Seduction Marketing: How to Sell Anything with Powerful Copy

It is the age of the consumer and sales pitches don’t cut it anymore.

Presented with so much choice, so many information channels and so many new experiences, few people would fall for gimmicky, sales-y messages thrown at them.

The truth is, the highly aware, choosy, time-starved consumer needs to be adequately “seduced” before they will reach for their wallet and buy your product or service.

With carefully formulated copy, you can tastefully and tactically encourage prospects to convert into buyers.

What’s the big idea?

Writing headlines that command attention is an art. The headline gives your audience the desire to give in, to click, to peek in and see what awaits them.

A seductive headline does not give it all away. Rather, it teasingly spells out the big idea and invites the reader to come in and experience more.

Epic headlines use puns, numbers, analogies, curiosity, currency, controversy, emotion or sensationalism to captivate an audience even before they read a word of the article.

Humanize your message

Whether you are a B2C or B2B marketer, the message you deliver to your audience needs to feel and sound authentic. To make an intimate, long-lived connection with your audience, speak to them in the way you would speak to a friend—in a conversational, friendly, free flowing manner.

Infuse your copy with stories. Humans make meaningful and emotional connections with others through stories. Unsurprisingly, emotions have the greatest impact on people’s buying decisions.

Apple Inc. is a good example of a brand that understands how to humanize its message in a way that eliminates the jargon and pomposity. Instead, Apple uses simple, conversational yet highly emotive content to persuade customers to buy the next iPhone and the next one.

Make them imagine it, vividly

Have you ever watched a brilliant chocolate advert? Even before you rushed out to buy that bar, you could already taste the milky flavor, feel the mouthwatering sensations and experience the explosive smoldering of each morsel.

You do not need to be selling chocolate to effectively seduce your audience to buy your product. Careful selection of words, word play and word positioning can sell a product as mundane as a nail gun drill.

Use words that will awaken your readers’ senses and paint a wonderful picture with them in it. Apply the art of staccato, rhythm, and rhyme, to put your audience right in the middle of the action.

Build confidence with details

The technical details of a product do not have to be shrouded in a cloud of mind-numbing, boring complexities. By tactfully describing your product’s benefits and features, you can eliminate doubt and overcome objections.

To maintain your readers’ attention and to draw them in to the heart and soul of your product, start by illustrating the benefits and then the features of the product.

It may sound logical to start with the features and then the benefits, but this approach quickly alienates the reader because it shifts attention from them (‘how will this benefit me?’) to you (‘your product and all its cool features’).

For example, if you were selling nail gun drills, your copy could read:

Working on your home projects could never be easier, more efficient and safer thanks to the two-speed gear setting and up to 400 in/lbs of torque packed into your new Super X nail gun drill. (Benefits in bold).

Offer a promise

Why should prospects buy your product? What major impact will the product have on their life? Will it save them money? Will it make them look classier? Will it save them time? Or transform their looks? Or relieve their pain?

Remember, the majority of buying decisions are emotional. As such, the promise you make to your prospects must leverage their pain points and their needs so you can provide them with the precise solution they are looking for.

Make your audience the hero

Seduction yields the best results when the seducer or femme fatale pays close attention to the subject and makes them feel genuinely special. In fact, the most fruitful human interactions are those where each party feels valued by the other.

Your copy needs to make it clear to your readers that you understand their needs and that you just might have an appropriate solution. It is not enough to talk about your products or services; show your prospects that the product was specifically built to offer them a lasting solution.

A rule of thumb is to use second person pronouns ‘you’ and ‘yours’ to make your prospects feel valued.

Inspire action

After all is said and done, to convert prospects to actual buyers, you need to inspire them to take a specific action. Do not assume they will know what to do; make it absolutely clear what the next step is.

Your call to action must be clear and prominent, but you must also bear in mind that not all readers will be ready to buy at that moment. In this case, encourage them to read more or to reach out to you for inquiries.

Effective calls to action pack a punch of urgency, necessity and scarcity to prompt the audience to take the most desirable action.

How to Sell Anything

Whether you are selling a mundane or sexy product, treat your readers in the same way you would like to be treated —with care, pleasant surprises, and a genuine consideration of their needs and pain points. They will be more inclined to exchange their hard-earned money for your life-changing solutions.