1
Creative Mischief by Dave Trott
2
Banners Broker Scam: Get Your Money Back
3
Neuromarketing: The Weapons of Mass Conversion (Part 2)

Creative Mischief by Dave Trott

If you work in advertising, and particularly if you are British, this book is essential:

Creative Mischief by Dave Trott

I couldn’t put it down.

Very few advertising books qualify as ‘page turners’, but Creative Mischief races you to the last sentence. It packs anecdotes so good you’ll be itching to rehash them as your own.

Trott has razor sharp wit, the kind you’d expect from one of Britain’s greatest copywriters.

Entertaining from front to back, I’d give this all my stars. If I had any.

Other recommended books I’ve stumbled across this month:

If you have any recommendations, don’t be shy. My Amazon Wishlist needs re-padding.

And don’t be shy about ordering the entire Dave Trott collection.

You won’t regret it.

Recommended This Week

  • Volume X is now the bestselling release in my entire Premium Posts series. If you haven’t picked up a copy, what’s wrong with you? Are you sick?

  • The volume is sponsored by Adsimilis, one of the top networks for CPA affiliates. Adsimilis has hundreds of top offers (specialised in dating), with industry-leading payouts, and international coverage. Get onboard and start making some money!

Banners Broker Scam: Get Your Money Back

It’s been a while since I posted a BannersBroker update. Some may be familiar with my coverage of the company from these previous posts:

For everybody else, I apologise. What follows is not likely to make much sense unless you’ve been watching the ponzi unravel over the last 12 months.

The Current State of BannersBroker (Have we got all day?)

To say that BannersBroker is unravelling would be to say that the Titanic got a little damp on her way to New York. Sinking ship is an understatement. BannersBroker, as an investment proposition for anybody reading this today, is absolutely toast.

It is dead. Game over.

If you put money in to this programme today, you will not see it again.

While we can speculate with conjecture over what is actually happening behind the scenes at BannersBroker HQ (and I know many of you are), it has been confirmed that the company is under investigation by the Ontario Securities Commission.

That does not bode well for BB, and it is the reason why you see CEO Chris Smith brandishing buzz words like “active business” and “non-passive“. The company is trying desperately to paper over the cracks and present BannersBroker as a legitimate business, but it’s too late.

The reason for this post is due to recent evidence that it might not be too late for you to get your money back.

Note: But only your initial investment and subsequent deposits minus withdrawals. If you think you’re actually entitled to those ‘net profits’, you should go slap yourself with a wet fish.

Getting Your Investment Refunded

Credit for this information goes to user asdfghjkl on the Money Maker Group forum.

I have received a full refund into my bank account from BB/Stellar Point INC after threatening legal action in the Ontario Small Claims Court to recover my initial deposit. A group of us here in the UK (my upline and other referrals of his) have had significant success with this approach. 3 of us have had full refunds so far.

If you want your money back my suggestion is do this ASAP!!

I didn’t need to take them to court. Just threatening to was enough to get my account with them banned and after a couple of letters from their legal team a full refund was made to the card so originally paid on. Actually made a good return as the British Pound had strengthened compared to the USD over he last 6 months.

I can’t really speculate but it was very clear to me they didn’t want to go to court hence the full refund.

– User asdfghjkl on Money Maker Group

BannersBroker is understandably reluctant to have anything to do with a court order. In terms of legal footing, they are about as ready to engage as a deer in the headlights.

If you have made an investment and missed your first payment, threatening legal action is the best way to get a response (and your money back).

Whatever you do, don’t call the support team. Any support team that takes your money on a ‘per question’ basis is a complete fail on all accounts.

Some excellent steps for how to start the refund process are available on this BB Fightback Facebook page. It includes an email template that you can send to Stellar Point today.

The Banners Broker Ponzi Scam Facebook page, along with RealScam and the comments section on here, are the best places to check for regular updates on users’ attempts to get investments refunded.

You will have to wait until you’ve missed a payment cycle before you can start the legal proceedings (or threatening them at the very least).

Fortunately, it doesn’t look like you’ll have to wait very long.

Chris Smith’s Endless Excuses for Nil Payouts

Below you’ll find a timeline of recent excuses for why BannersBroker members haven’t received full payments. Now bear in mind the company policy that ‘negativity’ should be punishable by account termination.

Any member who complains about these delays faces the likelihood of having his account suspended. Or he would do if BannersBroker bothered to check their Facebook pages (last update in March and counting).

Here’s Chris Smith doing what he does best. Talking complete indecipherable rubbish:

23rd May – Last Payza payout, in terms of the order, people have asked about the dates — there are 2 reasons, one is a mistake and one by design. With Payza, it’s an Excel sent to the system and it pays based on that file. I created this file and put it together. It is date order, but if someone has say 4 pay requests, we will pay one and move to other members . When I did this, I sorted by ID’s, and I forgot to sort by Date (by person). So someone may have received an April payout and March is still pending. By design, due to the OSC investigation, we did choose some of the members who have never been paid before, so that everyone got their money back.

Finch: Were you not paid due to the OSC investigation or because Chris Smith is simply that incompetent? Who knows?

31st May – Payouts – I mentioned on Friday that we were doing STP last weekend, but it was not completed. We will be doing that this weekend. It is a batch upload, so there must be an Excel file that must be done correctly. In the past there were errors with that batch file, so now have to make sure everything is correct. There is alot of important data in that file and it invoves alot of money.

Finch: So a giant company like BannersBroker processes payments manually in an Excel spreadsheet? Seems legit. But not just an Excel spreadsheet! An Excel spreadsheet with errors in it.

7th June – STP payout yesterday. It took longer than anticipated, but did go out. (Finch: No it didn’t) We have alot of positive comments from members (Finch: No you haven’t). If you haven’t received yours you will be on the next run (Finch: No they won’t). Payza is coming up shortly. I hate to give definitive dates. But it will be soon.

Finch: Realising that a new line of defence is needed, Smith plucks a points system out of his arse…

14th June – Payouts: We do have a point system for payouts. It’s not alot different than before. Let’s say if you have a $2K w/d on Jan 1st, than another on Jan 2nd, same person. Person B does a request on Jan 5th for same $2K. Order is Person A gets w/d, then person B, then Person A, in that order. Points are assigned by order. Your first request will get more points than your next requests. More points are awarded if this is your first withdrawal.

Finch: Here’s a simple concept, Chris. Pay your members in full. Is BannersBroker no longer ‘cash rich’?

21st June – Next Payday: we were hoping to get Payza out last weekend. we cannot send it out if it’s not accurate. (Finch: You seem to send out payments with inaccuracies all the time, sometimes to the wrong account. Never stopped you before.) I am very confident that if it’s not today, then it will this weekend. I will make it a point to see that it goes out. STP will be shortly after that. We want to keep people satisfied. We are going in a point system order, predominantly by date, so everyone will not get a payment. However, everyone will get paid so please be patient.

Finch: A hilarious contradiction at the end there, synonymous of the misinformation this ‘company’ breeds to stay alive. All members are equal, but some are more Simon Stepsys than others.

Those are the excuses from the last month, but they stretch all the way back to January and February. For a full timeline of lies and deceit, check out the Banners Broker Iceland page.

Want to know a golden rule of running a ponzi scheme? Never tell your members why you can’t pay them. Blame it on everything under the sun, including your own incompetence, but never ever reveal the truth – that the pyramid is unsustainable, and the men at the top have milked it dry.

Clarifications and Conclusions

Several months ago I received this email from a reader who attended a local BB recruitment drive:

“You may or may not be pleased to know that you were personally mentioned by David Hooker I believe his name is, their Compliance Director, he advised us to ignore your blog, I think they are trying to pre-empt the fact that people will try and do research. They also interestingly claimed that your wife (?!?) is a BannersBroker Affiliate. I somehow doubt that is true, but I think you should be aware that that is what they are claiming.”

“It was your wife he said, he implied you had her join in order to try and drive revenue from banner advertising on your own site higher. The manner in which it was said was just outright nasty.”

Firstly, my ‘wife’ was actually my fiancee, and we’re no longer together. Secondly, she hated BannersBroker just as much as I did. Thirdly, what difference would that make to the banner revenue on this site?

Maybe we need to get Terry Stern in here to provide some simple explanations.

So, BannersBroker’s Director of Compliance (no less!) gets his balls in a twist with yet more malicious lies designed to pull the wool over cautious investors’ eyes. Upon being confronted with the remarks over email, Hooker feigned a ‘misinterpretation’ and promised not to run his little mouth in future.

Evidently the promise didn’t extend as far as his Facebook ‘fan’ page where he is still blabbering pseudo motivational bollocks to anybody who’ll listen.

David Hooker scammer

“Courageous! Determined! Driven!”

If this man has conned you in to handing over your hard earned cash, feel free to pay his page a visit and tell him what he really is.

For what it’s worth, David has recently removed any reference to Banners Broker or Stellar Point from his LinkedIn page. Make of that as you wish.

Another lie I’d like to put straight:

“Heard at a meeting in about the start of February (2013), that BannersBroker flew you to their HQ after seeing the bad press you had spread. They said it changed your mind about them. I just want to confirm whether that is true or I misheard?”

It’s not true, and I doubt you misheard.

I’ve had a few emails from BB apologists – presumably trying to bait me – by interpreting the months since my last post as a sign that I’ve ‘changed my mind’ about the scam, or that I’ve been bought out.

The reason I’ve been quiet is actually far simpler. I haven’t had to defend myself.

When I originally posted about the scam in October 2012, I was pelted with abuse from trolls, shills and damn near anybody with a penny invested in the scheme, as well as being publicly slandered by executives (!!) at Banners Broker recruitment drives. Time was always going to shine a rough light on the BB business model, and so it has.

The users who flocked here to defend the scheme can now be found venting their anger at BannersBroker instead, or promoting the next garbage ponzi. Some, to their credit, have publicly admitted that they were conned.

There’s no shame in being swindled by an international crime syndicate that has dedicated a lifetime to fooling you. Unless you let it happen repeatedly.

Where is Rajiv Dixit?

It comes as surprise to nobody that our friend Rajiv has decided to keep his head low since the damaging security investigations kicked off. This is a man already linked to other failed scams, like the ICF World Homes scheme that he swears was legitimate but somehow still ended up frozen by the Competition Bureau.

When the Securities and Exchange Commission come knocking (as they have been recently), Mr. Dixit knows he’ll be paying the piper some jail time.

I’ve heard some thoroughly unsavoury stories about Dixit that I can’t repeat here for obvious reasons. Some who know Raj on a personal level would be more than happy to throw him under a bus. And from what they’ve told me, I wouldn’t blame them.

In a bid to keep angry affiliates at bay, Raj changed his Facebook name to Rajeeve EswarRao, before seemingly deleting himself from the social network altogether.

Not sure where he stumbled across such a PR masterstroke. Maybe the Handbook of How To Run A Company Like Google?

What about Chris Smith?

How much does anybody know about Chris Smith… really?

Other than the fact that he used to be white?

Smith is the last man standing who is a) dumb enough or b) getting paid enough, to continue talking shop with angry BannersBroker investors.

My impression of Smith from his rumoured links to securities in the past is that he is a pawn. He doesn’t seem smart enough to mastermind a program like BannersBroker, but is happy to stick his face on the front cover.

The general consensus is that Dixit pulls Smith’s strings, so that Dixit can stay somewhat out of the spotlight. As for the ‘geeky genius’ who created the multi-million dollar Banners Broker algorithms? Wake me up when he has a Wikipedia page.

On the subject of Banners Broker management…

I read a depressing post on Facebook yesterday from a BB affiliate criticising the recent troubles, but still refusing to write off the company:

“…Love BB, Hate the managers who run it!!”

Edit: The original message was much longer but evidently the user doesn’t wish to be quoted. See the comments!

This kind of apologetic bullshit is the reason why the scheme hasn’t yet imploded. The managers who run BannersBroker ARE BannersBroker. They are the men who sat around a table and devised this damn near incomprehensible system with one intention: to fleece you of your money, and to get richer themselves.

Another depressing comment:

“OK there are far more experienced players in the on-line advertising industry, but had BB started out purely as an advertising company, I’d have no doubts they would have attracted some long-term business partners.”

Banners Broker has never been involved with the advertising industry. Any revenue they make from the banners on their network will be pennies. It saddens me that people are still falling for this idea that BB are transitioning towards a more ‘non-passive’ business. It has always been a ponzi scheme. You can’t pluck a legitimate advertising business out of the carnage just because the Ontario Securities Commission is on to you.

So I guess the real question is…

Are you going to let them get away with it? Will you continue to buy the panels lies?

The sad thing is, many affiliates will.

It’s a cultural hallmark of greed and easy-living. You’re told that you’re just ‘one week away’ from receiving the riches you were promised, and you continue to believe. A week turns in to a month, still you cling to the belief. When somebody tells you to join the Next Big Thing, you dive straight in because you want to believe in your divine right to easy money – no matter how many friends and families you trample over in its pursuit.

Note: If anybody asks you to join FlexKom, Ripplin, or Adhitprofits, do yourself a favour and don’t. Vultures like Soozi Scoones and Jamie Waters would sell your dying grandmother if it earned them a pot to piss in.

There’s no magic pot of gold under the rainbow and there’s no magic business waiting to fall out of Chris Smith’s arse. Only jail time, and hopefully lots of it.

Eventually BannersBroker is going to disappear and the ‘negative bloggers’ like myself who have been predicting this demise for a year will watch on as the lemmings join yet another get rich quick scheme.

Why? Because of the greed.

I hope those who are still clinging to a belief that BannersBroker somehow has legitimacy will wake up and smell the coffee. For those who are taking action to get their money back, good luck to you. I hope you don’t make the same mistake again.

Neuromarketing: The Weapons of Mass Conversion (Part 2)

Note: This is the second of a two-part series on Neuromarketing. Read the first part here.

Previously we looked at how social proof can lead to more conversions, more sales and more money in your bank account.

Social proof is a cornerstone of neuromarketing.

But it’s not the only child.

In this post, we’re going to look at three of the most powerful selling techniques known to man. Some might call them the twisted twins of social validation.

These techniques are capable of wreaking some serious havoc on the fickle, fanciful minds of our target markets. Which is why I ask – no, plead – that you repent for your sins and wash your keyboard in soap after usage.

The three techniques are:

  • Scarcity
  • Reciprocation
  • The need to rationalize decisions

There is plenty of academic research to suggest that the techniques above are Grade A weapons of mass destruction in the war of selling. Yet still there exists a shortage of examples for how these techniques can be adjusted to the modern web.

Well, that’s what I aim to show you in Part 2 of this series.

Let’s start by looking at scarcity.

How scarcity sells

Scarcity works in tandem with social proofing. Like two magnetic forces pulling a consumer to shipwreck. Together, they are irresistible.

I gave an example of one of my preferred scarcity tactics in the previous post.

“There are currently [17] people viewing today’s offer.”
“[654] people have signed up since October 1st.”
“We have exceeded our capacity! The offer ends in X.”

If you’re too late, don’t worry. We’ll be reopening our doors in December.

Scarcity is the threat of not having. You can see it being used in these popular sales ploys:

  • “Only limited tickets remaining.”
  • “Accepting [7] new affiliates.”

For scarcity to take effect, supply must be limited and demand must be present.

The guys over at IMGrind are pretty adept exponents of this equation.

IMGrind holds live masterminding sessions at factory line frequency. The events are an opportunity for Internet Marketers to get together and discuss strategies that are currently making money online. While I cannot vouch for how effective these sessions may be, I do admire the precision that goes in to their marketing.

To my knowledge, their latest live event had just 20 seats available. They were selling these tickets at $247 a pop.

IMGrind Recording

Scarcity sets the price point

Setting such a short supply of tickets provides two opportunities:

  1. It gives IMGrind an excuse to bombard your email with headlines like “Just 4 Seats Remaining! Book Now or Never

  2. It adds value to their second option, which I assume is their primary method of monetizing the event: DVD recordings. It sends out a message, “This event is full of so much smoking hot info, we can only show it to 20 people. But you, you don’t have to travel to New York City. You can get a copy of the DVD and watch from home.

Of course, when the live tickets do sell out, the event gains prestige. Users are far more likely to part with their wallets.

And what about those $247 DVD prices? Pretty extreme, don’t you think?

If somebody offered me a DVD for $247, I would kindly take the disk, snap it in half, and take a swipe at their jugular. But this price works.

Why does it work? It works because the anchor has already been set.

The event tickets are selling out fast at $247. You have social proofing that the event is worth at least $247. You also have the scarcity of tickets painting a subliminal message in your head that you will be missing out on something great.

The information is not easy to access. Some marketers are travelling to New York City for the session. Let’s be honest. How far out of bed would you crawl for a free WSO?

Remember: The harder it is to obtain, the greater the perceived value.

The final sucker punch in this awesome sales funnel is when IMGrind promotes the aftermath of the event.

They will duly blitz your inbox with success story after success story of how attendees have breathed new fire in to their careers after making the trip. This information is usually followed by an announcement: the DVD recordings will be taken offline in X days.

All that priceless information…

Gone. Vanquished. Never to be seen again.

What you are left with is a scarcity of time + a scarcity of information. Without knowing the exact IMGrind financials, I’m sure they’ll be eating pretty sizeable turkeys this Thanksgiving.

The lesson of scarcity: When we perceive information as being too easy to get, we lower the value of that information. Conversely, we can set high expectations and high demand by raising our prices and creating a bottleneck.

Open up a newspaper and chances are you will find a page dedicated to a stand-up comedian who has inexplicably miscalculated the demand for his shows.

Jimmy Carr on Tour

Jimmy Carr. One of my favourite comics.

Jimmy Carr on Tour!

January 10th, Birmingham, SOLD OUT
January 11th, Birmingham, SOLD OUT
January 12th, Birmingham, EXTRA DATE ADDED
January 14th, London, SOLD OUT
January 15th, London, SOLD OUT
January 16th, London, SOLD OUT
January 17th, London, EXTRA DATE ADDED

Of course, the marketing agencies responsible for these ads know exactly what they are doing.

By releasing extra dates ‘due to popular demand’, those terrible twins – scarcity and social proofing – can begin to work their magic.

You can try to fight it. You can try to analyse every last piece of advertising that comes your way, but there is simply too much of it. And it comes too fast.

Scarcity creates an illusion of desirability. Human nature simply cannot help itself.

You will desire that which is not easily available to you.

If you are reading this blog, I can assume that you are familiar with the sales text: “Only [7] spots remaining. Sign up now!”

More recently, marketers — being marketers — have upped the ante.

For when a static scarcity scare simply isn’t enough, there’s always the animated countdown:

7 Spots Remaining

Sped up and repeated for illustrative purposes.

And if that doesn’t shoot the fish in your barrel…

There’s another particularly fiendish technique that involves JavaScript and a ‘Spots Remaining‘ tally that decreases every time the user fills out a text field.

I have experimented with this method on long forms and I can say without doubt: a shrinking supply lubricates engagement.

Those who start entering their information simply cannot stop, no matter how crude or obvious the manipulation.

Just watch those little fingers scurry! And then hang your head in shame.

How reciprocation sells

Reciprocation is, and will always be, the friendly plague of Internet Marketing.

I still remember when link exchanges were a sophisticated form of marketing. When places on blogrolls were squabbled over. When the Warrior Forum was a circle jerk*

* It’s gotten worse. Like a bad wine.

Do you remember MySpace? Of course you don’t. Only Justin Timberlake remembers MySpace.

I tell a lie. My one lasting memory of MySpace was that of the world’s most reciprocal social network.

At least 90% of my actions on MySpace were down to the compelling forces of reciprocation.

“Hey Finch. I just added you to my Top Eight Friends. Wink, nudge.”

“That’s extraordinary news, Brianna. One might call this the proudest day of my life. I guess you’ve risen through the ranks to become my 6th bestest friend. Come and refresh the page. Oh, and jolly well done.”

7 seconds pass.

“Look Finch. I just answered this cool survey and chose you as my friend ‘most likely to die in a hideous car crash before the age of 21!‘ You should do it too.”

“No way! I just answered it. You were my friend ‘most likely to get pregnant in the back of a bike shed and have 3 kids before the age of 25!’

7 years pass and Finch is proven correct.

MySpace was a lot of things. But above all, it was a land of scratchy backs.

While I hope you have set your goals higher than landing on somebody’s Top Friends list, the psychology behind sites like MySpace can tell us a lot about how we behave.

Reciprocation is embedded in our psyches, particularly on a social level.

What many skilled marketers have noted is that reciprocation can be just as effective when it comes to selling.

We call it the ‘feeling of indebtedness’.

Every squeeze landing page in history owes its success to our feeling of indebtedness. It’s the reason why we don’t unsubscribe immediately after downloading a free giveaway. We understand that there is an exchange in place.

Historically, when we roamed the earth as cave men, to break the law of reciprocation would have been to invite trouble. In most cases, a club to the back of the head.

We have evolved, but elements of the old brain still exist.

You can tap in to this evolutionary hallmark by priming your web users via reciprocation.

How about a free gift? A little ‘something for nothing’ that looks innocuous but casts that sinking feeling of indebtedness.

When launching Premium Posts Volume 6, I used reciprocation in the form of a sneak preview of the product.

Users were able to access 10+ pages of material without paying a penny.

Note: And if you wish to receive the same perk with Volume 7, I suggest you opt-in at the bottom of this post!

The purpose of giving away content I had shed blood, sweat and tears for was not to be a good samaritan. Do I look like a good samaritan? It was to induce a feeling of indebtedness so that someday, perhaps not for several weeks, the sale would arrive.

A key element of reciprocation is that the scale of the good deed rarely matters. I may literally only scratch your back, but if you accept it as a favour, a seed of indebtedness has been planted.

The next thing you know, I’m inviting you to bed…

That’s great. How do I use reciprocation to make more sales?

One of my favourite techniques is the double tiered landing page. It traditionally involves a free giveaway; usually an ebook, or a personalised report; followed by a CPA offer.

The user lands on my page and is asked to submit his name and address to access my prized content. As soon as he has done so, he’s hit square in the chops with a CPA offer wrapped around a very carefully worded recommendation.

It rarely goes like this, but I hope you get the gist:

“Hi Derek, thanks for downloading my free report on ‘How to Save Endangered Hawaiian Seals’.

It took MANY sleepless nights to compile. But I hope you love it.

Just one more thing, if you’re really looking to save some seals, can I give you a recommendation?

AdoptAPremiumSeal.com is my partner’s site.

If you feel a nagging sense of indebtedness to take action, you should definitely check it out. After all, you have already shown me what a worldly soul you have by requesting my report. Most people are too cruel to get this far.

The next logical step, as I’m sure you are aware, is to adopt a seal. Right now.

Seriously, I’m waiting to take your call.

I’d really appreciate it. And I know the seals will too!

Note: I have used seals as an example, but I suppose you could easily use the same copy for ‘Fat Local Slags’. They need homes too.

If it seems like a ridiculous example, I have to tell you… people commit to some ridiculous shit, especially when they feel that they owe you.

Whatever gets the reciprocation monkey off their back.

The lesson of reciprocation: If we want people to take action, a small favour will go a long way. Aim to plant a seed of indebtedness before the user reaches your sales pitch. There are many ways to achieve this on the web. The most potent weapon is a taste of the information they crave. If you can personalise the information, the results will be even greater.

How the need to rationalize decisions sells (over and over again)

Selling to a customer once is the weather smiling on you.

Selling to a customer for the rest of his life is a job well done.

Marketers like myself too often forget that the big money lies in attracting lifelong customers. We affiliates, we love to rinse and burn.

We’d rather attract a million first time sales than deal with the threat of speaking once more to those we’ve used and abused.

The reality? It’s not easy to attract a lifelong customer.

You mustn’t only attract the customer’s wallet. You must attract his best judgment, his sense of identity and his underlying belief that the decision to choose your product was correct. If this belief does not exist, his first conversion will be his last.

Business models cannot stay healthy without customer loyalty. And so providing sweet assurance that a purchasing decision was correct is just as important as getting the bloody minded fool to bust out his plastic in the first place.

How can we help a consumer to rationalise a decision?

There are two techniques that I want to look at:

  • Appealing to the user’s sense of identity pre-sale.
  • Altering the user’s perception of an experience post-sale.

Appealing to the user’s sense of identity

I have tested hundreds of landing page variables. I can’t think of a single variable quite so potent as the ability to tap in to a user’s sense of identity.

Consumers buy products that align with their opinions.

The products they love most are those that make them feel good about themselves, while expressing who they are.

The very first impression your landing page should create is a sensation of Us Against The World. You should know your target market well enough that you can express their single biggest fear in the headline, along with the solution (your product, obviously!).

Look at the Work at Home Mom industry. It draws in thousands of mothers every single day on the basis of what exactly? No more than a sense of identity.

I am a work at home mom.

Yes, you are.

And I am much more likely to sell merchandise to you if I pretend that I am one too. Of course, you’ll never believe me. My tits are too hairy.

You need only look at, oh say, every single religion in the world to see how tribal the human race can be. Neuromarketers understand that what we call in-group bias – the tendency to side with people who share common ground – is an incredibly powerful sales engine.

Appealing to the user’s perception of experience post-sale

Not only will people buy what they believe in. What people buy will often shape what they believe in.

If you want to create a lifelong customer, you can’t leave them at the checkout cart.

Every single Multi-Level Marketing sucker I have encountered has been programmed to believe, with devout faith, that his money is being invested wisely. That’s because the MLM experience relies on shaping the user’s perception after the initial sale/investment.

Now, look at your own sales funnel.

Do you forget about your customers from the moment the sale is made?

You shouldn’t. This is the time to pounce.

If you want to create your own tribe, your own dedicated group of followers, you have to instill the belief that your product is an extension of their own identities.

Don’t restrict freebie giveaways to your non-customers. Provide the best benefits to those who are already your customers. Don’t be afraid to develop an email follow-up series after a sale has been made. And always promote your successes.

IMGrind, the scarcity exponents I referenced at the start of this post, are equally skilled at promoting their successes. An IMGrind event will rarely pass without an email landing in my inbox with the success stories that came out of it.

Following up an event or a sale with positive associations is one of the best ways to ensure that your customers stay loyal. It lets you mould their perception of what you offer.

Reflections on Neuromarketing

This has been a long post, and my fingers are chaffed. If you are still awake, I salute you.

The truth is, neuromarketing is deserving of both your time and attention. It is one of the most exciting, baffling and lucrative fields you could hope to explore.

We can’t control how we are wired as human beings.

Sure, we can make what we might consider to be logical decisions, but they are usually driven by split second judgments that marketers are only just beginning to exploit.

If you really want to understand how to increase conversions, it’s those split second judgments that you need to learn and embrace.

I’ll finish this series by offering a book recommendation: Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Read it. Read it again.

You will soon begin to understand how little we actually know about ourselves. And how what little we do know can be exploited by marketers with money on their minds.

Recommended This Week

  • Be sure to check out Adsimilis, the official sponsor of Premium Posts Volume 5 & 6. Adsimilis is one of the most effective networks in the world for CPA affiliates. Lots of offers, lots of high payouts, lots of exclusives. Sign up now.

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