My daughter, Belle, is ten years old.

Like many kids of her age, she loves animals – and in particular, dogs.

She’d love us to get one as a family pet.

There are only two problems….

First, we have cats. And they’re not famed for their love of dogs.

Second, my husband is much more a ‘cat’ person and isn’t that keen on dogs.

And I’ll admit, I like the fact that we can all go out for the day and not have to worry about dog care arrangements.

So Belle has a VERY tough hill to climb in order to persuade us to get a dog.

However, this hasn’t daunted her – not one little bit.

With gritty determination, she has embarked upon an aggressive direct marketing campaign.

She is already ascertained that her key target isn’t me (I’m already swayed) she’s figured out she needs to persuade my husband, Nick, to change his mind.

Her campaign has included letters, drawings, photos, poems and even free gifts

What’s striking is that her methods are not unlike those I learned as a marketer for an American publishing company in the ‘90s and are still just as powerful today.

Back in those days, a direct mail package would be made up of letters, brochures, forms and freebies, all with the sole aim of getting the reader to subscribe, enquire or make a purchase.

My daughter has nailed these techniques so instinctively that I thought I’d share her marketing campaign with you, with the aim of giving you some fundamentals of persuasion.

You can use these for anything you want to sell (or even just to use as persuasion techniques to get what you want ;-)).

Catch attention!

In old fashioned direct mail envelopes, would have copy on them to make you notice them in the pile of post that came through the letterbox.

The internet version of this is the subject line of an email, or the piece of copy on Facebook post or Tweet. This vital bit of text can:

• Flag up the prospect, alerting the kind of reader you want to reach that your message is of relevance
• State a bold promise about the benefits of reading on,
• Build a sense of anticipation for what’s inside, using intrigue and mystery

Here’s Belle’s…. (see keeps her copy simple and gets straight to the point).

Talk directly to the customer

You should persuade just ONE person – the ideal target customer – and speak to them directly.

This way you establish a personal, direct form of communication.

It can be an email, a landing page (a single webpage laid out like a letter) or a traditional letter, which is the option Belle chose – addressing it directly to the person she had to persuade the most: her father!

Note that she addressed Nick’s negative views about dog right up front (she knew he was worried about what we would do with the dog when we go away on holiday).

Which is why knowing your customer intimately is so important.

Always do your research so that you know in advance their world view, likes and dislikes, fears and hopes.

Pitch the ideal outcome

To persuade someone to take an action, for instance clicking on a link or buying a product, you need to convince them of the benefits of doing so.

In direct marketing sales letters, this often takes the form of an ‘ideal outcome’.

That is, what would the best-case scenario of owning this product be?

To start with, Belle has drawn her ‘dream doggie’ – one that my husband will like, which is calm and well behaved.

Secondly, she has found a photograph and used it to help us visualise our future with a dog.

This technique is especially effective because she has used images of young people in an idyllic setting in order to entice Nick. She’s hoping that he’ll start thinking along these lines.

“A dog will keep me young, keep me fit and get Heloise and I out into the scenic parts of London”.

Remember, whatever business you’re in, you’re not only selling a product, you’re selling a lifestyle – a dream – a transformation!

Free gift

One of the best ways to delight and surprise the potential customer is to offer them something for free.

If you’ve been reading my emails for some time you’ll know I’ve talked about this before.

It’s a quick way to gain trust, establish that you genuinely have something to offer, and give them a taster of what to expect.

It also taps into the principle of reciprocity. That is, when you are given something of value for nothing by a stranger, you feel instinctively like giving them something in return, be it your continued attention, your mouse click, your “like” or “share” on social media. It could be a free sample, free trial, free report or webinar.

In this case, Belle gave us a cute toy of a dog.

Tap into deep emotions

Really good sales pitches don’t just lay out the features and benefits of a product…

They get deep into core emotions like guilt, fear, envy, hope, desire and anger…

People buy almost entirely based on emotion, not logic, so if you identify some of those core emotions, you can often fast-track your way to sale.

Belle decided to tug on our heart strings by creating a fictional unhappy dog, abandoned by its owners, waiting in a rescue shelter to be adopted.

Look at his sad little face!

Damn, she’s good.

Emotive images

You can appeal to other senses than just logic by including images and illustrations.

Images are powerful elements of effective product packaging and should be displayed on your website as well as in emails, Facebook posts and Tweets. They catch attention, yes, but more importantly, they can communicate subtle messages in milliseconds that words take longer to deliver.

Belle combined her slightly psychedelic image with an emotional “PLEASE?!” along with a bit of persuasive factual information.

The ‘halo effect’

One proven way to persuade a potential customer that you have something great to offer is to show that other esteemed celebrities and experts ALSO like similar products.

This is called the ‘halo effect’.

It doesn’t even have to be that the esteemed person has bought your actual product.

An example might be that you sell a course that teaches people how to sell on Amazon and you find an article in the Times about how Amazon selling is big business now.

By talking about that in a blog, email, tweet or Facebook post, you can bask in the glow of that famous endorsement.

What Belle did was write out a poem called ‘Nice Doggie’ by the legendary comedian, Spike Milligan.

Overcoming objections…

Whenever you’re trying to sell something, the person on the other end will have a certain resistance to your offer.

When you are creating your course or service, think of every objection a potential customer might have, write them down and then painstakingly overcome each one.

Once you’ve covered every possibility, get that into your sales materials.

You need to overcome each of their objections if you’re to succeed.

To try and get across why he didn’t want to get a dog, Nick (a professional copywriter) wrote out list of objections in part to teach her about how to overcome them.

These included…

• We already have two cats whose emotional well-being we need to consider…

• Dogs need two walks per day and she will be at school, so who will walk them?

• What do we do about going on holiday? Who will look after the dog then?

• What happens when Heloise and I are at work all day? 

As you might notice from some of the images I’ve already shown you, Belle has been including statements that overcome these objections – although admittedly she has a way to go yet.

But she’s persisting. She has a scrapbook devoted to all things dogs!

She takes books out of the library on pupply care and has even drawn up (and signed) a contract to prove she is responsible enough to look after a dog and listed all the chores she will do to prove this (and she’s true to her word…so far)

While there is dog forthcoming, Nick and I are impressed by her determination. Thanks to her persistence we have agreed to – like Brexit – agree a delay on making a decision until she has done her entrance exams for school.

Hopefully by that point her enthusiasm will have abated a little.

But we won’t hold our breath.

Because sometimes even the act of writing a list like this can alter your mindset.