You’ve heard all the myths and the legends, met all the gurus and their followers. Finally, the time has come for you, young seeker, to get out of the dark ages of affiliate marketing and discover the greatest antidote for uncertainty and superstition – science!

Perhaps you’re wondering who the man on the left is. He was a Soviet psychologist and psychiatrist. Keep on reading to find out what he can teach you.

Scientists from a wide variety of fields can teach us a wide variety of new things. Science finds no relevance in lengthy introductions, so, without further ado, let’s get directly into it!

We can learn from biologists that homo sapiens have evolved as social creatures. They want to be reassured that there are other people, just like them, facing the same problem, which have chosen your solution.

People don’t want products, they want benefits and want to know they belong. They don’t want to just to lose weight or make money, they want to join the slim people club or the money makers elite.

Psychologists can teach us that you have about seven words and three seconds to get your visitors attention or the ballgame’s over! There are only two things that motivate people to action. Those two are fear of loss and promise of gain.

You can get a visitor’s attention by encouraging his/her brain to make quick connections. Ask a question, start your sentences with an action word and make your visitor immediately understand your offer. Use short words with deep meanings: now, you, feel, add, go, take, win, find, do.

As I explained in my post about online patterns, the human mind is simply more accustomed to some things than to other. Some things work again and again. Here are some examples of headlines:

• The secret of selling,
• Do you make these mistakes when going on vacation?,
• When doctors get sunburn they use Aloeride,
• How I improved my online income by promoting the MoreNiche 2nd tier.

Anthropologists instruct us on actions which, simply put, have a lot of meaning for the person involved but at the same time don’t involve purchasing or producing anything. To name a few relevant ones for us: reading, writing, gardening, going window shopping, doing sports, teaching, having an argument, playing games, looking at old photos.

Engineering can hint you on your website’s scalability. Will your site attract shoppers if it would suddenly become scaled up to a real life store proportions? Are your colors good enough? Does it have products visitors can compare and choose the best?

I’m sure they prefer coming to the conclusion that one product is better than the other than you spoon-feeding them the “right” product. Why would you want to think shoppers choose products differently when they are online?

Writers mentor us into writing clear and convincing. Ernest Hemingway wrote with simple genius by writing short sentences, splitting them up in aerated paragraphs, using vigorous English and sticking to positive words.

Mark Twain on the other hand, achieved excellency by being original and utterly sincere in a simple, straightforward style.

The wisdom of the philosophers points to us that everything is relative. You have to compare your products to something. Ideal it would be to compare them to other products from the same market (duh!). That’s why product review sites convert so well.

Humans have difficulty thinking in absolute terms. You have to review, compare and twist your product inside out if you want your visitor to see it the way you do. A is greater than B, and B is greater than C. Thus A is the best. Simple as that.

And, last but not least, artists teach us that people are animated by emotions. You have to be creative and original. And you’re alone in figuring out this one. If you copy an original idea, it’s not original anymore. Be passionate about what you do!

That’s about it! I hope this post earns me my PhD in Affiliate Studies.

P.S.: The man at the beginning of the blog post is Bluma Zeigarnik. He discovered the mental phenomenon (which caries his name) which states that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed ones.

I’m sure the question stayed in the back of your mind throughout this post and I’m sure you’ll remember who Zeigarnik is from now on. And don’t forget to use it in your sales copy, because that’s my whole point.