Why Sex Sells & 7 Other Sales Triggers Pumped With Primal Power

Sex sells.

You don’t need to be a marketing genius to see that...

Most of us don’t use it much because it’s a cheap trick. And we don’t want to strain credibility splashing naked body parts across our websites. But we all know nothing gets attention better.

But WHY does sex sell? Sure, it’s because we’re all little closet freaks and can’t stop thinking about getting it on, yeah…But why exactly can’t we stop thinking about it…?

I’ll tell you why.

Your Sex Drive is Built Into Your Foundational Hardware

See, sex is kinda sorta a good idea for the human animal because it leads to procreation and ensures the survival and growth of the species. And if sex wasn’t extremely pleasurable (and therefore extremely interesting and attention-getting), we wouldn’t get around to doing it all that much.

Because, well, there are other cool things to do. Like watching UFC fighters beat each other’s faces in or buying a cute new pair of shoes.

Humans aren’t well-known for making decisions based on logic – we make irrational decisions based on how we feel instead. So we’re much more likely to do something because it feels really good than we are to do it because it’s a good idea.

Whether you believe in evolution or a higher power, what would be the best route, then if you sat down to design a human?

Make sex more pleasurable and interesting than anything else in the world. And boom, humans are sure to keep breeding.

This is why sex is such a powerful salesman. It taps into the core drive of human existence. C’mon, you just can’t beat that.

How To Increase Sales Without Making Ad Campaigns Read Like Hustler Magazine.

I know you don’t want your company to have an overly-sexual voice, and for good reason. Cultural taboos. Putting conservative audiences off you and your company or products.

And people don’t like being misled – selling toilet paper with a thinly-clad bikini model somehow rings a little hollow, doesn’t it? (Even in these times where toilet paper envy is at all-time highs.)

But there’s still a takeaway here, and it’s this:

The most persuasive emotions are embedded in the foundation of the human psyche.

If you already know a little about marketing, you already know people give attention, time, and money to things because of how they “feel” about them. That’s why any copywriter, marketer, or salesman worth his salt will tell you tie your sales pitches to benefits over features.

Who cares what your product is – what exactly will it do for me?

But not all benefits (or emotions) are created equal.

Yes, There Are 8 Deep, Universal Desires That Have More Persuasion Power Than Others

Drew Eric Whitman, of CA$HVERTISING, calls these "The Life Force 8."

Because each one of these is biologically programmed into your heart, into your mind, into your every cell.

Into what it means to be human.

It’s time to tap the power of Nature itself in your sales materials. After all, what could be more powerful than drawing on a desire that’s almost irresistible to every human being on the planet?

Let’s have a look at each of them and how they might inform your marketing.

Primal Emotion #1: The Desire to Live

Yes, believe it or not, most humans rather prefer being alive. And staying alive.

This is the core drive of every organism on the planet, and humans are no robotic exception.

Tap into this base desire by emphasizing how you can make people live longer, enjoy their years on earth more, lower the risk of death, or avoid factors inherently known to create more risk of death.

A lot of fear-based marketing pitches are made to tap into this technique – think of end-of-the-world doomsayers.

Tell people they might die, or tell them you have a guaranteed way to make them live longer, and you become hard to ignore (assuming they believe you)

Primal Emotion #2: The Desire For A Comfortable Existence

Why do you experience discomfort?

Much like sex (a situation of extreme comfort, eh), things that make you uncomfortable are wired in to steer you away. So you can prevent wear and tear or even complete annihilation of the bag of flesh and bones you call your body.

Prime example: fire hurts really, really bad (i.e. wired-in pain response). Because if it didn’t then you might be dumb enough to get in its way. And after it mowed you down, pain or no pain, your body would be left completely unusable or you’d be a goner.

So when you touch a hot stove, your nerves kick in and your hand yanks back without you barely thinking – you’ve received a kick from a very strong warning signal. Hot – bad. M’kay?

This concept holds true for many other discomforts. A super hot room. An extremely cold room. An uncomfortable position that compromises your spine over time.

Even mental discomfort is often tied into baser instincts (it might be uncomfortable for a man to approach a woman, for instance, as there was a time when doing this might have gotten a man killed).

So yes, we have an innate drive to be physically and emotionally comfortable. Tie your product or service to that and it’s hard to lose.

Primal Emotion #3: Desire To Eliminate Pain, Fear, And Danger

This is closely intertwined with what we just went over, obviously.

Tapping into the desire for comfort is usually more optimistic in nature and promises the positive side. A comfy bed. A quiet night's sleep. These things are about enjoying life.

Tapping into the avoidance of these biological warning signals may stress the pain points more, on the other hand.

“If you don’t buy this, you could deal with crippling back pain for the rest of your life.”

“Warning: Violent Thieves Are Targeting Homes Just Like Yours.”

Okay, I’m listening…

Primal Emotion #4: The Desire for Food

No-brainer here – if you don’t eat food, you die.

Why do you think eating addictions are more common than most any other addiction? Because it’s simply a survival mechanism on overdrive.

Even with alcohol, one of the most seductive qualities is that when you drink you feel like you’re actually performing a very necessary human activity – nourishing and hydrating your body. We know that isn’t true, logically, but again, our decisions aren’t logical. So we keep drinking and we get hooked.

In any case, humans need food and beverages to survive. To make this urge self-sustaining, Nature in her infinite wisdom made eating very enjoyable. You know, so we won’t forget it or anything…

That’s why so many foods taste so good that you can’t get enough of them.

The desire for enjoyable food makes the job of any marketer in the food or restaurant pretty easy, but a lot of other marketers draw on it too. Think about lotions that sell to you based on their delicious coconut smell, or peach-scented air fresheners.

What about protein shakes? You buy it for the protein, assumedly, not the flavor, but it’s the promise of good taste (Or at least better taste) that sells you and then keeps you coming back for more.

Primal Emotion #5: The Desire for A Sex Partner

We covered this pretty extensively in the intro of this article, but let’s not forget the other ways this desire can be exploited for selling your product and service. Without starting your own mini porn media company.

Deodorants and colognes are sold on a continual basis by promising they’ll be more desirable to the opposite sex.

How many men have bought a car because they think it’ll get them laid more?

From your clothes to your makeup to the online course you bought to radically increase your earning potential, there is an undercurrent of being more attractive to the opposite sex in nearly everything you do. And even just a pretty face on an ad gets attention faster.

Primal Emotion #6: The Desire To Take Care Of People We Love

Don’t buy into the pessimistic idea that humans are inherently selfish – we’ve got just as much biological drive to care for and protect our own as we do ourselves.

To be human is to be social. We’re weak in comparison to other creatures alone, but when we operate in teams to get things done we become an unstoppable force of nature.

And ensuring our offspring survive and thrive takes a strong family unit. That’s why Nature has built into us a strong desire to do everything we can for our loved ones.

We want to keep them well-fed (health and food products), we want to keep them safe from criminals (security products), we want to give them opportunities for the future (education products), we want to leave them money if we die before our time (insurance products), and the list goes on.

If you want your offer to really have staying power, tell people how it can help them satisfy these goals.

Primal Emotion #7: The Desire To Win

Humans are very competitive creatures. Not only do we want to keep up with the Joneses, but we want to beat them at their game. All games... And failing to can become a serious source of life dissatisfaction, if not downright depression.

This is why you see someone who loses a few million dollars commit suicide – even when he’s still got millions in his bank account – or why someone might feel like a failure driving a corvette when his buddy drives a Lamborghini.

Research even shows that life satisfaction and wealth is relative to how much those around you make. If you’re surrounded by people who make more than you, you’ll be less happy even if you make a hundred thousand a year, than you would be if you lived around people who made less than you and you made $50,000 a year.

This isn’t just about money-making niches.

Look at the self-help and personal development niches (I’m a big fan, by the way, so not hatin') – this “improvement porn” is largely tied to the human drive to always have an edge and rise above your peers.

And we also want to be better-looking, fitter, more skilled, and more charismatic than the people we know.

Be thankful for this. If it didn’t exist, the progress of human civilization would have come to a dead halt centuries ago.

How can you tap into it with your marketing?

Primal Emotion #8: The Desire to Belong

Humans are extremely social animals, and without other people around us we often get depressed, fall sick, or possibly even die.

In fact, it’s telling that one of the most debilitating punishments known to men, even in places where men are turned into animals who constantly live in fear of each other, is solitary confinement.

This desire exists because humans can do more together than they ever could alone. Just imagine all the tools that go into building a skyscraper, a relatively simple thing on the plane of human achievement. Yes, a lot of labor, but think about all the centuries that went into developing the technology and know-how.

Think now about one single tool used in the process – an angle grinder.

How much human labor and ingenuity went into developing it and producing it in a factory?

Could that factory exist at all without all the humans who need the same tool?

Who designs the nuts and bolts, the plastic?

Where did the idea from this come from?

How many evolutions over generations of people went into it?

The deeper you dig, the more you see how vastly complex even the erecting of a building really is, and that if we didn’t have other humans to lean on, life as we know it would be radically different. We need each other to survive and thrive – if you can tap into the desire to belong, you can eternalize your products and services, especially in our tightly, networked modern society.

Here's The Best Way To Inject These Primal Emotions Into Your Marketing.

At first glance, it might not seem like any of these primal drives are relevant to your niche.

That's probably just an oversight. In a lot of cases, if you think about it long and hard enough, you'll realize you've been looking at the value you add to the world all wrong.

Keep the golden rule in mind.

You're not selling your product - you're selling the benefit it produces. Seen through this lens, a marketing class becomes financial freedom, golf lessons become the snide remarks you'll get to make to your friends, and whiter teeth become a date with the smoking hot model you always see at the gym.

And remember this.

Your aim is to find one of these primal drives for your offer. The best one. And make that your Big Idea. Run that theme throughout your copy.

Now you're ready to sell your way to a growing business.

Want to create a sales piece that digs deeper and gets a stronger response from your market? I'm at your service.

You can hire me here.

https://WordsToWow.com

- Brian "Shake That Thang" James