Marketing Bookshelf
Cashvertising: How to Use More than 100 Secrets of Ad-Agency Psychology to Make Big Money Selling Anything to Anyone
By Sarah Zane
Why do we skip over some YouTube ads, but find ourselves drawn to watching others? What is it about those ads that hooks us? More importantly, how can we learn the secret behind those attention-grabbing ads and harness that power in our own marketing efforts?
After spending 30-plus years in the ad industry, marketer and author Drew Eric Whitman has learned that the magic behind effective advertising is within everyone’s reach. In Cashvertising: How to Use More than 100 Secrets of Ad-Agency Psychology to Make Big Money Selling Anything to Anyone, Whitman unpacks the secret of using psychology to be a better marketer.
Here are the three primary lessons you’ll find inside Cashvertising:
Lesson 1: A successful marketing campaign appeals to the eight core desires:
- Staying alive
- Food and water
- Safety and freedom from pain
- Sexual companionship
- Comfortable and pleasant living conditions
- Protecting those we love
- Approval from others
- Self-improvement and accomplishment
Whitman says that most sales derive from these eight motives. When consumers feel that one or more of these desires are not being fulfilled, they’ll feel tension in that area, and be drawn to fill that unfulfilled need. An effective marketer knows how to highlight that tension for the consumer, which then pulls the customer to the product.
For example, a marketer in the real estate industry can create an ad that highlights the daily tension felt by a family living in a small home that they’ve long since outgrown. This will trigger the viewer into action, which in this case is calling a real estate agent to talk about finding the family a new home.
As a credit union marketer, you can bring this lesson home by running a marketing campaign highlighting any of the eight core desires, such as protecting those we love or approval from others, and show how your credit union can help fulfill that need.
Lesson 2: A strong headline can be achieved in three steps
If a headline on an ad fails to attract the reader’s attention, there’s no way they’re sticking around to read the rest of the ad. The good news is, a strong headline is as easy as following these steps:
Start by listing the biggest benefit your product or service provides. Ideally, this benefit should offer members or prospective members an immediate and significant improvement in their lives.
- Speak to the right audience. Your ad copy should be written in a way that talks to your target audience, referencing parts of their identity that relate to your product.
- Use action words to make the perfect headline. These include “hot,” “new,” “free” and “just released.”
When creating ad copy for your credit union, be sure to follow these steps for optimal success.
Lesson 3: Longer articles are actually more effective than shorter posts
Most marketers assume the frantic pace of life in 2021 means that people can’t spare the time to read through a comprehensive, full-length article. In reality, though, many customers will want to learn all they can about a product they’re interested in purchasing. If your article is providing the customer with the information they need, they’ll keep reading well past the typical blog post word count of 400 words.
Use this to your advantage by giving your members and prospects full-length articles that are packed with information about your products and services.
