Sex sells - The trick is how to use it with tastefulness and subtlety. If it is too obvious, it narrows your "warm" prospective customers to a much narrower group of hard-core sexophiles [a Lingovation ]. Most of your broader audience (all of whom you'd like to get into the top of your marketing funnel) in the United States and in many other countries and cultures is often associated with shame when presented overtly or in the company of others.
Yes indeed. Sex sells. It is a driving force and has a constant presence in the minds of many a person. It carries with it an urgency, a call to action. It speaks to a deep-rooted need. It is an ethical neutral -- it ranges from what is regarded as pornography to what is acclaimed as art.
The sexual drive, or rather the fulfillment of it, is of itself a powerful addition to any call to action. If sexual innuendo, hinting, metaphor, tease, or hint is incorporated in the call to action -- the compulsion for a viewer or visitor to pick up the phone, or go to the website, or download the application, or do anything that brings him or her closer to purchasing instead of observing, the call to action will be stronger and more effective.
Remember -- you are not selling sex. You are using innuendo, guided metaphorical imagery (visualization), subliminal signals, certain words with multiple meanings which are artfully coupled with your actual product, service or other proposition in order to get your viewers aroused [without their necessarily knowing quite why, or even feeling sexually manipulated] by serving them up a heady cocktail of your product, service or other proposition, gently mixed with a massaged message of slightly prurient undercurrent in order to get them to get up, aroused, and to penetrate the barrier that separates them from plunging into a the heavenly meadow of "yes, yes, yes!"
In fact, all marketing, advertising, marketing and selling generally is analogous to a seduction of the prospective customer or client. The addition of subliminal sexual signals strengthens the "come hither" pull of the proposition.
Some wonderful articles follow (at the very bottom of this article post, titled related articles) which address the issue of the power of controlled sexual magnetism and gravity toward the ultimate consummation of a "yes, yes, yes" decision. Consumers, generally speaking, desire sex, and they also desire things that make them appealing to possible sexual partners.
Exaggerated, clumsy, tawdry direct sex doesn't usually work. Many people find it too excessive to be appealing; in fact, they find it discomforting. It is far better to catch the scent of a well-blended perfume or cologne on the breeze, or to see someone or something that is not intentionally provocative -- part of us wants to be able to imagine, more than to be suffused, in its imagery. The majority of your consumer audience (unless you're involved in something pornographic) want to be tantalized, mystified, hypnotized and gently persuaded -- and ironically, as in Lolita, they want something fresh and unspoiled, yet incredibly stimulating to the imagination.
Use the hint of sex and sensuality as a tool. As an means to an end. If you are too obvious and too deliberate, you'll turn the majority of your audience off.
Before incorporating any type of sexual or sensual imagery or suggestion in any advertising or selling campaign be certain that you are well advised by experts in neuromarketing, and subliminal messaging, lest you either overuse or misuse this power tool.
And it would do the marketers, promoters, advertisers and social media gurus out there in the cyber world that sex is an appetizer - it is not the main course. It is like a dance before dining.
As always, thank you for reading me, and for retweeting and sharing my articles with your colleagues, connections and friends through the use of social media -- a communication medium whose bandwidth continues to grow.
Douglas E. Castle for The Mad Marketing Tactics Blog
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p.s. To get the best definition ever of Lingovation and Lingovations, please click on:
http://www.douglasecastle.com/2011/08/lingovation-lingovations-definitions.html
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ICS - International Connection Services
Global Edge Technologies Group LLC
CFI Business Growth
Douglas E. Castle On LinkedIn - Join Me!
#MadMarketing
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