Photo by Mattia Belletti

As business owners, our fantasy is to be able to cause our prospective customers to do exactly what we tell them, when we tell them: buy our products, refer more business to us, increase the frequency of orders, blog about their experience with our company, etc. Many people are constantly searching for the magic system that will easily bring piles of riches to your door easily, regularly, and automatically. We love hearing about the latest get-rich-quick guru success stories and dream that maybe this guru has our missing piece of knowledge. We are ready, willing, and able to be hypnotized by their promises. Why not use this same skill to improve your own business?

Key point: People that are searching for solutions to their problems are willing to be hypnotized by your offering. Here’s how to make your marketing hypnotic:

1. Identify them. First, make sure you’re talking to the right audience. Focus where (and to who) you send your marketing message.
2. Relax them. Tell them that their problems can be solved, and that you’ve been solving these problems for people like themselves. Let them experience the feeling of having their problem solved. Let them see that it’s not impossible and that they can start solving their problem today. Let them believe that there is “light at the end of their tunnel.”
3. Overwhelm them. Start to hypnotize them by giving them more information than they can process (but not all at once): testimonials, case studies, graphics showcasing the winning solutions, graphs of increased results, etc. The key is to honestly present the information, but to deluge them with information, so that everywhere they look they see the answer they’ve been searching for. This is why extremely long landing pages are so effective – they get you hooked for information, and then you realize that there’s too much information to read all at one sitting, and start scrolling, and scrolling and see the buy now button over, and over again.
4. Guide them. Tell them what specifically they need to do to make hypnotic suggestion a reality. If you’ve identified their pain, talked about it, and let them experience the reality of having their pain erased – they’re ready, willing, and able to take action NOW.

Photo by Marina Castillo

If you’re thinking of growing your business (or increasing its revenue), focus on your business structure first. I’m not referring to your internal business organization (e.g., marketing, sales, administration, development, customer service, etc.) – I’m referring to your external business conversations.

Businesses converse with (at most) five different target groups, each of whom have different needs:

• customers (people who give you money in exchange for your offering)
• investors (people who give you money in exchange for ownership)
• the public (teaching people about your offering – but not with the primary goal of turning them into customers – perhaps to share information to make their lives better)
• advocates (try to affect rules and regulations in society)
• prospective employees (are people who want to give you their time and knowledge in exchange for a salary)

You need to market your company to each of these groups differently, because each group has different needs/concerns.

• customers want to know why they should buy from you. What specific problems do they have that you can solve?
• investors (or donors, for non-profit businesses) want to know how their money will help your business and how will they benefit.
• the public want to know why they should trust your information and how it will make their lives better.
• advocates want to know what in society should change, why, and who will benefit (and who won’t).
• prospective employees want to know that your business is healthy, their contributions will be valued, and that your company values are in alignment with their personal values.

Before trying to grow your business, make sure you send the right message, to the right group of people, at the right time.