If you walked into the front room of my house (and didn’t somehow trip over the 3,564 cars that litter the floor — thanks Eli), you’d see a set of those ‘cube’ style bookshelves lining the back wall.
And on the bottom row of all those shelves … you would find dozens and dozens of volumes of Japanese manga.
I’m a total addict.
It’s one of my guilty pleasures before bed … and most of the time I’m always cursing myself at 4:30 the next morning, because I ended up getting so hooked on an issue that I stayed up an extra 90 minutes past my bedtime to finish it.
Still — I read them in Japanese, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s good study time!
Yet Hayley isn’t such a fan of the overflowing shelves in our front room.
“Someday I’d like to use that space for other stuff,” she keeps hinting.
So I took the hint …
… and bought myself a new Kindle yesterday. Just for manga.
(Hayley’s reading this … that was the hint you were giving me, right sweetie?)
Anyway, problem solvered. No more need to order paper issues!
But as I was choosing a Kindle, I noticed a great example of a persuasion technique I mentioned last week in my Japanese Pie Guy email:
Selling with ‘identity’.
To see what I mean, check out the product images of the new Kindle Oasis.
It’s the top-of-the-line, waterproof model, with a $200 price tag premium over the cheaper versions … so the marketing images aim to show you why it’s worth it.
One of the images shows a person holding their Kindle Oasis in a warm bubble bath, enjoying a quiet evening read in a romantic, candle-lit bathroom.
Another shows a woman in a hotel resort pool, in gorgeous sunshine, with her arms over the edge as she reads her Kindle.
The idea is:
This is who you could be if you had this Kindle.
You imagine yourself on a vacation …
Sitting at the edge of a hotel pool on a sunny day, with your pina colada …
As you read your favourite book on your Kindle Oasis.
Amazon is clever.
It’s not selling you a little e-reader that basically does the same thing as a book.
It’s selling you a chance to be the kind of person who travels and reads books in a hotel pool.
And it works, too.
I mean, I haven’t taken a bath (instead of a shower) since I was, like, 12 … and yet when I saw that first picture, I even caught myself thinking, “oh cool … if I splurged on this one, I could do that too!”
So remember, in your own marketing:
Don’t sell the product.
Sell the identity.
Need help writing copy that does that?
Oh, and as for the Kindle:
Did I treat myself with the fancy-schmancy model?
Invest in my own happiness?
Give myself the Kindle I deserved?
… nah, stuff that.
$200 for waterproofing, a few extra LEDs, and some physical push buttons?
Gee Mr. Bezos, sounds super helpful for all those times I’m reading my book outside in pitch darkness at midnight, during a rainstorm!
Forget that.
I proudly carried on and ordered the very cheapest model I could get.
Didn’t even buy a case for that sucker.
Daniel Throssell