9 Sales Triggers to Use in Your Sales Copy

Are your sales at the level you'd like?

Do you want to ethically persuade more people to buy from you?

There's a book which anyone trying to sell any product or service must read. It's titled "Influence – The New Psychology of Modern Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini.

Inside this revealing book the author describes the factors which you as a marketer or business owner can employ to influence and persuade more people to do as you want. Namely do business with you.

So let's take a look at some of the influences you can use.

1. Firstly people like to have reasons for what they do. If you use the word "Because" you're more likely to influence your target market.

An experiment by Harvard social psychologist Ellen Langer proved this. In an experiment in a small library she asked a small favour of people waiting in a queue to use a Xerox machine. She asked, "Excuse me I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?" 60% of people complied.

Now contrast this result with when she asked, "Excuse me I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I'm in a rush?" The result? 94% of people allowed her to jump the queue. What made the difference? The insertion of the word "Because."

So always give reasons why in your sales copy you're doing a certain thing. Why your product is a certain price. Why you're holding a sale. Why they should buy from you right now.

• Because….you're doing a marketing test with the price right now.


• You're holding a sale because it's your birthday.


• Because…for every day they delay in NOT ordering your product then they're losing sales themselves, their profits are dropping through the floor and their bottom line is going to resemble a disaster.

2. People believe expensive = good. People associate higher prices with better value. In other words you get what you pay for in life.

A jeweller sent a message to her shop assistant "to mark down a particular type of jewellery to ½ price." So imagine the business owners surprise to discover all this jewellery had sold out upon her return. The reason? The assistant had read the scrawled message as a "2". So the jewellery had sold at twice the original price.

3. Using the contrast principle. This is the way we see the difference between two things.

It's more profitable for sales people to present the more expensive item first before an inexpensive item. Why? Because it triggers the contrast principle. And if a sales person failed to do this, it would work actively against them. You should use this before you disclose your price. State the regular price. Then say the price is lower. Then explain why the lower test price is being offered.

4. The rule of reciprocation. This where we feel we're indebted to a person if they have done a favour to us even if they're not particularly agreeable to you. The Hare Krishna sect used to attract donations from passers by when begging for money. However Americans grew disenchanted by their attire and strange behaviour.

So the Krishnans brilliantly changed tact. They gave a gift first to passers by. A flower. And refused to take it back. No matter how hard they were pressed. And then asked for a donation. Their new ploy worked brilliantly.

Now if I give you valuable information in a sales letter which you read and perceive as being valuable you're more likely to want to read on.

5. Commitment and Consistency. This is when we want to be seen as being consistent with an action we have taken.

Say you read a sales letter I've written. You've decided to buy the product I'm selling. If include loads of proof in the sales letter this will help justify your action to buy. Because you want to be seen as being consistent with your (commitment) decision to purchase.

6. Social proof. This is where we determine something is correct IF we discover other people think it also is correct. That you'll make fewer mistakes if others have already made the same decision. Going with the crowd.

If you're selling say, a financial newsletter and you're writing about the benefits of joining and you've got case studies and testimonials from other people who have already joined your ‘Club' then your reader is more likely to want to join. A classic case of following the herd!

7. Being liked. As people we prefer to say YES to people we know and like.

If I tell you a story in a sales letter you can relate to, one where you see yourself in my shoes and generally where you feel yourself the hero of the piece then you're going to stop seeing me as a salesperson. And more of a friend. If I accomplish that, then you're more likely to buy from me.

8. Authority figures. Since childhood we've been conditioned to believe people in positions of authority. Why?  Because there's a deep rooted sense of deference to people in authority.

So if we can use a celebrity, an expert, a person who has had media attention, a doctor (if appropriate) in our sales pieces then our sales message is more likely to be believed.

9. Scarcity. If you can convince your customers of the scarcity of the item you're selling you'll increase the immediate value in their eyes. And you'll encourage more customers to buy.

Now when you include all these sales triggers in your sales copy then you can quickly and easily generate more sales.