<div class="bbWrapper">When selling online or offline, the first thing you need to do is take the time to get to know and truly understand your market...<br />
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What are their desires, needs and fears? <br />
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People are motivated by their fear of loss or the pleasure they'll gain, what will your product do for them? In your example, your market doesn't want to buy a laxative pill they want the benefit that the pill will give them... determine what that is.<br />
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So your goal before starting your ad or article is to know what makes them tick, want do they really want? The standard analogy in persuasion is that people don't buy a drill because they want a drill, they want the hole that the drill will make. <br />
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Next, make a list of all the features of your product and next to each feature write down the benefit of each one.<br />
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Now that you know your market and your what your product can do for them, you can create your ad. The formula will be; identify the problem, open the wound, rub salt in it and then offer YOUR solution, show the benefits that you identified in the previous step and then make your offer.<br />
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For your headline, you might get more mileage out of your headline by getting attention with words rather than gimmicky special characters. They are only thinking "whats in it for me" so make your headline self serving... "How to BENEFIT, BENEFIT, BENEFIT" <br />
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Finally, every market is different, what converts well in one market may be an epic fail in another... the rule in advertising is "always be testing"<br />
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Good luck to you and yes, do buy yourself a copy of Cashvertising also Robert Cialdini's, Influence and John Caples, Test Advertising Methods</div>