How to Charge (a LOT) More with Brilliant Marketing

You get a dual-purpose post this week.

First, to show it’s actually possible to charge WAY more for the same product…

… But even more important, HOW to do it, with a case study from a marketing genius.

Secondly, to introduce you to an often-overlooked company that’s used direct response for decades, and consistently crushed the competition along the way.

Seeing how they’ve done it will create epiphany after epiphany.

I’m talking about the Suarez Corporation that’s had Ben Suarez at the helm since forever.

Suarez also wrote the book, 7 Steps to Freedom II: How to Escape the American Rat Race.

It’s an 886-page tome, recommended by Dan Kennedy and many others, that will STILL knock your socks off, even though it was published back in 1995.

OK, as a case study, let’s take a look at one of the hottest ads where they charge an exorbitant amount for something customers could buy almost anywhere else for a whole lot less.

Go Figure… You Can Charge Ridiculously Higher Prices and Trigger Even MORE Sales!

Conventional wisdom can kill you.

Because the usual approach (by the uninformed entrepreneur) is to go the way of Walmart and try to win on price.

It’s a dead-end strategy.

Because it creates the worst positioning and sends you to the bottom of the barrel, cutting profits, competing on just a few cents difference from your competitors, and wondering how to survive on such pitiful margins.

How did Suarez do it?

With a killer contrarian approach.

Here’s an irresistible headline for the famous EdenPure Heater campaign, their flagship product.

It sold for $397 in 2005, when you could spend $37 at Target and get a comparable heater.

That means selling for 10 TIMES the price because of a powerful, long-copy ad.

OK, now notice how these lengthy headlines read like a list of bullet points, which is appropriate for the full-page newspapers they appear in, like USA Today.

“New advanced portable heater can cut your heating bill up to 50%. Heats a large room in minutes with even heat, wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Does not get hot, cannot start a fire and will not reduce humidity or oxygen.”

The headlines are brilliant, packed with benefits and emotional hot buttons, and they eliminate most of your objections right out of the gate.

But if they hook you into reading further, good luck.

Most likely you’ll be ordering a dozen heaters in no time.

Here’s what the full-page ad looks like (at left).

Now I know it’s hard to see some of the detail, so I’ll give you a blow up of the key points, then a link at the bottom for a PDF of the whole ad.

Because this masterpiece is worth further study.

So… if you follow the reader’s natural progression, first they’ll see the headlines, and if that sparks an interest, then they’ll take a quick scan of the rest of the ad.

And what first grabs your attention?

Hitting the Emotional Hot Buttons… Hard!

A quick scan of the ad reveals three pictures with large captions.

The first is fiendishly clever as it prays on your emotions in multiple ways: the relief of being warm (“Never be cold again”), the family huddled around the heater, mom holding baby, and of course, the dog.

That picture packs an emotional wallop that’s totally under the radar.

You’re always in good shape if you can work a baby and dog into your marketing.

It reminds me of the Richard Nixon “Checker” speech with Nixon telling the story of getting a black-and-white Cocker Spaniel for their 6-year old daughter…

… Except his speech was obviously manipulative which ruined the impact.

Now, the second picture is just as sneaky.

In the first one, we connect with the dog lovers.

In this second picture, we go after the feline fanciers—and it doesn’t hurt to include another cute kid in the mix.

That’s what good ads do… they come at you over and over, from multiple directions.

In another version of the same ad, they combine all that emotional firepower into one picture, with mom and dad, a baby, the dog, another kid… plus the cat sitting right on the heater to demonstrate how safe it is.

And as they say on the late-night infomercials…

… But that’s not all!

Mix and Match Persuasion

With your persuasive efforts, especially if you want to charge more, it’s critical you appeal to emotion and justify with logic.

That’s why the pictures are so effective, they strike emotional pay dirt immediately.

But we also need the logical rationalization that adds fuel to the emotional fire we’re pouring gas on.

Suarez does this two ways.

First, with a fancy-schmancy diagram that looks very scientific.

But in reality, all the diagram is doing is showing, with a bunch of arrows, where the air flows.

Then he amplifies the impact with captions that are really just more bullet points…

>>> Heats floor to the same temperature as ceiling…

>>> Electricity ignites powerful infrared lamp… 

>>> The quartz infrared lamp, without combustion, gently warms the patented cured copper tubes…

>>> The heat from the copper tubing rides the humidity in the room and provides the moist, soft heat ceiling to floor, wall to wall, without reducing oxygen or humidity.

And the cutaway view?

It provides an image of the copper tubing and more arrows to further position the heater as a marvel of science… when it’s actually just a simple heater.

This is much like the Schlitz beer ad that Claude Hopkins created to grab massive market share.

And what’s fascinating about these ads (and what Hopkins did) is that they’re not telling you anything unique.

The competition builds essentially the same thing, with the same materials and heat output.

The only difference?

There’s no brilliant marketing to support it.

Driving the Point Home

So, after a compelling introduction, the rest of the copy is all Q & A.

They’re really like bullet points with long explanations that just reinforce all the other hot buttons.

For instance, here’s a good one written out, in case you can’t read it in the image above:

Q: So you’re saying that children and pets can come up to this unit and touch it and not be harmed?

A: That is absolutely correct. As a matter of fact, pets are actually drawn to this heat because it’s a natural source of heat, just like the sun heats the earth. Animals are much more instinctive than humans. This heat not only heats the air, but it also heats the objects in the room. It is a perfectly balanced heat.

And notice how the answer gives you even more unexpected benefits… “Animals are actually drawn to it.”

It’s a great example to follow in your own copy… using Q & A to vary your formatting and come at the prospect from multiple directions.

Finally, use this link to grab the PDF of this amazing ad, so you can pour over it and internalize its lessons…

Because YOU CAN charge higher prices because of your fabulous marketing.

It’s what we teach our members to do in their FREE STRATEGY SESSIONS.

We lay out the whole strategy… along with the systems that automate the process… so you can differentiate yourself and pick the perfect positioning…

… So you can CHARGE MORE. 

It’s a big mental shift, but when you KNOW there’s still lots of money out there, and plenty of people who will pay you top dollar…

… It transforms your attitude, your business, and it makes selling so much easier.

With that said, if you want to go deeper, and make your business take off, follow this link and apply for your FREE STRATEGY SESSION.

We’ll take you even further into one of the most powerful persuasion techniques ever.

And don’t forget to leave a comment… we appreciate it!