What most people often fail to realize is that we human beings have some pretty hot buttons that when pushed just right, make us do things quickly.

Sometimes these buttons make us do things that we wouldn’t normally do. This is no more true than when we go to make a purchase.

There are just certain keywords that when we hear them, make us want to purchase the item that is associated with the item.

So what’s my point? Well, if you can incorporate these keywords naturally into your ad copy, you have a very good chance of increasing the number of sales that you make. In this series of articles, we’re going to examine these killer keywords, starting with the word “fast.”

He Hates to Wait!

Let’s face it. People don’t want to wait for things. Think about it. Why do we go to fast food restaurants? We certainly don’t go to them because the food is so great. I mean, it’s okay, but you’re certainly going to get a better meal at a fine diner.

Why do people buy microwaveable dinners? For that matter, why is the microwave such a popular item? The reason is simple. With our hectic life styles, we don’t always have time to prepare an elaborate meal. Sometimes we just want to take a box out of the freezer and pop it into the microwave, thus the invention of the microwave dinner. Something else that is fast.

Even your Car Hates to Wait!

Did you ever go to a Jiffy Lube? Well, if you don’t know what a Jiffy Lube is, it’s a place that will change the oil in your car in under 15 minutes. Why are Jiffy Lubes so big? Because people don’t want to wait around for an oil change. They’ve got more important things to do.

Zooming Around is Wonderful!

But the word fast is not only associated with convenience. Did you ever think about why people like to watch race cars? There is something very exciting about things that go fast. That’s why the Corvette is such a popular car. It goes fast. And guys like cars that go fast. If the car went slow, or even average speed, would as many people buy it?

Fast is power. Fast is energy. Nobody likes the slow poke. They like the person who can run fast. That’s why we have races, to see who the fastest person is, not the slowest, who we ultimately end up laughing at.

Steady may win the race, but fast is what attracts people.

So if you can somehow incorporate fast into your business advertising, you have a good chance of making more sales.

Maybe you have a product that will help somebody speed up their productivity, like a high speed printer. Great! Make the customer aware of this. Let them know how my DPI it prints in how many seconds. Throw specs at them. They may not understand them all, but they will understand one word. Fast.

Fast.

Put that word in your ad copy and use it for all that it’s worth and you will see your sales increase. It’s all psychology.

So, why do people buy things? We’re going to do this in reverse order and save the top reasons for last. This way it builds up some suspense. Let’s face it, everybody loves those top 10 lists. Well, here’s my contribution to the mania.

The 10th reason why people buy things is to relieve stress.

Let’s be honest. The lives we live are very stressful. We get up, go to work, come home, take care of the kids, the bills, the problems, maybe have an hour to watch TV and then we do the same thing all over again the next day.

If you think stress isn’t a problem, you obviously don’t live in the real world or at least in the working world. So it’s important that our product or service is able to relieve stress in a person’s life.

An Example (Don’t Get Stressed-Out!)

Let’s say you are promoting an auto-responder service. (This is a kind of online machine that can send out emails automatically. Like, for example, “I’m out of the office until next Tuesday.”)

How can something like this relieve stress in somebody’s life and how would you go about promoting it? Well, people who need auto-responders are usually business persons who are trying to manage their own in-house list.

The way you would go about marketing this as a stress reliever would be to emphasize how easy a person’s life could be with this auto-responder service. Explain how stress free it is because they won’t have to deal with manually entering people into their list. All they need to do is send them the link and once they click on it, the auto responder adds the contact. Tell them that opt outs are just as easy because at the end of each message they send there will be a link included to allow a person to opt out of the list. This way they don’t have the worry of having to maintain this list manually.

Most likely this helps ease some of the stress of running their business.

How to Sell a Book

Let’s say you’re selling a product and not a service and the product is an acne cure book. You might be thinking of how you could possibly incorporate the angle of stress into a pitch for an acne cure book.

Actually, it’s very simple. Remember, you’re targeting mostly a young audience. These are kids who are very looks conscience. The last thing they want is to be getting ready for their prom and getting a zit on their face. This is very stressful for a young teen.

So what you do is tell them in your ad copy that with this natural acne cure they won’t have to worry about whether or not they’ll have a pimple on their prom night. This will help relieve that part of stress in their life, how they look.

Can be Applied to most Sales Points

If you think about your product and what it is used for, you can apply the stress principal to just about anything. Try it. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results.

The term “honesty in advertising” may actually seem like an oxymoron to most people.

Just go a search on “online marketing” and take a look at the sales pages for the top products. Notice something consistent about the sales copy?

I’m sure you do. Most sales pages make it seem like it’s simply a matter of pressing a button and watching the money pour down from the skies, the Rolls pull into your driveway, the yacht docked at the bay and your 401 K plan already matured in 48 hours.

If only life were that easy.

Alas! Such Ad Copy Sells!

Sadly, it is this kind of ad copy that sells. It is this kind of ad copy that consumers want to see and it is this kind of ad copy that the creators of these programs will consistently put out. At least until the day comes when somebody makes it a law that you can’t make insane claims on your web site.

Well, actually, it’s started.

For those of you who frequent the Clickbank marketplace — a network of online book and software sellers — they have just recently (at least as of this article) made some changes to their policies. You can no longer put up a site that makes any claims about how much money you can earn with a particular program.

If you submit a site to them that you want included in their marketplace, you better make sure that there are no income claims on the sales page. There is still some confusion at this point in time on how this affects products that are already in the Clickbank marketplace.

But I have no doubt that the hammer will soon be dropped on some of the older products as well.

Perhaps the Pain is Increasing

With the growing number of complaints by consumers claiming that these products don’t live up to all the hype, it’s no wonder that this is happening.

Something has to give or the whole industry is going to suffer.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some excellent products out there that don’t make outrageous claims to consumers. Sadly, these aren’t normally the big sellers. But they are starting to put a dent into the marketplace.

You’re probably wondering why I am even bothering to tell you all this. Well, it’s really very simple. While I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, you can make an honest living online with your products, whatever it is you decide to sell, without having to resort to wild claims.

Yes, there are always going to be those people out there who want the quick buck. But you have to ask yourself, are those the people you want buying your products?

Honesty in advertising. More people should try it.

The world would certainly be a better place.