Welcome to lesson 4 in your e-course on using the power of the mind in your marketing.

You’ve probably heard that ’sell the sizzle not the steak’ is the first rule of selling! It’s true but not everyone does it.

If you want to sell the sizzle, you must make the reader immediately sense the benefits of what you are offering. You can do this subliminally through your graphics and through your copy. You need to really spell it out for your readers.

One of the most successful internet personalities of the last year or so was The Rich Jerk.

The Rich Jerk leaves us in no doubt about the benefits of his product. If we buy his book, we know we are going to learn exactly what methods he has used to make his fortune online. So, after we have bought the book, we know exactly what to expect. He has told us what he does and we know that it’s not some big secret we are missing. It’s simply that we need to learn how to market our products more effectively.

Start to watch TV commercials with a different mindset; look at advertising in magazines with new eyes; watch for billboards with renewed interest. These professional marketers are all experts at capturing your attention and getting you to read the message. Start to notice how they do that. Start to see the ’sizzle’ in their advertising.

When you look closely at successful advertising, it’s quite astonishing how little it actually talks about the product. Instead it focuses on basic human needs and then skilfully associates the product in our minds.

Abraham Maslow told us that the basic human needs were:

• Self actualisation - the pursuit of a dream; being the best you can be.
• Esteem - the need for recognition, respect and responsibility.
• Social - the need for friendship, love and affiliation.
• Safety - the need to live and work in a safe environment.
• Physiological - the most basic human needs for food, water, shelter etc.

There was a famous advertising campaign in the UK in the 1950s, when it was still possible to advertise tobacco on TV. The ad showed a man who left a party alone, walked to a street lamp and lit a cigarette. The caption below announced ‘you are never alone with a Strand’. The campaign was a complete flop.

But the company later relaunched the product with a new name and new advertising. The new ad showed the man at the party as the center of attention, handing out cigarettes to his many, happy, smiling friends. The renamed cigarette went on to become a major success.

See how the new ad addressed the social needs of the viewers? Subliminally the ad was saying; if you smoke these cigarettes, everyone will like you.

Notice that the product was the same, they just changed the marketing. You might have the best product in the world but if you don’t get the marketing message right, you won’t sell anything.

Getting the message right is all about selling the sizzle. So make sure you know what your sizzle is - then sell it!

That’s it for this lesson. In the next, we discuss the personality you need in order to write a killer sales letter.