The 16 Basic Desires

As a company, we believe that understanding our client’s prospects on a deeper level is essential to the creative process. We start by examining the client’s marketing materials and getting to know the client firsthand to gain insight into customers’ desires and pains. This is why we found the blog post “16 Basic Desires Theory” from Explorable incredibly helpful. It provides insight into the core basic desires that drive consumer behavior. From the need for social justice to the need for social significance, we use these basic desires to stimulate conversations with clients, which lead to better understanding their target audience.

We believe that understanding these basic desires is crucial for marketers and copywriters as it allows us to write more empathetically. We can turn our focus from the product to the user, which is not always easy. We also provide our clients with consultation to assist them in producing the best possible copy.

If you need some help with copywriting, feel free to schedule a consultation with us. 

16 Basic desires prospects may have in relation to your product or service:

  1. Acceptance – the need to be appreciated
  2. Curiosity, the need to gain knowledge
  3. Eating, the need for food
  4. Family, the need to take care of one’s offspring
  5. Honor, the need to be faithful to the customary values of an individual’s ethnic group, family or clan
  6. Idealism, the need for social justice
  7. Independence, the need to be distinct and self-reliant
  8. Order, the need for prepared, established, and conventional environments
  9. Physical activity, the need for work out of the body
  10. Power, the need for control of the will
  11. Romance, the need for mating.
  12. Saving, the need to accumulate something
  13. Social contact, the need for relationships with others
  14. Social status, the need for social significance
  15. Tranquility, the need to be secure and protected
  16. Vengeance, the need to strike back against another person

Need some direction on writing copy? Schedule a consultation he

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PAS: Pain, Agitation, Solution

Start every sales message by understanding the concept of PAS: Pain, Agitation, Solution.  (hats off to Thrive Themes for the link) PAIN: Start by identifying your customer’s pain. Show them that you understand their problem. Be really specific when you describe exactly how it feels to have this problem. You want your reader to start nodding and thinking “Yes, that’s exactly my problem!
AGITATE: Once you’ve really made the pain clear, it’s time to agitate it. Indulge in how this problem gets worse. Why is it frustrating? Why does it feel so awful? What is it that makes the problem so problematic?
SOLUTION: If you’ve written this well, your visitors should be wanting a solution by the end of it. They’ll be hoping that you’re about relieve their pain for them.

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What Is Price Anchoring?

Right before your prospect sees the price of your offering you want to begin talking about the value so that when they finally see the price, they feel that it is reasonable.

It’s not required, but it is common on Sales Pages for offerings, especially if they are highly-priced.

Help the visitor by explaining how alternate solutions to their problems can cost much, much more than yours.

The goal is to give them something to gauge the upcoming price against.

Learn more here about Thrive’s Conversion Focused WordPress Themes.