Converting Leads into Buyers with the “Why Factor”

By now you’ve attracted quality leads with hooks and have your leads engaged. This next, and last, post in our website copywriting series talks about the part of the process of converting your leads into buyers.

The question you need to answer to convert leads into buyers comes down to one, obvious word: why. Your quality leads need to have a specific reason why they should buy from you.

And finding out the why is your job—not theirs—to figure out.

Enter the Why Factor

The “why factor” is as simple as it sounds. It’s the reason why someone should give you their money in exchange for your product. As simple as it may seem, the why factor is missing on a lot of website copy!

To convert a lead into a buyer, think about the following four, universal human “why factors” people use to buy things:

• Love – the feeling of acceptance and knowing we’re appreciated.
• Growth – the desire to acquire more, live healthier, and expand our networks.
• Fear – the things we’d like to avoid if we could; like dealing with problems.
• Obligation – the duty we have to ourselves and to our family.

For the love of all that is good and decent, don’t misinterpret these human motivators. Growth means that your leads want something more, which can easily be confused with greed.

Growth has practically nothing to do with greed, even though these emotional factors share similar attributes.

When it comes to the motivator of fear, for example, your marketing message may fall into the trap of scare tactics. When your communication bypasses fear, instead of exploiting it, your message uses this most-complicated motivator in the right way.

Example time: the right way to use the fear-based “why factor” would be to campaign against texting and driving. The fear is a car accident, and keeping eyes off your iPhone bypasses that dread.

The wrong way would be to create images of home intruders, collapsed businesses, and foreclosed mortgages. Threats and boogeyman scare-tactics are an icky marketing practice. The trouble is that it’s hard to recognize when it happens.

No matter what motivator you cater to, always leverage peoples’ hopes, not their weaknesses. In other words, be a helper, and your leads will come running to sign a contract with you.

How to find the right “why factor”

To identify the perfect “why factor” for your target market, discovery happens when you ask the right questions.

Think about the most common questions you receive, and make an express point to answer them in your web copy.

By extension, you can tap into their “why” by asking yourself a number of questions about your prospects. Really dig deep with these, and provide yourself with a thoughtful response.

To help you get started, here are some questions to ask yourself about a prospect:

• In what way will that person’s relationships change?
• Will they have a richer family life?
• A better working life?
• A spy-hero romantic life?
• What will the self-relationship be like?
• Will they feel better emotionally, physically, spiritually?
• Will they have more confidence?
• What is behind all that?
• What does that mean for that person?

As you’re writing copy for your website, think about what questions a psychologist would ask you. The more in-depth you go, the better your website’s copy will be.

Making a conversion shares similarities with engaging a lead, which we went over in our previous post. You have to give your “why factor” in a way that engages a prospect. You have to include things like painting the picture, using numbers, and testimonials; as well as talking about love, growth, fear, and obligation.

I won’t lie: website copywriting may seem overwhelming, especially if you’re exploring the “why factor” psychology of your market. Truth is that this important process will continue to overwhelm, even if you’ve been at it for years.

But if you ask the right questions, and you have a firm grasp on what motivates your leads, you’ll head in the right direction.

One last tip about using the “why factor”

Strong action verbs wield more power than adjectives. The energy that power verbs add to your copy proves that you know and care about your market.

Plus, this writing style helps your message carry the reader, making them feel as if they’re part of something.

This is the last post in our three part series on how to generate quality website leads, and turning unconvinced browsers into recurring buyers.

To view part one in the series, go here to read How to Use Hooks to Generate Quality Leads on Your Website.

Part two, 3 Ways to Engage Quality Leads With Website Copywriting is also available for you to read.

Convert your website content. Register for our upcoming webinar on “How to Generate Quality Website Leads & Turn Unconvinced Browsers into Recurring Buyers.”