How Can You Persuade Your Audience and Sell More?
13 must-read tips to convince your potential customers!
What will we see in this post
It’s common when you hear you should “persuade customers“ to automatically think about manipulation or deception.
In the business world, this type of thinking is even stronger, primarily when it comes to buying.
In this sense, persuasion takes on the form of forcing someone to buy something even if the product isn’t necessarily right for them.
But, have you stopped to think that practically every purchasing decision you’ve made to date has come from some type of information that persuaded you to buy THAT particular product?
In this post, you’ll understand once and for all what persuasion is, in addition to picking up 13 tips of how to be persuasive in order to sell even more.
Persuade vs deceive vs manipulate
Before we get started, we need to address the elephant in the room. This is the only way you’ll be able to read this text until the end and use the tips we give to help you convince your audience.
Persuading is different from deceiving or manipulating, and we’re going to explain this in a way so that it’s very clear.
The art of persuasion is a speaking technique used to make someone believe what you’re saying.
Explained like this, it sounds a lot like manipulation. The big difference is that when you utilize persuasion, it convinces a person of a need they have for something.
For instance:
The role of a professor is to persuade the students to study if they really want to get into college.
When deception is to mislead someone or even to betray them.
If you sell a product that promises the buyer they will learn how to play a musical instrument in just 2 weeks, congratulations, you’re deceiving them.
We know that it’s basically impossible to become proficient at an instrument in such a short amount of time, even if they’re musical prodigies!
Finally, manipulation is pushing someone to the point where they act or think the way you’d like them to. It’s as if you want to control what the other person thinks or does to your own benefit.
Can you see the difference?
Whenever you think of selling, be it while creating ads, landing pages, emails, or even talking face-to-face with your potential customers, you need to come up with persuasive arguments that will influence them positively.
VIDEO: Sales techniques: how to sell online | Sales tips
13 Tips to persuade customers
Understanding the difference between persuasion and manipulation is the first step to being able to convince your potential customers to buy a product you’re promoting.
Now that you know how these terms are different, you need to understand what must be done to influence your audience positively.
As with any skill, your ability to persuade should (and must!) be developed. To help you out in creating and using persuasive selling arguments, we’ve broken this art up into 13 tips:
1. Know thy audience well to persuade customers
Before even thinking about what types of selling arguments you’ll need to use to persuade customers, it’s vital to understand who your audience is.
When you know your customers well, you’re able to define everything from the tone of voice you’ll use in your sales pitch to the forms of communication you’ll utilize to reach your future buyers.
To do this, create a Buyer Persona. Understand who your ideal customer is and study everything you can to know what will win them over and also what might give them misgivings.
This way you can avoid tactics that might distance potential buyers and can instead focus on the strongest arguments that will convince them that your product is the solution they’ve been looking for.
VIDEO: How to create a buyer persona for your business | Hotmart Tips
2. Make your audience committed to you
Have you ever noticed that you’re much more likely to buy something only after first giving it a trial run for free?
Believe it or not, this is just part of the power of persuasion.
When you offer something and it’s tested and liked, it suddenly becomes much easier to convince that person that your product is something that they really need.
Let’s take a look at an example in order to wrap our heads around this concept.
You probably know about Spotify, the music app. It offers a variety of plans, among which is Premium, a package you pay for to hear music with no ad interruptions.
Obviously, you can use Spotify and never pay a red cent. But to give you an idea of this premium service, they offer you a 30 day trial for free.
After this little taste of Premium service, unconsciously, some people feel obligated to sign up. Not just because they truly liked it, but also as a way to say thanks for getting to take advantage of this one-month-test run.
What we want to express through this example is that you too can offer free content to your audience and, in exchange, they’ll feel more devoted to the idea of buying from you later.
This is a subtle form of persuasion. When it works, you will reap the benefits, primarily with membership programs.
3. Be empathetic
It’s only human that we tend to agree with people with whom we identify with or show affection for.
When the time comes to use persuasive arguments with your potential clients, it’s essential that you don’t just think about selling. You need to truly show empathy for the person you’re talking to.
Empathy is the action of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. Really trying to think and act like them.
Remember the first tip we gave you about knowing your customers? This is vital when the moment comes to show empathy.
If you understand the problems your audience has, you can think of even better solutions to offer.
With this, you are able to create a connection with your audience. They’ll notice that you not only care about them, but really want to provide effective solutions to their problems.
When putting together which well-worded arguments to use, never forget to use the pronoun “we”. This helps create the feeling that you and your potential customers are in this together and it shows that you understand their needs.
Ver essa foto no Instagram
4. Avoid imposing your opinion when you persuade customers
It might sound strange to say that you shouldn’t voice your opinion when trying to persuade someone to buy something.
The fact is that you can say what you really believe to be best for your potential buyer, but this must be done in an unimposing way.
Be subtle with your arguments, and show that their opinion is important.
This way you can really put into practice our previous tip, to be empathetic. In the end, no one likes feeling as if they are being forced to believe something.
5. Personalize your communication
This tip is especially important for those who work with email marketing.
All communication with your audience must be made in a personalized manner.
We aren’t saying that you have to know each person by name. This would be impossible for those of you who have thousands of customers!
Nowadays, we have automated tools which allow us to use the first name of every person who will receive each email to make it seem more personalized.
This is important because it makes your potential customers feel closer to you.
But it doesn’t stop with just names. You can go much further, sending material that might be of interest to that person according to which step of the funnel that they are on.
By doing this, you show that your interest isn’t just to make another sale, but that you also want to help them out by making what you know available.
6. Make your CTA evident
Despite the fact we just told you to be subtle in your persuasive arguments, when you make a call to action, it needs to be as clear as possible and easy to be carried out.
No one wants to fill out a bunch of forms when buying something or have to change the page to continue reading an article.
You need to think about CTAs which save your customers time and energy. Create calls to action which your customers nearly do automatically.
To do this, say exactly what they need to do, like “Watch this”, “Read this”, “Purchase this”. This way there will be no question about the next step your customers have to take.
7. Use anticipation
Among the variety of techniques to persuade customers that are out there, anticipation is one which is used a lot.
You know when Apple is about to launch a new product and, even before it really exists, all the talk about the new product is out there and it’s even being pre-sold?
This is anticipation.
For digital products, you need to create a formula on your sales page where your potential customers can opt to receive anticipated information about new products.
This way you are able to whet the interest of future buyers even before the product is on the market.
Even better, you can take advantage of this list to send out interesting content concerning the future product to give your audience a chance to create a relationship with it even before it’s on your digital shelves.
8. Return the favor
Beyond empathy, which we’ve already talked about in tip number 3, reciprocation is of utmost importance.
Whenever someone signs up for one of your lists or shows interest in your content, return the favor.
This will encourage a certain loyalty among your audience which can easily translate into them buying the product(s) you have to offer.
Clearly, you do this hoping for a specific result. But remember, don’t just think about sales. React to your audience’s actions by delivering something that is really useful for them.
9. Show your authority
They best way to build a persuasive argument is by talking about products you really know.
When you’re well-versed in a topic, it’s easy to show your point of view clearly and raise the chances of convincing someone.
To sell more, it’s important to know your product through and through. This is the only way you can show potential clients that what you have to offer is really the best thing out there.
Consider the following:
If you’re looking to sell an online course about cooking, it’s a lot easier to come up with selling arguments if you truly understand the benefits this course can bring to the buyer.
Obviously, you don’t need to be a master chef to promote this type of product. However, demonstrating that you know something about cooking will certainly help you better plan your sales campaign.
What’s more, when you make it known to your audience that you know what you’re talking about, they’ll come running when the time comes that they need something related to your field of expertise. After all, you’ve now become a reference in the market.
Check out our post about how to promote with authority.
10. Be confident
If you already know everything about the product your promoting and it’s within your area of expertise, now’s not the time to be timid, ok?
One of the principles of persuasion is that you communicate to your potential customers in a way which convinces them of something.
If your goal is to sell a product that you know has real value for someone, you need to be confident. This is the only way your audience will believe your arguments.
Imagine that you are in a store and looking to buy a television. If the salesperson doesn’t come across as confident, you’ll probably think twice before buying.
The same goes for online sales. If you make a sales video but don’t speak with confidence, the watcher won’t feel confident about buying from you.
11. Take “no” out of your selling arguments
No matter which format you are using to persuade customers (ads, videos…) you need to take the word “no” out of your vocabulary.
The human brain processes negative phrases more slowly. With this in mind, if you want someone to make a purchasing decision quickly, by using “no”, you’ve slowed up the process and now could even lose the chance of making a sale.
Whenever you create an ad, choose affirmative statements. Besides making your instructions clearer, this will even help people better understand what your intentions are.
12. Create Scarcity
There are a lot of mental triggers that you can use to your favor when persuading your audience. Among them, scarcity is commonplace.
If you don’t fully understand what we’re talking about, let me explain:
Creating scarcity gives value to a product starting with its limitations. In other words, you release an item, but make it clear in your campaign that there isn’t much of this product and/or it won’t be on the market for long.
This kind of strategy is used a lot by the big boys, such as Amazon and Booking.
Normally, they put a countdown of the quantity of product remaining in stock or even display the number of people on the site looking at the same thing as you.
This helps sell more and faster. If a potential buyer still isn’t sure if they really want to buy, when they see that this could be their last chance, they end up buying just to not run the risk of missing out.
Just be careful not to use this technique too much. If your audience notices that the same product is ALWAYS running out, this mental trigger won’t work anymore.
Because of this, always vary with the triggers you use in your persuasive arguments.
13. Have other people talking about you
Nothing is better to convince someone than social proof.
Have you ever noticed that people tend to ask around a lot before deciding to make a purchase?
This is because we trust the opinions of people we know more than an ad or a salesperson.
With the advent of digital influencers, this type of strategy has become full-on.
When digital influencers talk about products and trends, their followers listen.
This has created an amazing way to persuade your audience (and even those who know nothing about your product) by having digital influencers talking about you.
Clearly, you’ll need to plan this strategy well. In the end, a vegan influencer can’t be chosen to recommend a product that teaches how to become a meat master at the grill.
But the important thing here is to have social proof via people talking about you and your product. This will definitely help raise your sales and is as a very persuasive argument.
4 Books to improve your power of persuasion
In addition to all the tips we’ve given, you can learn even more techniques to persuade your audience with advice from the pros in this area.
Take a peek, 4 book we’ve recommend especially for you.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion- Robert B. Cialdini
Robert B. Cialdini is a psychologist and marketing professor.
In this book, he shows the 6 principles that lead people to make a decision and teaches techniques which you can use to influence others and persuade customers.
The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over – Jack Schafer and Marvin Karlins
While serving as an FBI special agent, Schafer came up with strategies to profile terrorists.
In The Like Switch, he has built on these proven strategies and delivered a gem for our everyday use to get people to like you more.
How to Win Friends and Influence People- Dale Carnegie
70 years since its first publication, this remains without a doubt the book you need to read to develop your persuasive arguments.
It’s considered the guide for those who want to learn how to better relate with others.
Getting to Yes with Yourself- William Ury
William Ury is known as the mentor who has helped people from all walks of life become better negotiators.
In this book, he teaches you the techniques of how to handle the most difficult person to negotiate with: yourself.
This book helps show you how to be happier with your inner self, which is essential not only to have a better life, but also to have healthier relationships.
Train your technique to persuade customers
Throughout this text, we’ve given you some tips you can use to persuade your audience and, consequently, sell more.
As we said from the start, persuasion is a communication technique which can be developed.
However, it’s pointless to create a bunch of sales pitches if don’t have rapport with your audience.
To help you build a better relationship with your audience, we’ve put together this post to complement what we’ve learned today.
