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Marketing psychology is one of the most important subjects that you can focus on if you’re a service-based entrepreneur who wants to use the internet to expand your reach and make money doing the work that you love.  I say this because many people in the helping professions have a deep-seated resistance to the traditional method of marketing and sales.  Because they automatically associate selling with ‘selling out’, meaning they perceive it as something that strips them of their integrity, many service professionals experience chronic financial struggle and stress.

How Forming a New Understanding of Marketing Psychology Can Transform Your Business

If you own a business or you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, yet you believe that sales and marketing is a loathsome subject that you’d prefer to outsource or ignore, can you see how this will be a MAJOR weak link for your business? I have even heard some service-based business owners say that they never ‘sell’ their services; they just let their customer or client make their own choices.  Let’s get one thing straight:  Anyone who runs a business is selling something, whether they want to see it that way or not.  If you hate selling, your business will struggle.  Like it or not, that’s just the way it is.

When I started my first business years ago as an acupuncturist, I felt extremely conflicted about this issue.  I understood the importance of selling my services, yet I could not find a way to do it that felt authentic and natural.  After doing a ton of networking groups and public speaking events,  I was able to develop a very deep level of clarity around this issue.  Here’s the realization that I came to:

Sales and marketing was NOT what I was resisting.  Instead, I was struggling to find my own unique value that I could naturally share with others that would attract them to my services without the need for overt selling at all!

I would venture to say this is true for the vast majority of people in the helping professions, including online marketers who truly want to be of service to others.  The problem is not the marketing– that is just a byproduct of a deeper issue that has to do with low self-worth.  So, what I’m suggesting is that if you hate marketing, what you are really coming up against is a limiting belief that you don’t have something of true value to offer this world.

What happened to me is that, as my self-worth increased, my passion for marketing increased as well.  Why?  Because marketing is just a way of offering solutions to a specific group of people who are struggling and are looking for your help.  It’s the bridge that connects a problem with a solution.  But, the only way to build that bridge is to own your innate value and feel confident sharing it with others.  If you are confident in who you are and what you offer, you’ll actually find marketing to be just as enjoyable and interesting as the service you offer, because it’s essentially inseparable from it.  How people come to find you is part of the same energetic continuum as the solutions you provide.  It’s an integrated whole.

Mastering marketing psychology begins with truly owning the unique value you have to offer.  The more clear you are on the solutions you provide, the more you’re going to be able to step into the mind of your prospective customer and speak to them from their own side of things… meaning that you’ll be able to articulate to them what they are struggling with and what they need to do about this better than they can articulate it to themselves.

This is one of the most important skills you can develop as a business owner.  Really get into the juicy details of your ideal customer’s problems and challenges and get very specific about how you can actually help them with each challenge they are facing.  This is how you’re going to educate your target market and more effectively monetize your business.

Here’s a basic graph that summarizes this: inner clarity and self-worth–> empathize with customer’s pain –>

educate and build trust –> point to solutions –> provide specific call-to-action to buy services/products

The Main Marketing Psychology Shift You Need to Make Right Now to Take Your Business to the Next Level…

is to clear away any and all negative connotations you have of marketing until you find that ‘sweet spot’ in your business where you are neither under-selling nor over-selling to your target market.  Like I said, most service-based entrepreneurs are guilty of under-selling because they haven’t fully identified with the innate value they have to offer.  Once this issue is resolved, there will be a natural motivation to sell more, as your focus shifts from self-consciousness to helping more people.

Now, what do I mean by selling without selling?

One of the most powerful sales strategies is to never go for the overt sale, but instead lay a foundation where the only clear choice for the prospective customer is to move forward with what you are offering.   When it comes to internet marketing, here is how to do that:

3 Marketing Psychology Secrets to Dramatically Increase Sales1.  Create a front-end free offer that generates

leads from your website ~ This is typically a special report, e-book, or video series that offers some valuable tips and information on your subject.    The purpose of your front-end offer is to establish trust and build a relationship by sharing value.  BUT the underlying intention is to make it abundantly clear to the reader that the problem or challenge they are facing (which is usually the motivation they have for seeking out your information) is:

a.  likely not going to resolve on its ownb.  an issue that deserves their immediate attentionc.  100% workable with the right support and resources

(your services/products)The goal is to construct your information so that the

prospect easily comes to their own conclusion that your solution is the obvious choice to enhance their business, life, golf swing, marriage, or whatever the subject is.

2.  Always precede direct offers with amazing content ~ First of all, you have to ask for the sale at some point by making a direct offer to buy something, right?  Obviously you can’t make it very far in business if you don’t point people to a page where they can make a purchase.  The key is to back this up with amazing content and value, so that by the time you ask for the sale, it does not seem like you are asking at all… it just seems like the reasonable step in the process (even though you are in fact asking!)

3.  Evoke the feelings of BOTH inspiration and fear when educating your market ~ I have found that there are essentially 2 primary motivators in our buying decisions.  One is when we get hit with a very hopeful and excited feeling about what a product or service can do for us.  When you see sales copy that reads, ‘Imagine that 6 weeks down the road you can retire from your job and live your dream life’, this is playing upon the motivator of inspiration.  This works very well for a certain portion of the population, albeit a minority.

The deepest and most powerful motivator for most people is fear.  Fear of not having enough money, keeping that extra weight, staying stuck in a bad relationship or job, and so on.  Some marketers are really skilled at exploiting people’s fears.  I think of this as a kind of black magic, where you get people to buy stuff by subconsciously playing on their fears.  Any ethical marketer is going to find this approach to be distasteful.

It is important, however, that you directly and honestly address the reality of the situation.  You have to believe that your target market NEEDS your product or service in order to improve their life.. and that NOT having it is going to make things harder and more painful for them.  This goes back the notion of finding that sweet spot where you are willing to stand up for what you are offering without crossing the line.  In this way, you can paint a vivid picture of what’s likely going to happen to your prospect if they DON’T take action and invest in your services and products.  You have believe that directly addressing this issue is actually doing them a service, even if it plays upon their fear, as that is simply what some people need to take any action whatsoever.

Obviously, marketing psychology is a vast subject that deserves our earnest attention if we want to be ultra-successful in business.  Remember, the foundation to this skill is clearing out limiting beliefs that prevent you from fully identifying with the true value you can offer.  Then, you need to create a very powerful marketing funnel that educates and guides your prospective customers through a clear sequence of action steps (all while guiding them to the sale without actually overtly selling at all).

What tips and insights have you gained about marketing psychology?  Feel free to leave a comment below.  In my experience, mastering marketing psychology is one of the most powerful, fun, and important skills you can learn as an entrepreneur.

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