Need to Improve Your Marketing? Throw a Pass!

Every business has the ability to reap huge benefits by making small improvements in their marketing. By leveraging a few key areas you can create plentiful and consistent sales opportunities. One area that can produce significant improvement is the techniques you use to communicate your marketing message to your audience.

The most powerful force in marketing is the skill of persuasion. Your ability to communicate to your target market the benefits and solutions your product or service provides is the key to your business success.

One proven technique that will improve your persuasion skills is to throw them a PASS with your marketing message.

PASS stands for Problem – Agitation – Story – Solution. This communication technique utilizes a powerful psychological trigger: People are highly motivated to action on problems that cause them pain, stress and discomfort.

Your most qualified prospects are looking to solve a specific problem, dissatisfaction or challenge they are facing in their lives. Your job as a marketer is to focus their attention on this problem and show them that you have the best available solution. You must motivate them to take action by stimulating their emotional need to solve the problem and relieve the stress that is attached to it.

Here’s how to use the powerful PASS technique in your marketing materials.

1. Problem – Define the problem they are experiencing and address it clearly so it triggers an emotional response. Get them to take time to think about the pain or discomfort they are feeling.

2. Agitation – Make them feel the problem by pointing out the possible scenarios that could occur if they don’t take action. Feeling a sense of loss or missed opportunity often compels people to act immediately.

3. Story – Tell a relevant story of someone who shared the same problem and their method of solving it. Focus on the positive results they experienced and how they benefited by solving the problem with your product or service.

4. Solution – Offer them a solution to the problem with your product or service. Provide detailed benefits, examples and testimonials of satisfied clients and customers you’ve helped before.

Your goal is to whip them into a frenzy by using emotional triggers which point out the cause of the problem. Once sufficiently agitated, offer your solution and educate them on the benefits you provide to fix it. Paint them a picture of what their life will look like as a result of purchasing your product or service.

When you use the PASS technique, the prospect will sell themselves on the fact they need to make a purchase to remove the pain and problem. For excellent case studies of this formula in action, watch any of the hundreds of TV infomercials that are broadcast over every day. There’s a reason they utilize the PASS technique…it works!