Your Audience’s False Beliefs Are Killing Your Sales
Apr 19, 2024Episode 8
Monica Badiu
We often fall into the trap of thinking we know our audience based on surface-level stats.
But what if I told you there's more?
In this episode, I show you how to identify and dismantle your audience's false beliefs that are hindering their decision-making process. I walk you through how to craft sales emails that tackle these false beliefs head-on, making your audience think, "Hey, this person gets me!" Because, let's face it, the real magic happens when your audience sees you as more than just another seller in their inbox.
So tune in, let's get real about what makes your audience tick, and how you can serve them better.
Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:
Identifying your audience's false beliefs
Understanding the impact of false beliefs on decision-making
Crafting sales emails that address false beliefs
***
Hi. And welcome. My name is Monica Badiu. I am a marketing consultant turned conversion copywriter and coach. I help online course creators and info product businesses sell more through persuasive, non-spammy, no fluff copywriting.
I teach about copywriting, digital marketing, and conversion strategies tested in my businesses and with my clients.
We often fall into the trap of thinking we know our audience based on surface-level stats.
But what if I told you there's more?
In this episode, I show you how to identify and dismantle your audience's false beliefs that are hindering their decision-making process. I walk you through how to craft sales emails that tackle these false beliefs head-on, making your audience think, "Hey, this person gets me!" Because, let's face it, the real magic happens when your audience sees you as more than just another seller in their inbox.
So tune in, let's get real about what makes your audience tick, and how you can serve them better.
Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:
Identifying your audience's false beliefs
Understanding the impact of false beliefs on decision-making
Crafting sales emails that address false beliefs
***
Hi. And welcome. My name is Monica Badiu. I am a marketing consultant turned conversion copywriter and coach. I help online course creators and info product businesses sell more through persuasive, non-spammy, no fluff copywriting.
I teach about copywriting, digital marketing, and conversion strategies tested in my businesses and with my clients.
So you think you know your audience. I challenge you to listen to this episode and you'll discover that what you don't know is likely killing yourselves and making your emails full fast. Welcome to Master the Inbox. This is the podcast where course creators, coaches and consultants come to learn how to sell with email marketing in a non spammy, non aggressive way. Hi, I'm your host, Monica Badiu, a customer centric email marketing copywriter who has been helping course creators just like you, figure out email marketing for a few years. And in this process, I discovered some golden nuggets I would love to share with you. In today's episode, I want to introduce you to a whole new way of writing sales, emails that don't fall flat, but are actually very engaging and considered valuable by your audience. Let's start. So if I'd ask you, do you know your audience? You're probably gonna tell me, well, I know they live in the US. They have this age and probably majority of them are female. Maybe they have kids, maybe they have a specific pain point. But in reality, the majority of what brands know and actually use when it comes to their audience is a small percentage. It doesn't even come close to what's actually interesting and useful when it comes to drafting campaigns that speak to your audience. And not only that, but they actually move your readers from passive readers into people who enroll in your course and actually use your course to achieve their objectives. So one of the areas where you can actually use your email marketing to deliver that kind of value is the type of sales email that tackles false beliefs. Now this, this is a big area and there's so much to explore. And I am super passionate about consumer behavior and consumer insights. So I do spend a lot of time in digging these things up because once you discover what's actually preventing what's keeping your audience stuck, what's keeping your audience preventing your audience from actually enrolling in your course, everything changes. You can optimize your sales page to actually answer the questions your audience is interested in. You can use your emails to get your audience closer to the type of action you want them to have, and you're going to be doing it in a way that is highly engaging, highly personalized and highly valuable. And you won't have to even rely on that discount anymore to nudge people into going to your sales page and claiming your offer. I have looked at a lot of emails and I can tell you that not many creators are using false beliefs to nudge their audience into considering their offer. So what you're looking at now is an opportunity to stand out from the crowd. Now, false beliefs matter for a bunch of different reasons. Obviously, the most important one is impacting the decision making process and making it difficult for the reader to believe that if they do enroll in your course, if they do start coaching with you, they're going to actually be able to enjoy the benefits. And that's because from a psychological perspective, false beliefs change the reality that your audience is experiencing, and that brings on a variety of other problems, like limiting options. So if I don't believe something is real or possible for me, or if I hold the false belief related to the industry or to the type of education like online courses, I would be partly interested in trying it. But at the same time, my false belief is going to make me think that it's not really going to work. So I have a limiting number of options to achieve my goals. But online courses might not be one of those. False beliefs also reinforce biases, and this is one of the areas of resistance that you have to figure out how to tackle with your sales copy. If you want more of your audience to engage and to convert, when you draft emails that tackle these false beliefs, then you're going to get closer to that. From an emotional perspective, dealing with false beliefs can take a toll on your audience because partly you're selling them hope. You're making the emails, you're making your sales page, you're making your offer sound so amazing. You're giving them testimonials, you're giving them proof that other people were able to achieve the outcome they're after as well. But because of their false beliefs, they're going to be in this conflict all the time, second guessing themselves, doubting is this actually going to help me? What if it's not going to work? What if it's going to fail? What if I'm going to fail? Which means I'm going to have to go back in the same problem, in the same pain, in the same state that I was before this. And every situation that involves your audience overcoming their false beliefs by their own takes a lot of effort and a lot of resources, and that's not something you want. Which is why you can tackle false beliefs in your sales copy, be it emails or sales pages. And I'll tell you more about it right away. Now, an audience can have false beliefs about different topics. It could be one above themselves, what they can or cannot do, what they are worthy of or not worthy of. Second, they can have false beliefs about the industry like online classes, right? That could be a big area to tackle. Like why would your course actually help them in a way that formal education won't? They can have false beliefs about the creator. And this is a problem because if they don't trust who you are and your ability to help them, they're not gonna buy. And I've encountered these specific issues several times throughout the years. I've written emails for creators. They could also have false beliefs about the framework. So what is it about how you're teaching them to achieve their outcome that might create resistance? Maybe it's how you're teaching them. So let's take an example. If you're preparing non english speakers for their Yelt exam, how is your method different to whatever else they have tried and they have failed at? And how can you position it in a way that goes against their false beliefs in a way that doesn't trigger resistance? Sounds complicated, I know, but I promise it really isn't. Now, another false belief they can hold is about the kind of people who would afford to buy your course, use it, and actually achieve the outcome. So these are different layers of false beliefs. And the best way to figure out which false beliefs your audience holds is to run a survey. Now, when I work with a new course creator, I usually run a massive survey at the beginning of our collaboration, just so we can figure out exactly what are these specific false beliefs. If you haven't done that, you can always do it. I actually recommend you run surveys maybe once every two months, and that's going to give you a lot more information than you think is actually valuable. And false beliefs is just one of the types of information you could get out of that. Okay, so let's dismantle some false beliefs. So let's say you are preparing students for their yelts exam. Now, an example of a false belief they might have about your solution is this. An online course won't be as effective as in person tutoring, and this is a massive one. Right? So what can you tell them about this false belief that is actually dismantled by your offer? Maybe the way you're tackling this is by offering coaching, or actually one on one online tutoring, or feedback, or access to a forum where they would get all of their questions answered within 24 hours. Now, in terms of an email, you can actually say something along the lines. So, hey, Monika, over the last few days you've heard so much about how our Yelp students are smashing their scores and are able to get bands over seven plus or whatever. However you've tried this before. You've tried other courses, you've spent so much time going through YouTube free content, and after all those hours, you still didn't feel like you made any progress. And now you're looking at this and you're hoping maybe this is actually the one that's gonna change things for me, but something inside you is holding you back. We're entering the false belief right now. Maybe it's a belief that online classes are not gonna be as effective as in person tutoring. We totally get that. It would be amazing to be able to provide this kind of training in person, but we have students from all over the world and unfortunately, in person tutoring can be very expensive. In our area, 1 hour with the teacher costs this much. This is why we created this training, because we want more people to have access to affordable, effective online training for yelts without spending an arm and a leg. But is it efficient? Well, you've heard the stories and you've seen what our students are able to do, but here's how we are actually able to do it. And you just go into the features. So we're offering a 24 hours thread where you can get your questions answered by an actual Yelp former I know examiner and they'll tell you what areas you need to improve. We also have quizzes and tests within our learning area that replicate the experience of a Yelts exam. So you're always going to be able to test, prepare and then learn from an actual examiner what areas you can improve. Now, obviously, I'm kind of writing this live with you, so it's not amazing. But the idea is that you can tackle these false beliefs in your emails and you can do it in a way that's actually useful both to you and your conversions, as well as your audience. And the really good news is that sometimes the person who's going to read your email, they're not going to be aware that they actually have a false belief. That's keeping them stuck, that's keeping them in doubt. And they would love to give your course a try, but something's holding them back and they can't really pin it. They don't know what that is. So when you tackle false beliefs in your emails, you're not just providing valuable information, you're also providing relief because you're actually naming the problem your audience has and you're giving them a solution. You're giving them peace of mind. You're not forcing them into taking action, obviously, but you are answering to some unspoken fears, unspoken limitations. And I think that awareness is very, very valuable. Another false belief might be about the product, like it's too long and I don't want this to take months, or this might be just as boring as anything else I have tried. I don't really want to do that anymore, that the content might be outdated. That's also something that can be a false belief. And that's all things that you can tackle again in your emails and on your sales page. Now you can also tackle a false belief about the industry. So again, if you're teaching people, if you're helping them prepare for a Yelp exam, they might say something along the lines, online courses that are paid that teach you the subject or, I don't know, the preparation for yelts are a scam. Why would I pay for this when I can find it for free online? Now that's a false belief that has several deep layers and it could be like the surface layer is this, I don't want to pay for this because I can find it for free online. So you tackle that. Why is your paid version better than them going to YouTube and just spending random hours going from, I know, video to video? How is that actually not helpful? Now, a deeper layer could be about what they think is valuable. Like do they think, are they worthy of investing $47 into a course that prepares them for Yeltsin or not? What is the perception they have about money or investing in themselves? The third layer would be about their false beliefs regarding the outcome. Are they actually going to be able to pass yelts? Is that something they actually believe they're able to do? Because if you have these three layers of false beliefs, it becomes a lot easier to draft emails that are not just like engaging, they're like eye opening. Because again, a lot of people, a lot of your audience, they don't really know. They don't spend a lot of time thinking, well, why am I not taking action? I've been receiving these emails from this guy for so long and he's doing so well. I love his content. And yet when it comes to buying something from him, I don't know, something's holding me back. What is it? If you want to learn more about these false beliefs or get examples of, like, what it actually looks like and how it can tackle them, you can go to my blog, at monicabadiu.com/blog, and you'll find dozens of ways to tackle these false beliefs with actual examples. So go check it out and really think about this. What are the false beliefs your readers have about you as a creator your product, the solution, like learning from online course the industry about themselves and about the kind of people who are actually going to have success using your specific type of solution. So thank you for listening or watching in case you're seeing this on YouTube. And until next time, remember that selling through email marketing can feel good, can be valuable, and can give your audience a different perspective about what it's like to actually go after their goals. You're a coach, not necessarily a salesman, and that shifts everything. And to get more golden nuggets like these, just subscribe follow Master the Inbox on all your favorite platforms.