Why would you want to use Embedded Commands and other forms of covert influence?
When creating marketing materials you want to get your prospect’s mind moving in “certain direction” without making them feel you are manipulating them. Because once they feel you’re doing that, you’ll encounter a lot of resistance, resentment, and the tossing of your ad.
Yes, most people want to be led, have decisions made for them, but they never want to feel like they are being manipulated. They can be manipulated, they just want to feel like they’re in control. This ties in with the common saying in sales that says that people like to buy, indeed want to buy, they just don’t want to be sold to.
Once you start using embedded commands and other forms of covert influence, you’ll get your prospects’ minds moving in the right direction soon will be transforming in to physical actions (such as pulling out their credit cards!).
What direction do you want your prospects to go?
In creating your marketing materials the first thing you have to decide is what you want your prospects to feel and what do you want them to do.
So before you can start embedding commands you have to get clear on what emotions you want to invoke in your prospects. If you’ve been doing any kind of marketing up to know, you’ve probably heard (or experienced) the fact that people buy on emotion and then they justify their purchase with logic.
This is important. If you try to use logic, features, rationalities (left-brain stuff) either without evoking emotions at all or before a prospect is emotionally jump started you’ll lose the sale.
Think of your own experience, especially for larger, more expensive purchases. Didn’t you get all emotionally worked up before you bought? And then either right before or just after you bought, you justified your purchase perhaps only to yourself, but probably to people you know?
Most advice on sales will tell you to evoke emotions, but they rarely tell you how. The best advice you’ll get is to list all the benefits of your offer. This is a fine way to go about doing it. But what do you do if you don’t really have that many benefits to offer? Most marketing experts suggest at least 6 benefits (inlcuding your main, most important benefit) to get the strongest effect.
That’s where embedded commands and other forms of covert influence come in….
Embedded Commands
Embedded commands are language patterns that bypass the conscious mind and directly influence people at the unconscious level, allowing you to make people feel a certain way or to take specific actions. They are imperatives (commands) within (embedded) a larger sentence causing them to be responded to below a person’s level of awareness.
We’ll be discussing 2 ways of using embedded commands: the first one is to get the person’s mind going in a certain direction – to get their emotions and feelings involved. The second is for them to start taking action.
First make all a list of all the feelings you want readers to feel about your product. Some common ones are
- hope
- anticipation
- greed
- curiosity
- excitement
- interest
There are plenty more. Which ones would work in your particular situation?
Since no one gets thrilled about buying a product, you have to include the benefits a prospect will get when they buy your product.
Now you can embed these feelings and benefits into longer sentences:
- What would it be like to get really excited about making a living on eBay?
- When you start to feel curious, do you act on it?
- I wonder how quickly you’ll feel the anticipation of meeting beautiful women where ever and whenever you want.
- How surprised would you be to feel good about all the possibilities?
- As you read this brochure notice how you become really interested in all the ways you can make more money.
Once you’ve gotten your prospects in a good, anticipatory mood, you can start adding embedded commands for action: You can try these commands out for starts:
- trust me
- decide now
- believe me
- call me
- do what I say
- agree with me
- buy today
- desire more
- read each word
- change your life
When you want to use embedded commmands in spoken language, you’ll want to keep the commands to about 2 or 3 words (like the above ones). When used in writing the commands can be longer.
It’s not necessary to decide now.
What would happen if you decide now?
Now you have the opportunity to buy today.
As you read each word of this brochure notice the excitement you feel.
So you see, you can put embedded commands into practically any sentence or question.
Make sure when using embedded commands that you mark out the command in some way. In written communication this can be bold, underlined, italics, colored, different fonts, or highlighted.
When using embedded commands in conversations or in monologues mark out the embedded command by STRESSING THE COMMAND, pausing…. just before the command, or pausing just after the command.
When you use embedded commands in your marketing make sure not to use too many – just a light sprinkling here and there, especially at the beginning and then again towards the end. I came across one website where the guy just put embedded commands everywhere. That ruined the message he was trying to convey. The most important thing to keep in mind when you are creating your marketing materials is how you can help your prospect…how you can solve their problems…how you can help them reach their goals. Everything after that is just icing on the cake and an addtional push in the right direction.
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