I want to talk about this cool thing I saw Doberman Dan Gallapoo do a while ago.
This really got me.
What he did was sent out an email that was all about the benefits of having readers on your email list.
- How the best customers are people who read.
- The sad fact that most people don’t even read anymore.
- How only the top few percent of people are actually readers.
The message went on to say that people who can’t focus or don’t have a long enough attention span to read are not even worthy of being on his list, because…
They’re not even capable of having a business for themselves.
So that was the gist of the email.
The lesson: target your marketing to readers.
Basically, try and sell to readers because they’re buyers. They’re actually going to consume what you create. They’re going to buy it, and they’re going to do it.
And those are the type of customers you want on your list (or at least the type Doberman Dan wants – and I can’t help but agree).
Great lesson, I would say.
Fine and dandy.
Solid email.
But then there was a “P.S.”
It went something like this (paraphrasing):
“P.S. If you like reading enough to read this far, you should read this.”
Of course, I’m curious. So I clicked on the link.
(But was it really my curiosity that caused me to click the link?)
It lead me to a sales letter.
Now, here’s where the wizardry of the spell Doberman Dan had cast begins to kick in.
The reality is, I wasn’t really in the market for whatever he was selling on that sales page.
But I kept reading.
I read the headline, the lead, into the backstory, devoured the bullets, through to the offer copy, the guarantee, the close, and I found myself at yet another “P.S.”
Before I knew it I had read the whole damn letter!
Of a product I knew I had no interest in buying whatsoever.
(I actually went up and down the page a few times, it was a great sales letter.)
And after going over the letter a second time (looking for all of the “tricks” and “tactics” used by the great Doberman Dan) I had a moment of reflection, and said to myself, “You know, I would never have gone through this whole sales letter today – twice – if he had not proceeded it with an email about readers.”
Fresh in my mind were all the reasons why I should keep reading (remember the list from before… how readers are rare, readers are only the top few percent of people, non-readers don’t deserve to be on his list, etc.?).
He implanted the idea that if you can’t even read through a sales letter – if you’re a copywriter and you can’t even deign to take the time to read some sales copy – what kind of person are you, really?
If I hadn’t been cued up with that idea in the first place, I likely would NOT have read the sales letter.
I probably wouldn’t even have clicked the link.
Now, I didn’t buy the product. I just wasn’t the right customer for it.
But there I was reading the sales letter.
Why?
I had been psychologically primed – by the email extolling the virtues of reading – to do so.
Like inception, a form of hypnosis where you put an idea into the person’s head and then “let” them have that idea for themselves as if it were their idea in the first place.
Subtle. Yet powerful.
My recommendation?
Think about how you could use this concept in your own market.
How can you psychologically prime your customer with an email so that they WILL go through your sales page?
Instead of proselytizing about the habit of reading, maybe you could emphasize people’s inability to focus, or their lack of follow-through, or their inability to follow simple instructions — whatever concept works best with your market.
Something that infiltrates your prospect’s psyche as they’re reading it, so they go, “Yeah, I don’t want to be that type of person that can’t even follow through on one little thing.”
And then – what do you know! – you offer one little thing for them to follow through on.
Give them an opportunity to go through the psychology that you’ve just set up in their mind.
It’s something like: “The most successful people are not afraid to go through a few little hurdles… Hey, by the way, here are a few little hurdles for you… Good job on that hurdle, here’s another little hurdle for you…”
First, you psychologically prime them by describing the journey they can look forward to – and then you provide them with the path.
And that’ll work a lot better than if you just provided the path in the first place, with no priming.
And now that you’re nice and primed yourself, it really would be foolish of me not to follow through on that feeling.
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That way, you’ll never miss another opportunity to be psychologically primed and manipulated into gaining a deeper understanding of the wily ways of persuasion and sales.
Oh, and go check out https://www.dobermandan.com/ and subscribe to his email newsletter, too.