How much can assumptions improve your sales?
Before deciding for yourself, you need to know something about presuppositions. Pre-supper what? Presuppositions—statements that force people to make assumptions. In your case, assumptions that drive sales.
Now back to that first sentence. As you read it closely, you’ll see that it contains its own assumption—that assumptions improve sales. It’s not if. It’s how much.
As you can imagine, therein lies the power of presuppositions. To comprehend your statement, readers must accept your assumptions. This bypasses their conscious mind and implants a suggestion.
How many ways will you find to use presuppositions? The possibilities are endless. The key is to identify what you want prospects to believe. Then weave your sentences so that they have no choice but to believe them.
Or, if that sounds like too much work, just give us a shout. You won’t find many writers that obsess this much over scientific communication and measurable results. Visit communemedia.com/mastercopy to learn more, read our free blog and get your complimentary quote.
Reason #439 why I love working with words.
Ben, I hear you. What are the other 438? And how long’s your list? Also, as an FYI, we’r planning a more detailed post on presuppositions for the near future, to be published on the Mastercopy blog. How much will that grow your love?
Very nicely put! Do you know of any copywriting tricks that are as good as presuppositions, embedded commands, framing around shared values/beliefs and compelling word choice? I don’t. Looking forward to the more detailed post!
I appreciate the necessity for a company to overcome negative assumptions, or create positive assumptions surrounding their organization and its products. However, I feel that creating audience presuppositions by “weav[ing] your sentences so that they have no choice but to believe them” demonstrates a lack of consumer respect.
By choosing to believe in the power of these presuppositions, we are doing little more than propogating the assumption that consumers are unable to think for themselves, which I am sure many of us would argue. Take the assumption that was made in this article; assumptions drive sales. Upon reading this statement, did you not question how this conclusion was reached? Did it not seem like either a flaw in logic or an uninformed and unsupported statement? I can say for certainty that it did not go unquestioned in all who read it.
On the flip side, what if you assume that this statement is true? The contrary belief also emerges: it is reasonable to suggest that assumptions also have a negative impact on sales. I would hazard that no matter how carefully you construct your statements, readers with a negative preconceived notion would not immediatly jump on your bandwagon.
This argument also fails to take into account which medium is being used to relay the message. Social media thrives on opinion and it can be difficult to find genuine information in a sea of propaganda. With the rise of social media, consumers need to become increasingly aware of what they are reading and the motivation behind it. For example, is it merely informational, or is there a deeper purpose of persuasion etc.
Academic institutions do not accept wikipedia as a reliable source for information, and we are trained not to believe everything you read on the internet.
By being given the power to respond to postings, consumers are able to have their say and are inclined to do so especially if their beliefs contradict what they have read. I believe that using presuppositions in messaging effectively sets you up for the savvy consumer’s negative reaction. Without disallowing or previwing posts before they are accepted to the page, which sets a dangerous precident, this leaves us in a difficult position: is it possible to effectively market through social media while simultaneously respecting the consumer that is able to think for themselves?
Christiana, I appreciate your points, and there’s definitely a fine line. But how much room do you think there is for flexibility? Because we’re talking about human psychology. No matter what media, if you’re human and consuming language, you’re influenced by it in a pretty similar way. Also, social media isn’t benign. Social proof–what other people are doing–influences whoever’s consuming social media. Truth is, nobody really “thinks for themselves.” Being social creatures with shared language and meaning, that’s impossible. Rather, there’s a consensual reality, and those who are able to communicate best tend to determine the dominant view of that reality–including of the products and services within it.