products quite successfully without sounding too salesy is BlendTec. BlendTec took a novel approach way back in 2007 with its “Will It Blend?” Serie.
The founder, Tom Dickson, understands that what people are looking for in a blender is the blade’s sharpness and the motor’s strength.
In each video in the “Will It Blend?” series, Tom tests his blender by blending anything from cell phones to wooden rakes.
Don’t try to push sales too much. Instead, educate more. Become a teacher. Become passionate about helping other people.
Brian Clark, the founder of Copyblogger, discovered early in his content marketing business that “Teaching Sells.”
When he started teaching instead of selling, he turned his blog into a multi-million dollar software business. He also went on to start another new business called RainMaker.fm.
When you teach, you’re giving away value that people can’t find elsewhere. If you continually educate and inform your target audience, you’ll sell more products or services in the process.
Fazit
If you can tap into how your customer’s brains works at different stages in the purchasing process or lead funnel, you may be able to drive more sales with less effort.
The neuroscience sales tips we’ve provided should help you get started thinking about how you can leverage the power of the human brain in your own digital marketing strategy.
If all of this sounds intimidating and you want help enacting these principles, let us know. Our team of experts are ready and waiting to partner with you to create a stellar SEO or marketing plan that drives sales by considering how your customers think.
Which of these cognitive neuroscience principles have you applied to increase your product sales online?
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