You’re trying to make money. Fair enough.
You want to crack the Da Vinci Code and unlock the secrets of buyer psychology.
You want techniques, tips, and trade secrets that make people receptive to your offers. You want to master the mechanics of making money on your own terms.
And if you’re especially new to the business world, you might want a blueprint or a five-step plan.
I bet you could dream up your own March 2013 Cosmopolitan headlines in a few minutes.
“Cosmo headlines” are so consistent month after month they’ve become an institution.
I used to wonder why people would keep buying new issues of what appeared to be canned material like it was their job . . .
But that was before I began studying copywriting or understood the power of classic headline principles. That was before I learned about the universal appeals that make people powerless to resist.
This month’s issue is no different. It offers a perfect opportunity to analyze each of the headlines on the cover and point out why it’s so effective.
Are you positively flummoxed (I love that word!) trying to understand buyer psychology?
Do you think humans are infinitely complicated creatures whose irrational behavior you’ll never quite comprehend?
Fear not.
Yes, people are irrational. No one is exempt. You and I and the homeless guy on the corner are all irrational to some degree.
As crazy as it sounds, this irrationality is so widespread it can be organized into patterns. Patterns so strong (regardless of race, religion, culture, etc.) that they’ve become commandments of buyer psychology.
And you only need to know 3 of them to write more persuasive ads or create more appealing products.
Interested in being more creative?
See if you can answer this question…
What do the following things have in common?
If you’re from the United States, you probably had the misfortune of suffering through foreign language classes in school.
To everyone else who had excellent foreign language classes in their youth, consider yourselves lucky! A few hundred million Americans and I are jealous.
I know I suffered. When I look back on my years in Spanish class, my memories are a blur of grammar tables (shudder), vocabulary flashcards, and verb conjugations.
Rules, rules, rules.
I did my best to follow them all. Which leaves a bad taste in my mouth that, even after growing up in Texas and attending college in Miami, I still haven’t attained the level of Spanish fluency I desire.