I’m not ashamed to admit that I, Devon Kreider, have made my fair share of infomercial purchases.
There’s a reason why infomercials have become a massive phenomenon and and why many of us have contributed to the growing infomercial market.
On the surface they’re cheesy, a bit abrasive, and provide comedians with an endless supply of jokes.
But if you can get past all the simultaneous slicing while dicing and chopping while mopping, infomercials can actually teach us a thing or two.
The secret to selling like Billy Mays isn’t in the shouting, it’s in the structure.
Infomercials have a unique marketing structure, that when applied to a sales page or other promotional material, will cut right to the core of the psychology of a customer.
The Secretly Awesome Structure of an Infomercial:
- Sell the benefits of a product
- Back up your claims with solid data
- Demonstrate your expertise through testimonials
- Capitalize on the power of storytelling
- Be a little repetitive
- Show some comparisons between you and the other guy
- Absolutely have a call-t0-action
Your customers wake up in the morning with a business problem.
It may seem like a software problem or a design problem, but what they’re really looking for is a solution to help them save money or earn more money.
Infomercials are able to sell even the most ridiculous products because what they’re really selling is a solution to a distinct problem.
The trick is to use real emotional triggers to talk about your customer’s problem.
You want your prospective customers to feel like you understand where they’re coming from. Like you know their pain and that you care about helping them solve it.
That’s where the benefits come in.
Often, we get wrapped up in all of the features our products have. But your customers aren’t looking for features.
Despite what we may think, customers aren’t looking for fast, free, easy, fun, and pretty. They’re looking for a way to earn more money, save time or increase their own customer base.
If you pay attention to the exact words your customers use, you can explain how and why your product will help them.
Nothing motivates people more than hearing their own words repeated back at them.
And if they can hear their own words through the testimonials of your satisfied customers, well then you’re one step closer to getting their business.
The biggest lesson we can learn from infomercials is that selling is, in fact, a science. It’s a social science.
When we’re marketing to our customers, we want to drill down to the core reasons of why someone would want to purchase our product.
And to do so, we need to understand their motivation, their fears and doubts, and but most importantly, their pain points.
Then you can use the marketing structure of an infomercial without ever needing to say, “But wait, there’s more!”
