Razvan Rogoz

Category: Market Psychology

  • Don’t Hope That Someone Will Buy. Sell Instead.

    From the desk of Razvan Rogoz
    Dear friend,

    I have took this photo in Hong Kong.

    It is an amazing place. What is even more amazing is that this place was built in a deliberate and strategic manner. Nobody found oil here. For all intents and purposes, when the British took the island, it was just a barren rock. Now, it is one of the Asian Tigers, one of the most powerful economic forces in East Asia.

    I’m saying this because too many self-improvement authors and especially coaches use hope as a strategy. I have done this too as a copywriter. I have created hundreds of articles on my old blog and I have gave all of them for free. I have developed tens of eBooks and I haven’t charged for a single one of them. I gave my time for free, to anyone who needed some advice and people rarely bought anything.

    (more…)

  • Your Customer Wants To Take The Easy Way Out

    From the desk of Razvan Rogoz
    Dear friend,

    This is a very delicious cake. My girlfriend bought it today for me.

    She’s such a sweetheart.

    It is delicious. It has been months since we’ve both ate anything sweet. It is mouth-watering.

    Why am I’m showing you this?

    (more…)

  • What Do Petty Hustlers & Poor Copywriters Have In Common?

    From the desk of Razvan Rogoz
    Dear friend,

    I’d like you to imagine that you’re walking down a dark alley.

    It is late in the evening and you’ve had a long day at work. You’re in a safe part of the town so you know that nothing bad will happen yet this is not the most comfortable place in the world.

    You pull out your phone and fire up Facebook. That gal you like accepted your friend request. You hope that you won’t screw it again this time.

    Then, from nowhere, a guy in a black hoodie comes to you. You don’t know him and you want to have nothing to do with his person. He comes closer and you think you’re going to get mugged.

    But his intentions are different. Instead of pulling out a knife and saying something in the area of “Your money or your life you lover of moms” … he smiles and asks you.

    “Hi there. Do you want to buy this new <insert expensive brand phone here> for just $200?. I have a huge problem and I need to get money fast.”

    You see a brand new phone in front of you. This piece of glass and metal costs around $700 new. You could get it for just a fourth of the price. This is your lucky day.

    Yet, if you are like most people, you’ll simply say no and walk away.

    Have this ever happened to you? It happened to me several times. Ranging from iPods to brand new iPhones to jewelry and even opera tickets (yes, no kidding), strangers tried to sell me stuff on the street.

    I haven’t bought for the same reason that most people don’t buy from a poor sales letter. The offer was there and it was decent. It wasn’t a promise from some royalty in Nigeria, it was tangible. The benefits were clear; get something I like for pennies on the dollars. Yet, I’ve never bought because …

    … I never trusted that person.

    And if your prospect is not buying from you, guess what? Chances are that he doesn’t trust you. For all intents and purposes, you are that guy in a hoodie trying to sell him a too good to be true deal, especially if you’ve contacted him without for him to express any interest.

    He may be interested in what you sell. He may have the money. He may buy even right now in other circumstances. But you are not trustworthy. You are some faceless, nameless marketer he doesn’t know, he doesn’t want to know and who just interrupted his day.

    If the deal is too good to be true, then it is a scam. If it is decent, then he doesn’t know you and he would rather buy from someone he trusts.

    Trust is the main ingredient of transactions between human. Trust. The money you carry in your wallet is valuable because you and the other person trusts that a financial institution won’t default on that value (FIAT currencies don’t have intrinsic values). When someone hires you for a job, he trusts to pay you a monthly fee in exchange of a work you haven’t done yet.

    And online, trust is the glue that makes everything stick together, that makes everything work. In the same time, it is the most overlook element of a sales copy for reasons that elude me.

    Your first job as a copywriter is to sell to your prospect something he wants, something that fulfills his needs. He may not need a 24 DVD course on golfing but he wants a better swing. The second job is to make the prospect trust you that you have no hidden motives and that you are really saying the truth, that you are not pulling his leg.

    Think about it.

    Best regards,
    Razvan “The Copy Scientist”

  • Reason Why In Copywriting And Life

    From the desk of Razvan Rogoz
    Dear friend,

    A key word you need to remember in your life is “reason why”. This defines a reason for doing something, a reason why it is true, a reason to believe it. Now, reason why is very important in copywriting since every claim must be backed up with it. If I say, “we are the best”, then I must add a “reason why” we are the best (won sales award in 2012 or so).

    Most people ignore the idea of reason why. They forget a thing. Your prospect is skeptical and while he is interested in buying, there are several options for him. When it comes to buy, the first consideration is how much he feels this is he going to solve his problem. However, if all appeals are equal, the copy with the best reason why wins.

    Reason why is not just a part of copywriting. It is a part of our own psychology. For example, let’s say that you have a kid and comes to you to ask for $50. He’s not going to say “Please give me $50”. He’ll instead explain why he needs it and then ask it from you.

    This concept, of justifying something, especially a claim, is built into our own language. It is how we operate and we operate this way for a good reason. It works.

    Today, we are covering “reason why” as a self-improvement tool.

    You see, in theory and in practice, you can’t do something without having a reason for it. Every action leads to a reaction. When you do something, you are doing it because you are anticipating the effect.

    So the things that you don’t do, the ones you procrastinate on, are usually the ones that do not have a strong reason why. You know why you should shower or drink water. You need to shower because you’ll feel clean (carrot) and you’ll avoid the humiliation of stinking (stick). You drink water because it makes you feel good and you avoid being thristy.

    The difference between average people and successful ones are the reason why they have in their lives. A person that works 100 hours per week has a strong reason why to do this. A person that spends 40 hours a week watching TV also has a strong reason why.

    So, as you may have guessed, you need to come with a strong reason why for the things you want to be doing and reason why for not doing some things. Let me give you an example. A reason why, actually, several ones, for not smoking is the risk of cancer, addiction, financial investment, the fact that you’ll eventually burn your clothes and so on. The more arguments you have, the less likely you are to do it.

    There are two main types of “reason why”. These are mental and emotional.

    A mental one makes sense but it is mediocre in power. It is like saying “I must complete this blog post because I want to express my thoughts to like minded people”. It works but again, it is not that great. An emotional one is saying “If I write this blog post, I will attract like minded people like before. This will bring new amazing contacts into my life and I will be surrounded by people I like and admire. This will make me very happy”.

    Do you see the difference? It makes me feel something, it engages my emotions and it is stronger than a simple mental one.

    Most of the bad things we do are for bad reason why. When we fight, we have a reason why. However, this is fully emotional. Love is based on reason why, at least romantic love. The reason why is intimacy, being appreciated, sex, closeness and so on. If you want to simply prove this, take away these things or even a few of them from two people and call it love again. It will be not, it will be platonic at best.

    Procrastination is nothing more than not having a strong reason why. Actually, your entire day is a battle between reason why. Do you have a better reason why (emotional) for watching TV or for going to the gym? Do you have a better reason why to spend time with one person vs. another?

    Actually, since most actions do not carry imediate feedback (for example, I may benefit from this blog post six months into the future), having a reason to do it is the only reason why you’re doing it. Why would someone else train six months, one year, several years to get a gold medal at a sport? Because he knows that if he does, at one point, he’ll get the medal (rational). And with that medal, then the recognition, admiration, a lot of open doors, money, self-esteem, pleasure, etc (emotional) will come.

    I wish there were more to human psychology but the essence is this – we do things because of the reasons we do things. Nothing less, nothing more. There are actual considerations to take like competence, self-image, etc but when you put these asides, it comes down to answering the question …

    “What is my reason for doing this?” and answering it both on a rational and emotional level. If you can do this, then you can sell, you can sell yourself on a idea, you can get outside of your comfort zone and you can make quantum leaps into your own life. Since growth is nothing more than doing things that you were not doing before and getting good at them, finding a good reason why for doing those things is the first step towards growth.

    That’s about it for today. Let me know what you think. Do you have strong reasons to do what you need to do in your life? Please let me know your thoughts and comments below.

    Best regards,
    Razvan Rogoz

    PS: Feel free to also connect to my FB page. I’m posting almost daily new content there.

  • The #1 Most Overlooked Emotional Appeal

    From the desk of Razvan Rogoz
    Dear friend,

    I don’t know about you, but here in Europe there is a major factor that impacts how people behave, and therefore can be used in sales copy.

    This is what other people will think of them. Europe is a lot more social and conformist in nature (at least parts of it, France would be the opposite) compared to the United States. Here “what other people think of me” ranks high on the list of emotional needs.

    This drove me to the fact that too few people use this in a sales material. Yes, they use appeals like “get a good deal” or “sleep better at night” but way too few people focus on this primordial need to get accepted, to be liked and not to be judged.

    So here’s a piece of advice: in every sales copy you write, focus on the social aspect too. Show how they risk nothing and they gain a lot, socially, by investing in this product and there is no risk of shame or “loss of face” in the process. It is a small tweak but for most people, caring what other people think is just up there close to sex and eating.

    For your success,
    Razvan Rogoz

  • The importance of emotional intelligence in mrkt / sales

    From the desk of Razvan Rogoz
    Dear friend,

    What makes a good copywriter?

    To be honest, it is not his ability to write. Yes, words are important. Words are damn important. It’s a vehicle to get your ideas and message across. But there is something more important than that. That is emotional intelligence.

    What do I mean by emotional intelligence? The ability to understand how people function and most importantly, how you function. A copywriter is similar to a hacker. He must break into a system and change something. He must get his attention, resolve his objections, make him desire his products and finally, get the client to take action.

    It’s similar to scanning a port, finding the right password, breaking the firewall, finding the right file to take and eliminating all logs.

    This may offend a lot of copywriters who believe themselves as artists. We are not artists. We are business people. We are no different from the Wall Street broker pitching stocks on the phone or the sales person moving door to door. Yes, we require a bit more sophistication but we are not artists. We do not write to get awards. We write to sell.

    And if you want to become a better copywriter, instead of keep copying sales letters by hand, develop your emotional intelligence. Go out in the world. Experience. Meet your prospect. Meet people who are obsessed with their weight to understand how the weight loss niche works. Meet 24 year old virgins to understand why the dating industry works. Go to a multi-level marketing meeting, sit through it two hours and network to understand how biz op work.

    Copywriting is a skill learnt in the real world. Yes, I also encourage you to read a book or watch a course on copywriting for at least 30 minutes daily but the bulk of your work should be out there, not in front of your office.

    It’s true, you can copy the masters, you can take every technique and strategy and apply it in a principle similar to “monkey sees, monkey does”. And it will actually work. It’s not that hard to sell. But until you understand the underlying principles of human nature, what makes people ticks, how we are these strange and wonderful creatures in the same time, you can’t win it big.

    Agree?

    Leave a comment in the box below.

    Thank you,
    Razvan

  • How Does Happiness Work In The Mrkt Process?

    From the desk of Razvan Rogoz
    Dear friend,

    What does happiness has to do with marketing?

    For starters, people buy things that will make them happy.

    People will buy what they want, not what they need. If you or me would resume to only what we need, we would only have a cave, a fire, a women and a piece of meat.

    So, by default, the companies who can sell products that will make people happy are the companies who will make the most money. Do you want a simple example? Apple with their iPhone 4 vs. any other phone company. The iPhone 4 is not the more advanced, or the cheapest gadget around. However, it’s the gadget that can deliver happiness easiest. It’s the gadget that is suitable for work, play, chatting. On the other side, we have ultra powerful phones but which are hard to use, lack the user experience of the iPhone and tend to go to the tech side just a little too much.

    A lesson out of this post? Create something that will make people happy. Don’t be so much of a realist. People don’t want to hear about their problems or mistakes. Make them laugh. Make them feel loved. Make them feel appreciated.

    And the key to the entire universe will open for you.

    Razvan