Let’s go into two of the most important elements behind the buying psychology: emotions and logic.

Buy on Emotions, Justify It with Logic

Does someone buy a Mercedes because it logically makes sense? No – they buy a Mercedes because of how they believe they’ll feel when they own the car. The luxurious feel. The envy from others. The sense of pride, of power.

Then they tell themselves: “I’m buying it because I need to impress clients.” Or “I’m buying it because if it helps me land just one deal, it’s almost paid for itself.”

The reality is, however, buying decisions are almost always made on desire. Only once a strong desire has made the decision, then logic is used to justify the buying decision.

How can you use this to your advantage?

First of all, perhaps the most important skill you can master as a marketer is the ability to create desire. If you can instill a sense of excitement, of urgency, of tangible desire to own your product in your potential customers, your ability to sell will go up dramatically.

The other thing to take away from this principle is how important it is to help lay out the logic your client needs to justify the purchase. If you can explain why they’ll make their money back from their investment, you make it much easier for them to give in to their desire to own the product.

The Importance of Believability

Marketers and salesmen often try to make huge claims. It’s almost as if they’re in a competition to see who can make a bigger claim that nobody believes.

The most important thing in getting people to buy isn’t making big claims. Instead, it’s getting believability.

If I could convince you that I could show you how to make an extra $2,000 a month for no additional effort, all it would cost you is $50 and you believed me 100%, how likely are you to say yes?

On the other hand, if I tried to convince you I could make you a million dollars and you didn’t believe me, how much would you pay me for that?

The most important thing really isn’t how big a claim you can make, but how big a claim you can make your customers believe.

Desire is built on claims people believe. If someone really believes their lives can be better, they’ll get excited. Logic is also built on claims they believe. If someone really believes that buying that new Mercedes is worth the investment, they’re much more likely to spend the money.

The psychology behind buying is in some ways simple. Get people to want your product and remove the logical reasons why they shouldn’t. It’s also a skill that can take a lifetime to master.

This is the kind of knowledge that can really make a difference when planning your next marketing campaign, since the longer your material stays on the minds of your target audience, the more you get from each dollar spent getting that message out to them.

The book breaks down the creation of sticky ideas into a formula made up of six element; simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories. Using examples from the real world including sticky ideas ranging anywhere from real world ad campaigns to urban legends that everyone has heard of and no one can forget, the brothers do an excellent job of clearly demonstrating the application of the principals that they write about.

Over the next few weeks we’ll do an series of six posts, an element by element review of the theories put forth in Made to Stick, analyzing the ideas set forth in each section and seeing if the ideas the brothers are presenting are in themselves sticky! Make sure to check back often, so as not to miss any of the six parts!