There is a particular way that people buy health products online. Their buying psychology is not the same as when they buy other products. Even the buyers themselves are vastly different. The bottom line is that the buying decision for a health product is just not the same.
There are four critical factors that impact how health prospects make buying decisions. The first two are DESIRE and HOPE. We’ll reserve the other two, TRUST and BELIEF for another article.
For the most part ALL decisions start with some sort of pushing force.
And buying decisions are no different.
Usually, the health buyer is in a situation that is no longer working.
This drives the pushing force towards change.
They may not be sure what to do to solve the problem. But the buyer needs to do something different. They may or may not know this on a conscious level.
And as a result…
Health buyers tend to spend more time in the decision phase than other buyers. Sitting in the states of Desire and Hope, longer than other purchase decisions.
This is partly because they feel they need to gather more information. And, because there is so much misinformation out there. They are not sure what to believe.
To take action they need a little bit of a push.
The Pushing Force of Desire
Wanting to change or knowing you need to change is not enough. It’s very difficult to move forward based on desire alone. Change is scary, especially for an older demographic, that tends to buy health supplements online.
It’s the push towards a future state that feeds desire.
You may need to change if you know what you’re currently doing is not going to work in the future. Many times it’s the job of the sales copy to point this out. In that case, the sales copy brings the reader to this realization and provides the solution all at once. If the force of desire is strong enough, they will buy on the spot. If not they think they need to do more research, but the truth is they won’t buy at all.
When it comes to the current situation however, the feeling of “this isn’t good enough” can be amplified to great effect.
The legendary copywriter Eugene Schwartz in his classic book Breakthrough Advertising, wrote “You can’t create desire. You can only intensify it.”
To intensify the desire for the future state, tap into the following three areas:
- Functional desires
- Social desires
- Emotional desires
Functional- Is the thing that your health product actually does. For example, it may lower blood pressure, reduce inflammation, speed up your metabolism, etc. Exactly how it does this, is the job of the Unique Mechanism of your product. That is the functional aspect of how it works.
The second opportunity to intensify desire is social. This aspect of desire goes beyond what the product does. This answers how the product satisfies your social needs and desires.
Chronic arthritis socially stuns a 55 year old from getting out of her house or holding a glass of water. And, severe acne socially impacts a 15 year old in a similar way.
These are both social aspects that amplify the desired future state.
Finally the third area is emotional. The emotional role moves beyond both functional and social. This time moving towards how the product solves your emotional desires.
This is a very powerful push lever and can be used in many different ways.
Some common emotional themes that tap into this aspect in the health industry include:
Anger – towards big pharmaceutical companies
Loss – of freedom of independence
Fear – of an unknown future
If you want to learn more about how to use fear to sell health supplements online in more depth, read our article on it here.
Each one of these and many other emotions can act as a driving force. Generally, negative emotions push the health buyer forward more than positive ones.
But, when buying health products online, the buying decision is not driven by desire alone.
The pushing force is a combination of both desire and hope.
These two forces work together.
The Pushing Force of Hope
When fear of change holds one back from buying, the second pushing force comes in…
This force is the hope of a new solution. Propelling the health buyer towards your solution.
Without hope there is no future.
Hope, like desire, should be amplified to create the pushing force to buy. It is a force that is tapped into rather than created.
It is vital to know your audience and understand their hopes and fears rather than assuming you know. Always talk to your customers when trying to understand hope.
Hope is not something that stands alone, it needs to be grounded in logic.
Therefore, for a health product, hope needs to tie into the unique mechanism, or the scientific method of action. How it works needs to make sense both logically and scientifically.
This usually happens on a structural level. Meaning the scientific method of action supports the way your organs or other systems in your body function.
The solution needs to be within grasp of the prospect and the less work or effort they need to go through to get to the end desired result the better.
In a long form sales letter or video sales letter, the intensification of hope is critical at the area right before the product is introduced. Not at the point of the offer, where price is shown, but where the product is first mentioned.
If you haven’t built up hope prior to this step and crescendo with staring the product, you’ve likely lost the combination of the pushing forces of desire and hope.
The Combined Forces Of Push
The desire of the new lifestyle and the hope of a new solution combine to create a single pushing force.
The most important thing to remember is that the pushing forces come from inside the buyers mind. They are not created, they are amplified.
But desire and hope are only half of the key to unlocking the health buyers mind.
In the next article, we’ll look at the pulling forces of trust and belief. And how to combine the push and pull forces together.
The four forces of DESIRE, HOPE, TRUST and BELIEF are at the core of how buying a health product is different.
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