Welcome to episode number 81 of The Growth Booth where today we're talking about persuasion, we're talking about marketing and copywriting. I'm going to be sharing how you can unlock the Seven Sins and transform them into marketing weapons to get better results. We've got another good episode about copywriting, which is way back in if episode number 15 of The Growth Booth which you can find by going to thegrowthbooth.com and navigating to episode number 15. 

I'm going to be building on actually giving you a whole new idea to have in your toolbox for the next time that you're marketing any product. I think it's a fun one just to be consciously thinking about when you are roaming around and absorbing different marketing messages that you see in the world around you. I think the idea that I'm going to share with you today could dramatically change the way that you think about marketing and will give you an almost immediate effect if you start to roll this out in your different projects.

So before we go any further, I want to mention that what we're talking about here today is powerful and it needs to be used responsibly. I think Uncle Ben from Spiderman summed that up nicely when he said “With great power comes great responsibility.” I think that happened right before he was mowed down by a thief in the street. So anyway, these are powerful ideas and I think you should use them responsibly. 

Now, what are the seven deadly sins? They're also sometimes known as the Capital Vices or the Cardinal Sins. They are a list of moral vices within various different Christian teachings, and they're often seen as the origin of the other sins and the degeneration of one's character. 
 

The seven sins are Lust, which is a desire or an unhealthy desire or longing for something; Gluttony, which is overconsumption and indulgence; Greed, which is the desire for material gain; also in abundance; Sloth, which is ease or avoidance of effort. Then we've got Wrath, which is anger or frustration; Envy, which is desiring something that someone else has got; and Pride, which is an inflated sense of self-worth or ego. 

I think inevitably we all carry some of these traits. Some of us are larger in some of them, some of these sins than others. It's just the nature of being a human. But from a marketing perspective, that's good because it means we can tap into them and we can use these emotions and desires to help us get more sales of products that we might be trying to sell or achieve different things that we are trying to achieve. It works brilliantly in negotiation, for example. 

Lust is something that can create that longing for a product or longing for an experience. Gluttony can be used to portray abundance or over-consumption. Greed taps into that desire for material wealth, like having things, having a lot of things. Sloth can be used to appeal to a customer's wish for ease and convenience. Wrath is something that you can use to tap into the pain points and frustrations that a customer may have and turn those into something that you can utilize from a marketing perspective. Envy is often used to leverage the desire for showing a status, and oftentimes the status that someone else has got that you don't have. And then pride, like I say, is about the consumer's ego or self-image. 

As I go through each of these in more detail, I'm going to give you examples from big brands, the likes of Apple, the likes of Nike, Dove, and more who have used these in different ways. And I'm also going to share some ideas and I've taken some notes here which I'll be able to read from as well with ideas about how we might be able to apply this if we were trying to sell a product related to dog training, for example.

So let's start with the first one there, Lust, and this is the desire or longing for something. Some examples that we've seen over the past couple of decades that have been very successful include things like Apple. Apple had a shot on an iPhone campaign and the campaign showcased stunning images and videos that were taken on an iPhone by iPhone users, by everyday people. It created a longing in potential customers to be able to create equally beautiful moments themselves. They really associated that high quality imaging with the iPhone. That's an example of Apple, and Apple use these seven sins, if you like, all the time in their marketing. They're really good at appealing to people in different ways. 

Nike is another one. So the Nike ‘Just Do It’ campaign evoked this desire to become a better version of yourself, and that there's an athlete sitting inside every one of us and their ads often picture just everyday people who are achieving their fitness goals and it sort of sparked that longing of viewers of the campaign to experience similar victories. 

We saw with the Dove Real Beauty campaign where they were using real women as opposed to professional models. They were sort of really at the forefront of portraying beauty as being something that was inclusive and attainable to all the consumers of Dove products and a desire for women in particular to feel confident and beautiful in their own skin. So that was how Dove used it. 

Now if we relate this back to dog training, I think one thing that we could do here is create a sense of longing or desire for the dog training product. It might be an e-book as an example that we've got here. So you could have something and this might be a bullet point on a page or you might condense something like this down into a headline or a sub headline, but you could have something like “Imagine coming home from a long day being greeted by your dog with not just affection, but also respect. Your shoes are untouched, your furniture is intact, and your dog is calmly waiting to be praised. Our guide can turn this dream into your everyday life.” That's an example of using this first sin, lust, to your advantage from a marketing standpoint, when you really try to hammer home this idea of longing for something to happen and painting a really clear picture in someone's mind about what that would look like.

If we move on to gluttony now, gluttony refers to the promise of abundance, this promise of wealth, and in the case of marketing, often a wealth of knowledge or even an overload of satisfaction in some way. We've seen lots of different companies use this in their marketing. Netflix is one that's used it a lot recently where they say you can watch anywhere and you can cancel anytime. They also hammer home that they've got an absolutely enormous library of TV shows, movies, documentaries, and it's almost like there's an endless choice. No one would ever need so much content, but it's all there anyway. So that's one way that Netflix have used it. 

Costco used something similar with the bulk buying experience, where their entire marketing strategy sort of revolves around this idea of abundance. Their customers aren't just buying a product, they are indulging in the savings and the satisfaction that comes from bulk buying. Spotify have done something very similar to Netflix with the Music for Every Mood campaign, where their ad campaigns emphasize again this vast library of music that is at the user's fingertips. Not just music, but podcasts and much, much more. And you could never get through all of this music. I mean, there's an unlimited amount of music on there, basically, but it works really well playing to this idea of gluttony and overindulgence and more than you could ever possibly need.

Imagine now, going back to the dog training book, that we've got a dog training book that we're trying to sell. You could do something like “Dive into a smorgasbord of insights with our e-book. Over 500 pages of advice, training plans, and solutions. It's a never-ending buffet of dog training essentials, designed to satiate the most ravenous of pet parents.” Or you could say something like, “Get ready for an overload of dog training wisdom. Our e-book has everything from tackling minor misbehaviors to managing serious issues. It's a veritable banquet of knowledge that leaves no question unanswered.”

So basically, these two things are almost promising the reader everything and the kitchen sink. It's like an encyclopedia of knowledge, more than you could ever need, when in reality, the dog training, the prospect might just have one thing they're trying to solve. It might just be digging in the backyard. That's all they need to solve. But human nature, and especially when gluttony comes into play, oftentimes people will say, “Oh well, yeah, it does have that tip, but it's also got all of these other side benefits as well. So that's an example of how it could work well there.

Greed is a really big one and this is the desire for material wealth or gain. There have been a lot of different campaigns that have used or tapped into greed. Amazon Prime had the Fast Free delivery campaign which effectively offers not just a vast range of products that can be chosen, but also fast and free delivery. The emphasis in that Amazon Prime campaign is on saving money so no delivery charge and also time so fast delivery. It appeals to the consumer's desire to get more for their investment. 

We've then got Groupon discount deals. Oftentimes anything that is based around discount deals is appealing to this greed emotion. And not just discount deals, but sales, like you go into a shop and it's got a sale happening and all of a sudden you're like, oh, I can get that for half price. Black Friday is a great example. Cyber Monday, these are great examples that really appeal to greed. 

So Groupon, the Groupon discount website, their entire business model revolves around consumers wanting to get the very best deal humanly possible in a slightly different way. Rolex has used greed as well, but it's almost like a more refined version of greed where it's a desire for status symbols and luxury items and their marketing focuses around prestige that comes and the elevated status that comes with using or being seen with a Rolex. 

Now, from the dog training perspective, if we wanted to leverage greed, we could do something like “Why waste money on individual dog training sessions that might or might not work? Our e-book offers proven methods and expert advice at a fraction of the cost. It's a treasure trove of savings and success in training your dog.” It's not as apparent there, but we could apply a discount to that as well, like “Get it today and you'll get it at 50% off,” so we'll be layering on different elements of greed on top of each other. 

Sloth is a powerful one as well. This is all about the ease or avoidance of effort. Looking at some famous campaigns, Uber had a Get There campaign which was basically offering easy, convenient and quick transformation at someone's fingertips. This was built around the idea of avoiding the effort of driving or having to hail a cab. These are not bad things by the way. When they used in marketing, it's not like that. It's a great campaign, I mean, where Uber is giving a good solution to people with what they're doing, but nonetheless it's still appealing to that ease and convenience. That's the angle that they're going for. 

We've seen similar things with Blue Apron, which is a meal delivery service where they can give you meal kits with all the ingredients all in the right portions and everything, including the cooking plan, the recipe, if you like, at the doorstep. That has eliminated a lot of the effort that would otherwise be required. With the dog training marketing, we could have something like “Why struggle with hit and miss training methods? Our e-books offer tried and tested techniques that work without the hassle. Simplify your dog training journey.” That would be one, or another one that I've prepared here is “Save yourself the time and energy of deciphering your dog's behavior. Our e-book provides easy to follow guides and solutions, turning the tedious task of training into a breeze. Both of those are working on this easy, simple, without the headache sort of angles there. 

With Wrath, this is about anger or frustration, and it can be used in a number of different ways. One is by coming up with a common enemy. In a lot of online training in the past, I've spoken about the frustration of dealing with the likes of Facebook. Anyone who has had a Facebook account banned in the past is going to have a lot of emotions inside them around it and know how annoying that is and how frustrating it can be. So I can say “With this new marketing method, you can forget about the headaches that you would have if you were leveraging Facebook” as an example. 

I'll give you a dog training example in a moment, but some other examples from large and successful campaigns include the Domino's Pizza turnaround campaign, where they used this customer dissatisfaction as somewhat of a springboard, if you like, for the campaign where they acknowledged the criticism of their pizza quality having sparked wrath because of delays and how long it would take to get to the user. They made some promises around that and it worked well for them.

Apple computers had a Get a Mac campaign, and in the ads they had, the PC, personal computer, character would frequently encounter different problems and it would be frustrating causing anger, while right next to that you had someone who was using a Mac who would remain completely problem free and happy. It was promoting or positioning Apple as a potential solution to tech frustrations. 

If we were thinking about this from the dog training example that we're giving here, and you want to sort of hammer home the wrath, you could have something like “Enough is enough.  You've struggled with your dog behaviors long enough and you've struggled for the last time. Our e-book is the solution transforming your frustration into progress.” Something like that could work.

If we now talk about envy, which is the 6th sin here, envy is the desire to have someone else's status, someone else's situation, someone else's things. We've seen lots of examples of this used in marketing as well. In fact, the entire Instagram platform was pretty much built on envy because people were seeing other people's perfect lives, perfect products, perfect everything through curated highlight reels which would spark desire for the experiences and the products and the lifestyles and so on. Mercedes Benz is another one that's used this and they had a campaign called The Best or Nothing. What it did was it showcased their cars as the absolute epitome of luxury and high status. Mercedes induces this envy and creates the desire in consumers to elevate their status through owning a Mercedes. That's another way that a big brand has used envy there. 

And then from the dog training perspective, you could have something like “Have you ever looked at a well-behaved dog and wished yours was the same? Our e-book and our secrets will share how you can become the perfect dog owner,” something like that. As you can see there, the start of that was “Have you ever looked at a well-behaved dog?” so we are looking at something else. Or “Are you ready to be the one with the obedient dog in the park? Make others green with envy as you master dog training with our e-book.” The word envy is even used in that one, and that's exactly what we're trying to sort of spark here with that kind of verbiage around that.

Now, the 7th and final deadly sin here is pride. Pride is like this inflated sense of self. It's like an overinflated ego. We've seen this in different campaigns as well, like American Express had the membership has its Privileges campaign. This was all built around American Express and the card itself being almost like a status symbol and something that sets card holders apart from everyone else. 

BMW had something which they called the Ultimate Driving Machine. And it was really appealing to people who wanted not just a mode of transport, but they wanted excellence in what they were getting. Gillette have got the famous The Best A Man Can Get campaign, which basically is trying to position a razor as a reflection of someone's personal standards. Apple use this a lot as well with their different Apple products. There's a lot of this going around where some people want to buy an Apple product because they think it's the best. Whether or not you agree with that, it doesn't really matter, but from a marketing standpoint, it's quite obvious what they're doing there. 

From a dog training marketing perspective here you could have something like “Elevate your status as a pet parent. With our e-book, you'll not only train your dog, but you'll become the go to dog advice guru among your friends.” Something like that that's talking about how your perception is going to be elevated as a result of doing something. That's what all of these things have got in common. Like American Express, your status is going to be elevated because you've got an American Express card in your hand, or you've got a super yacht, your status is going to be elevated. Or you drive a fancy sports car, your status is going to be elevated. For some people, these things really make a big difference. Typically, companies like American Express and BMW, they're not trying to appeal to everyone. They're trying to appeal to a very certain group of people, a very specific group of people, and the marketing works.

The seven deadly Sins, they really can provide and be a useful tool. They can give you a framework for successful copywriting. I like to think about these anytime I'm writing down bullet points for a sales letter or an email or any kind of a marketing that I might be doing at all. I think one of the best things of all is it's easy to remember what these seven sins are: lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, envy, sloth, and pride. You can tap into these, and when you do that, you're tapping into deeply ingrained human desires, human behaviors, human emotions. We've seen over and over again marketing campaigns be incredibly successful when they just focus on one of these simple ideas here.

Whether someone is lusting for that perfect relationship with their pet or that gluttonous desire for a wealth of dog training knowledge, the whole encyclopedia, everything you could ever need to know about dog training, or saving money because you can get 75% off that dog training book, but only today, or the slothful wish of simplifying dog training and your dog can be trained in the snap of your fingers kind of a thing, or the wrath that's triggered by that misbehaving pet and the anger that that can incite in someone, and then you can, through your training, you can immediately eliminate all of that, or being the envy of others because you've got the best dog that never puts a foot wrong, or having that pride of being a successful dog owner. You're not like the dog owner that's always running into troubles. No, you're the one that’s got it dialed in and you're respected by or looked up to by your peers. There's lots of different ways that you can leverage this. Each one of these seven sins has a slightly different perspective and you can also sort of combine them with one another. Most good marketing does do this as well. 

As marketers, I think these are really, really powerful to add into your toolbox. Think about these as you're planning out your next product page or your next Facebook ad or your next sales page or whatever it is that you might be doing with your marketing because I think they can add a lot of value to what you're doing with that.

And also, just a reminder, we have got other episodes that are related to marketing at The Growth Booth, for example, The Growth Booth episode number 15 was about 10 Power Packed Copywriting Strategies. You can check that out. It's on anywhere where you listen to this podcast. You can find it, or you can go to thegrowthbooth.com and navigate to episode number 15. As always, you can get show notes and much, much more by heading over to thegrowthbooth.com, navigating to episode number 81 and you'll get all the good information there. 

Also remember to follow us on social media, make sure you're connected on social media, make sure you're subscribed to the email channel so you get notified about every new episode that comes out. And please, if you're listening to this on Apple podcasts or on Spotify or someone else, give us a rating and give us a review. It does enormous good things and helps spread the word about the show and I'll be deeply appreciative for that. So thank you once again for listening to the show and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode of The Growth Booth.