Truism #1: If people see it coming, the transformational moment – the moment when a character moves past his primary fears, block, wound, or limitation – will fail to create maximum emotion in the reader because it’ll get dampened or squashed by the audience’s psychological defenses.
Truism #2: If the transformational moment isn’t properly set up, and instead the writer just launches into high drama on the page, the scene won’t be believable and it will fall emotionally flat for the reader.
Here’s an example of this second truism from the movie, Zombieland:
***Warning – Movie Spoilers Ahead*****
There’s emotion on the screen, duly portrayed by Woody Harrelson, but it never really touches the audience. The flashback, in fact, feels a bit off. Who feeds their dog pancakes or lifts them up and bathes them like that? But then again, Woody’s character is a bit “off,” so the viewer (or this viewer at least) let’s the disconnects slide.
And that’s the genius of this scene. Because as the movie goes on and the audience gets tied up in the more exciting aspects of zombie bashing, they forget all about that disconnect until the writer springs this scene on them:
After watching that scene, it dawned on me that the audience wasn’t meant to feel emotion in the first scene: it was just the set-up for this second scene in a way that would keep the audience from “bracing” against the emotion. Hence the “narrative misdirection” of the puppy flashback.
That undetected set-up makes all the difference because we, the audience, were taken in along with the Greg Eisenberg’s character, “Columbus.” So we felt Columbus’s insight and empathy as our own. It transfered right from the screen to our chests.
Better yet, while the audience was caught up in the emotion of that scene, the writer set us up for this bit of dialogue:
Brilliant, huh? We see the nihilistic loner confront his loss and then overcome his isolation. And it feels real. In fact, the emotion and drama works quite well for an otherwise silly comedy.
Copywriting Techniques to Take Away From All This
First of all, the copywriting equivalents of these techniques probably require a “don’t try this at home, kids” style warning, because they are in direct contradiction to standard: “hit ‘em as hard as you can with a WIIFM Appeal and UVP statement right off the bat”-style copywriting advice. Advice which I normally endorse as sound practice, by the way.
But these techniques and examples DO work when done right and are worth studying and thinking about. So with that caveat, here’s what I have seen used:
1) Sometimes the indirect approach works better. As I wrote earlier, most copywriters want to go in with guns a’ blazin’, spewing high-voltage WIIFM and UVP statements along with emotional problem-agitation-focused copy. But sometimes a slower start works to your advantage by allowing you to set-up your dramatic moments and power statements.
So long as your copy is interesting and is subtle in its set-ups, this indirect approach can massively outpull regular “reason-why” style copy. For example, here’s how the famous Wall Street Journal copy starts:
“On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men.
Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both – as young college graduates are – were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.
Recently, these men returned to their college for their 25th reunion.
They were still very much alike.
Both were happily married. Both had three children. And both, it turned out, had gone to work for the same Midwestern manufacturing company after graduation, and were still there.
But there was a difference. One of the men was manager of a small department of that company. The other was its president.”
With the tale eventually leading up to this power statement:
“The difference lies in what each person knows and how he or she makes use of that knowledge.
And that is why I am writing to you and to people like you about The Wall Street Journal. For that is the whole purpose of The Journal: To give its readers knowledge – knowledge that they can use in business.”
Can you imagine the fall off in response if the copywriter had skipped the set-up and just launched into the power statement? Can you imagine the U.S. School of Music correspondence course deciding a straight offer would work better than the immortal opening of “They laughed when I sat down at the piano but when I started to play!-”
And then there’s this bit of direct mail masterpiece that continues to work so well a recent copy just arrived in my inbox today:
You look out your window, past your gardener, who is busily pruning the lemon, cherry, and fig trees…amidst the splendor of gardenias, hibiscus, and hollyhocks.
The sky is clear blue. The sea is a deeper blue, sparkling with sunlight.
A gentle breeze comes drifting in from the ocean, clean and refreshing, as your maid brings you breakfast in bed.
For a moment, you think you have died and gone to heaven.
But this paradise is real. And affordable. In fact, it costs only half as much to live this dream lifestyle…as it would to stay in your own home!
Dear ETR Reader,
I’d like to send you a FREE copy of a unique–and invaluable–report.
It’s called How to Retire in Paradise on $30 a Day. And it tells you about the best places in the world for retirement living.
You look out your window, past your gardener, who is busily pruning the lemon, cherry, and fig trees…amidst the splendor of gardenias, hibiscus, and hollyhocks.
The sky is clear blue. The sea is a deeper blue, sparkling with sunlight.
A gentle breeze comes drifting in from the ocean, clean and refreshing, as your maid brings you breakfast in bed.
For a moment, you think you have died and gone to heaven.
But this paradise is real. And affordable. In fact, it costs only half as much to live this dream lifestyle…as it would to stay in your own home!
Dear ETR Reader,
I’d like to send you a FREE copy of a unique–and invaluable–report. It’s called How to Retire in Paradise on $30 a Day. And it tells you about the best places in the world for retirement living.
Again, imagine how much less effective the straight offer of “Retire in Paradise on $30 a Day” would have been. No set-up, no emotional punch.
And while I’ll be the first to admit that readers are more suspicious of set-ups and more time sensitive than ever before, the continued use of this e-mail proves it still pulls. Trust me, if the direct mail superstars of Early to Rise had tested something better, they’d be using it.
2) Reference your prospect’s “photo in a wallet” symbolism to leverage otherwise unavailable emotions. Woody Harrelson’s character, Tallahassee, wasn’t planning on helping rescue the two girls. He needed to be convinced. But rather than launch into a rational argument, or a straightforward WIIFM-style appeal, the “Columbus” character clothed his appeal in the talismanic image of Tallahassee’s only keepsake from his lost son. And it worked.
I guarantee you that your prospect’s likely have a “wallet picture” type of mental image, some symbol, keepsake, or event that powerfully embodies and evokes their emotional stakes. If you wish to give your copy greater emotional impact, find out what that talisman-like symbol is, and create mental images that take advantage of that symbolism. Examples of this abound, but perhaps the most famous is Michelin’s tagline:
Before this Michelin ad, no one really cared about small quality differences between tire brands. The “wallet picture” imagery Michelin employed changed all that.
So while these techniques probably aren’t for beginning copywriters, they are worth thinking about. They’re worth practicing. And – if and when you nail it – they’re worth using.
Look at the photo to the left. Yeah, it’s Rodin’s The Thinker and you’ve already seen it before – take another good, hard look anyway. In fact, study the thing for a minute. I’ll wait.
OK, having just “experienced” the picture for yourself, read Rodin’s description of his statue:
“What makes my thinker think is that he thinks not only with the brain, with his knitted brow, his distended nostrils, and compressed lips, but with every muscle of his arms, back, and legs; with his clenched fist and gripping toes.”*
Now go back and take another look at the pic. Did you notice new things? Did you find yourself noticing new details on the statue’s nostrils, lips, back, and toes, while giving silent affirmation to Rodin’s words?
That is the mark of great product description: using words to guide the senses and shape the experience.
And the more you sell premium products and experiences – the more you sell the distillation of passion – the more you had better tap into the power of copy to direct the imagination of the reader.
The Science and Art of Great Product Description
Lest you think the Rodin example was nothing but a parlor trick, I thought I’d cite some hard science and proven psychology behind this technique, while also giving some helpful how-to hints:
1) Vividly imagining the future reduces impulsive choices
And the reader’s imagination will trend towards the future – unless YOU direct the imagination of the buyer! I may be tempted to buy your product, but the more I imagine the future rewards and pleasures of sticking to my diet, sticking to my budget, and so on, the less likely I am to buy.
But if the copy directs my senses to vividly imagine the pleasures and benefits of ownership/consumption, I’ll be moved to buy rather than abstain. Great copy recreates the enthusiast’s experience in the mind of the prospect. Mediocre copy just describes the product.
2) Translating a product into an experience de-comodifies your product
“If it wasn’t hard, everybody would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.” Tom Hank’s character said that about baseball, but it applies just as well to premium products and services. Making a significantly better product requires extra effort and passion. Often in the service of squeezing out an extra 10% refinement in 10-20 different areas. And that’s the problem… at least from a copywriter’s standpoint
See, small refinements in a lot of areas don’t translate well in a spec-sheet head-to-head comparison, where the cheaper alternative ends up looking like a 90% as good for half the price alternative. And that’s why good copywriters lean so heavily on “creation” stories, which project the manufacturers passion onto the reader, and make those relatively fine distinctions seem like all-important differences. Gary Weeks gives a first class example of this in the copy he created for his Weeks Rocker. There’s a reason the man’s able to sell $1600 rocking chairs over the internet.
3) Curiosity and Education are every bit as powerful as a great deal
When you describe an experience that’s foreign to the reader, you create curiosity – a desire in the reader to “see” for herself. To taste the nuances of flavor in a well crafted wine, or to feel the texture and feedback that only the combination of first-class drawing paper and high-quality charcoal can provide. Or even to “see” their PPC campaign with new eyes – eyes capable of sifting out the hidden motivations of prospects/searchers and the flawed messaging in the ads.
For many, learning, discovering new experiences, and expanding one’s scope of competency are as seductive a prospect as any straightforward value proposition. Gary Vaynerchuk rode this wave to fame and fortune. And two Maine Lobsterman have taken this kind of value-added offering to a new level, and made themselves into millionaires in the process! You can too.
4) The Joshua Bell Effect
Asking people to recognize true merit and quality on its own, deprived of any cues or prompts, is simply asking too much from your customers and prospects. Kind of like asking you to have recognized all those details about Rodin’s The Thinker without his quote as a prompt.
Perhaps the most striking modern-day example of this was an experiment done by the Washington Post wherein Musical Prodigy Joshua Bell played his stradivarius in the subway to see how many would recognize his musical excellence, absent the concert hall cues and media fanfare normally surrounding his performances. The result: he was ignored by everyone but children. Even music snobs need cues to recognize talented, virtuoso performance.
As a copywriter you’re job is to set the stage for your virtuoso product/service and to provide prospects with the cues they so desperately need to recognize real quality when they see it. When you tell prospects where to look, how to look, and what to expect, you’re not only enticing their imaginations, but helping those soon-to-be customers to fully recognize the differentiators your client has already baked into the product. Which both sells more product on the front end AND improves customer satisfaction on the back end, too.
Does your product copy merely describe the product?
Or does your copy predict the prospect’s experience of the product, helping them to see with their ears and anticipate all the pleasure and benefits that are sure to come with ownership?
19
Apr
“Never ask a barber if you need a haircut“
- Cowboy Wisdom as quoted by Warren Buffet
Your website, e-mail, and direct mail copy all suffers from a flaw that kills reader belief. And there’s no real way to prevent that problem – only workarounds and partial solutions.
It’s the nature of the copywriting beast to suffer the fate of the barber telling people they need a haircut – the vested interest of the speaker works against his believability.
And that’s why stories come in so handy. While the right story won’t prevent the problem, it will overcome it with a double whammy of psychology capable of crushing this credibility gap like an empty beer can. Here’s why:
1) Flattery works, even when you know the flattery isn’t sincere.
Or so says recent psychological research titled: “Insincere Flattery Actually Works“. Even though we like to think that we’re too smart to be influenced by insincere flattery, our intellectual understanding of the intent to persuade doesn’t stop the emotional influence of the message.
And the same also extends to a story that flatters the listener. A story that flatters your prospective customers’ sensibilities, suspicions, judgements, or aspirations will emotionally influence them, even when they recognize your vested interest in telling the story.
This stands in sharp contrast to bragging, which never works regardless of how sincere it might be. So why does most copy brag instead of flatter? In the words of Bryan Eisenberg, why is there so much we-we copy?
While emotional-directed advertising has historically performed twice as well as purely rational ads, the key to making those ads work is to focus on the buyer’s emotion, not the seller’s.
2) We unconsciously “see” things through the eyes of the story’s protagonist
When listening to a story, we understand the narrative by picturing the experience as it occurs to the protagonist. When we hear a story, we identify with the protagonist, not just visually, but emotionally. That’s why we love happy endings, and why watching an authentic tragedy leaves us feeling devastated and drained.
Put these two psychological principles together with the right kind of story and you’ve got persuasive dynamite. Here’s a perfect case study demonstrating just how effective this can be:
Beckley Automotive’s 30% Sales Jump
My friend and colleague, Chuck McKay, works with a 15-bay repair shop in Des Moines by the name of Beckley Automotive. Steve Beckley’s shop works on the European Imports he loves and drives himself: Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Land Rover, Mini, Volkswagen, Saab, and Volvo (along with Acura, Lexus, and Infinity).
For years Steve has purchased lists of European Import owners in Des Moines and has used multiple post card mailings to remind owners that someone in town understands all the ins and outs of the cars they drive. Over the years those cards have payed off handsomely.
But the cards suffered from the “barber telling you you need a haircut” problem: it’s just not very credible when anyone brags about how great they are – especially when they’re out to get your business.
So Chuck advised Steve Beckley to do two things with his mailings:
- Stop appealing to European Import owners and start appealing to owners of specific brands. In the words of Chuck: “A Range Rover owner doesn’t think of himself as a ‘European Import Owner.’ He thinks of himself as someone who drives a Range Rover. Speak directly to him.” In other words, appeal to emotion& self-identity.
- Stop speaking like an advertiser and start communicating more like a good friend. Start telling stories.
So to Steve’s immense credit, he took that advice, ditched his old copy, and wrote awesomely effective stories for each of the European marques he works on. Stories like this one he sent to Mercedes owners:
Wouldn’t You Feel Smug?
Can you just imagine how self-satisfied you’d feel upon reading this story if you owned and drove a Mercedes Benz? You might just feel downright smug after reading that story. And even though you’d know, in the back of your mind somewhere, that Beckley Automotive was trying to flatter you with that story, it wouldn’t matter: you’d still walk away a heck of lot more likely to call them for your auto work.
Indeed, that was exactly the case for recipients of these story-based postcard mailers, whose increased patronage of Beckley Automotive led to a 29.9% increase in sales this March over March of last year.
And that’s the power of smug.
It’s also a great way to sell a man a haircut when all the world can see that you’re a barber.
P.S. Chuck McKay does a lot more than advise clients on messaging and copy. He’s also a superb Business and Marketing Strategist who manages to combine those rare-enough-on-their-own traits of clear thinking, small business savvy, and creative execution. If you’re looking to grow in spite of the current economic climate, do yourself a favor – check out Chuck’s blog and drop him a message.
18
Feb
You’re thinking of buying something or some service and an acquintance says, “Don’t do it; I bought that/hired them and it was a total waste of money. I got screwed.”
Do you trust that acquaintance enough to let them sway your decision? Generally speaking, yes.
But if you’re on Amazon, looking at an interesting book, and you see a handful of 5-star reviews, many claiming that this is “The Best” book on the subject, do you trust the positive reviews?
Well, it depends on how well written and substantiated the reviews are, etc. But generally speaking, no, you don’t really trust them. All else being equal, we tend to give far less credence to positive reviews than negative ones.
Why we trust negative reviews more than positive recommendations
Basically, we grant others authority in the matter of their own personal experiences. If they say their favorite color is blue, we believe them. If they say they had a bad experience with such and such a product or service provider, we believe that too, because they are speaking from their own personal experience in that one situation.
You don’t have to be an expert on vacum cleaners to know that the one you bought has failed you miserably. And your experience alone is often enough to sway someone from buying that brand.
But a general recommendation is different. The ability to credibly make a positive recommendation requires more than just personal experience with a given product. For a recommendation to be persuasive, the reader must have faith in the reviewer’s overall judgement and in their field-specific knowledge.
You can tell me you liked a specific type of ergonomic chair, but your experience alone isn’t enough to make me want to buy that chair because there are a lot of good chairs out there and I’m not looking for good – I’m looking for the best my money can buy.
In order to persuade me that the chair you bought is the best chair for my money, you have to have more than just your experience with the chair. You need to have broad knowledge and expertise (or at least experience) with the top ergonomic chairs on the market so that you can compare multiple chairs and competently pick out the best performing chair for the money.
To believe and act on your recommendation, I’d need to know:
- that your use of the chair is similar to mine,
- that you’ve already tried a bunch of chairs, and
- what your criteria were for selecting the chair you did.
All this over and above your personal experience with the chair you eventually bought and recommended.
See the difference?
A Social Media “Friend” isn’t necessarily a friend
A lot has been made recently about studies purporting to show that people trust their friends less and experts more. It’s well worth looking at the study, but be careful about applying this too broadly.
First of all, what the study is really saying is that people trust anonymous reviews less than recommendations stemming from an authoritative source. Well, duh!
Does that mean reviews and testimonials have lost importance? Hell no. Keeping in mind what we just discussed, here’s what I believe it means:
- Negative reviews can still have an outsized impact.
- Positive reviewers need to substantiate their unbiased nature and subject matter expertise.
Sean D’Souza is ahead of the curve, as usual
What this really reminds me of is Sean D’Souza’s advice on Testimonials, advice that clearly understood (and masterfully leveraged) this phenomena several years ago when his product first came out. He used to give the PDF away to members of his newsletter, but the product he’s selling now for $40 is well worth it, in my humble opinion – and I’ve sampled more than my fair share of copywriting books, info-products, and guru advice 
Think of travelling through the web via hyperlinks as a form of teleportation. Now think of teleportation. Specifically, if you really were teleporting what would be your main concerns?
1) You’d want to make darn sure you KNEW where you were going
2) Upon “landing,” you’d want to ensure you arrived in the right place
Those are two of the most important things you can learn about crafting and structuring your hyperlinks, and they translate as:
- Word links so people can figure out where the link will take them, and
- Match your headlines, pictures, and page content with visitor expectations created by the hyperlink they clicked on to get to your page. Let them know they’re in the right place.
And yet these are also the two most frequently violated “rules” of hyperlinking. E-mails frequently have call to action links/buttons that take you to a page that utterly fails to follow-up on the offer presented in the e-mail. Call to action buttons meant to take you to a product page are often mislabeled as if they will place the item in your cart. And so on.
Master these two basic lessons and you’ll have learned more than 90% of most Web users, and even most Web developers and (sad to say) more than a few copywriters.
And yet, those are just the basics. Another, perhaps more sophisticated, way of looking at this is to say that every link represents a promise and every click represents permission.
The Promise
The promise comes from the expectations created by the hyperlink’s wording or label. You’ve essentially promised the visitor that, if they click on the link, they’ll be teleported to the kind of content they expect. Which means that, on an emotional level, visitors will feel a site is “dishonest” if a link “tricks” them by teleporting them someplace unexpected or undesired. Ouch!
More fundamentally, this also means that you, as the copywriter, have to craft links (and content) that offer forth promises compelling enough to motivate visitor clicks. There is no gravity to an online conversion funnel; nothing will “pull” visitors through to the next click or micro-conversion except their own motivation based on promised benefits.
In other words, you can’t take visitors where they don’t want to go. You can’t force the conversation. You have to offer to talk about what the prospective customer wants to talk about – what SHE finds important. Ignoring a topic of conversation by not providing the appropriate link (or by failing to provide the right content on the other side of a link) is like a car salesman refusing to talk about the price of the car when asked. It kills credibility and trust.
The Permission
The permission is what you get when a visitor clicks on your link, and permission is a copywriter’s best friend. Why? Because the right hyperlink construction can give you permission to speak about things that you’d never get away with otherwise. Here’s an example:
You’re crafting an About Us page that focuses primarily on a company’s history while throwing in a few credibility increasing features like a picture of the actual office and the team of employees, etc. But what you might really want to do is openly brag about all the home-runs the company has had – except that you feel a self-promoting tone might be “against brand.”
So you simply use self-deprecating link that talks about “our brag sheet” (or something similar) that links to exactly the kind of self-promoting copy you knew you couldn’t get away with on the About Us page. Why? Because any reader who clicks on a link to your Brag Sheet has mentally given you permission to brag. Following that click, you can brag without looking like an egocentric jerk.
Similarly, you could link to that same kind of content with an “Our track record” link placed most anywhere else on the site. Again, by clicking on “our track record” clients have given you permission to talk, at length, about the company’s successes. Normally you’d want to talk about What’s In It For the Customer and how you can help them, but the link provides permission to ignore WIFFM for a bit while you build credibility.
To give you another analogy, this link permission for something like “Our Track Record” is kind of like a date explicitly asking: “So what about you? What’s your story?”
And if you ponder that analogy, especially in light of context, I’m sure you’ll come up with even more lessons about linking, persuasion, and online conversations
In fact, I’d love to hear your thoughts on that last analogy. Tell me what you came up with…
It happens to the best of us. As copywriters, marketers, and entrepreneurs we get waylaid by our own best intentions, by our efforts at learning more about our craft, keeping up with all the must-read posts, magazine articles, and business books, and so on.
The end result: a reading diet way too rich on mediocre prose and way too low on first-rate fiction and poetry. Think about the last 10 books you’ve read and tell me that’s not the case.
And, in general, as you read, so shall you write. Garbage In, Garbage Out. So here’s my vitamin-enhanced fiction-reading commitment for next year:
- one short story, OR
- one chapter from a novel, OR
- At least one poem, OR
- A chapter from the Bible, OR
- One first-rate play or screenplay
I’ll read at least that much fiction each day, every day.
As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I think this one is probably one of the most pleasant I’ve ever made, and will very likely turn out to be one of the most effectively life-improving as well. I hereby recommend it to you.
Anyone else make a writing-specific resolution this New Year’s?
Never forget: you practice a queer trade, making you an odd duck by default.
If you’ve ever had someone totally miss-read a blog post and walk away thinking the opposite of your intended message, chances are you forgot what an odd duck you are.
As a writer, chances are that you’re more at ease with the idea of creating meaning through interpretation of events, and of critically examining a narrative for multiple meanings, contradictions, open endings, shades of grey, nuances, etc. And you likely bring those same skills to bear on everything you read.
Most People Don’t Read The Same Way You Read
That level of analysis may be second nature for you, but it’s a lot of unpleasant work for most people, who generally don’t think to put that effort into 99% of what they read. When you forget that, you write something that’s bound to be misunderstood.
So here’s what to do about it…
The Straightforward Grammar of Business Stories
In order to tailor your writing to a general audience and to avoid miscommunication, you’ll want to intentionally structure your story the way most readers think about and remember stories. The message can be unexpected, but the narrative structure used to deliver it shouldn’t be.
And when it comes to business stories or parables, most non-writers think in terms of three nodes:
- Hero,
- Villain/Obstacle, and
- Turning Point/Triumph.
Complex, rich, satisfying stories may contain more moving parts, but business parables shouldn’t. If you’re telling an anecdote or fable to make a point, you’ll want to keep the narrative structure simple. Who’s the hero? What’s he want? And who the hell is getting in his way?
If your main point or general story structure doesn’t fit neatly within this structure, people will misremember or warp your story in order to fit the framework, often to the point of changing your intended meaning.
The Unwritten Expectations For Each Storytelling Node
In addition to simplifying your story to those three nodes, make sure you tell the story in such a way as to meet audience expectations for each of the nodes:
- Regardless of what writing instructors and English teachers may have taught you, in a business story the hero should always be the guy you talk about the most in the telling of the story. If you talk too much about someone other than the hero, you’ll likely confuse your audience.
- The villain should be, well, villainous, even if the villain is just an obstacle. Make sure your audience can see the dastardly pain and gnashing of teeth your villain/obstacle causes.
- Dramatize the turning point for the hero. Don’t be subtle about it; novelist can paper over a momentous decision or a-ha moment for literary effect, but a business parable can’t afford that kind of subtlety. And make sure the victory follows immediately after the decision point. Most importantly, whatever point you’re trying to convey had better be made and “proved” during the turning point and victory.
- Remember that everything in the story will either get lumped in with the hero or the villain – they (or it) will inevitably be remembered as either helping the hero achieve victory or working against the hero, with no room for neutral or conflicted parties, characters, or elements.
If you complicate the structure, or bury your point outside of that framework, or confuse people by talking too long about someone other than the hero, the reader will likely walk away thinking something totally different than your intended point.
Here’s a textbook example of what can go wrong:
What Happens When You Violate the Structure
Roy Williams used a Monday Morning Memo as a sort of character sketch, contrasting the difference between faith in, well, providence, in the largest sense of that word, and a blind slavery to “the sure thing.”
Specifically, he wrote about how Joe Weppner’s underdog bout against Muhammad Ali for the heavyweight title inspired Stallone to write the script for Rocky. And, more importantly, he wrote about the incredible faith it took for Stallone to turn down a Studio’s offer of $400,000 for the script alone in favor of $25,000 and the chance to play the part of Rocky.
But Roy spent most of the Memo setting the stage by talking about Weppner and his singular chance at beating the odds. Not until the last few paragraphs does Roy introduce Sylvester Stallone and his gutsy move to turn down the “sure bet” of $400K for the chance to play the part of Rocky.
So when Roy closes his Memo by contrasting Weppner’s short-sighted slavery to “the sure thing” – about how Weppner took a $70,000 flat fee instead of a 1% cut of the movie’s gross that turned out to be worth $8 million – to Stallone’s faith, well, most readers missed the point of the memo.
How do I know? Because Roy’s MMM from two weeks after that opens with:
I recently wrote a Monday Morning Memo… about how Chuck Wepner’s fight against Muhammad Ali provided the inspiration for Sylvester Stallone to peck out the screenplay of Rocky, a low-budget film that, against all odds, won the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture in 1976. As expected, I was flooded with emails from people sharing stories of friends and family who “like Wepner” valiantly did their best in the face of insurmountable odds.
Funny thing is, that wasn’t the point of the memo…
Roy’s Story Structure Violated the Grammar of Business Parables
Weppner was the main character in the story, and yet Weppner was neither the hero nor the villain. Sylvester/Rocky was the hero. Daunting odds and the temptation of the “sure thing” was the obstacle.
So where does that leave Weppner? That leaves Weppner to either be confused with or associated with the Hero, or to be lumped in with the Obstacle/villain. Business parables leave no room for a complicated and conflicted third character.
So even though Weppner was both the inspiration for Rocky AND the guy who gave into the temptation of the sure thing, his image as the real-life inspiration for Rocky was what people took away from the Memo – even though that was the opposite of the intended point.
Fix Your Stories by Sticking to The 3-Node Structure
Do this by ensuring that:
- The Hero is clearly the hero. Make sure he gets the most description and “time in front of the camera.” If Roy had set-up with the image of Stallone refusing to sell-out his dream rather than presenting the image of Weppner as a gutsy and dogged fighter, they’d likely have been a lot less confusion.
- The Villain or Obstacle is presented “onscreen.” If your villain isn’t tangible, the reader will likely substitute a tangible villain for the one you intended. In Roy’s MMM the villain/obstacle was the temptation to sell-out to the sure thing. But selling out isn’t easily visualized and there was no Mephistophelean villain to embody selling out. So most reader’s likely substituted “the system” as the villain, with the system acting as the embodiment of conventional wisdom and “the odds.” The system may not be visual, but everyone’s been beaten down by it at one point or another, and everyone knows what it’s like to long for a magical moment of beating the odds. So readers paired Wepner the boxer and Stallone the actor in their battles to beat the system/odds.
- Turning Point & Victory: While the victory for Stallone immediately followed on his turning down the $400K, there really isn’t as much of an emotional turning point for Weppner. He lost out on $8 Million, but we have no idea how badly he did or didn’t need the money. Or how much he did or did not like being a liquor wholesaler in Bayonne, LA.
I’m not suggesting that you “talk down” to your audience or that you only tell simplistic stories. I am suggesting that you become aware of this framework so that the business or copywriting stories you tell end up making the point you hope them to make.
I hate fixing household plumbing problems.
It’s not that plumbing is hard or even all that unpleasant, really. And that’s the infuriating part: the fact that plumbing would be – should be!?! – downright easy if you just didn’t have to:
- negotiate way-too-tight spaces,
- avoid smacking your hand against hot-enough-to-burn-you stuff,
- overcome rusted bolts,
- make yet another trip to the store to get a needed part, tool, etc.
- deal with the worry of making a costly mistake
Honestly, what kind of shade tree mechanic or home fixer-guy hasn’t bitched about one of these things? It’s the luxury of being a shade-tree mechanic or home-fixer guy.
But real professionals don’t have that luxury.
True pros know conditions are never ideal. And they know their reputations and paychecks rest on results achieved in far-from-ideal conditions.
Real plumbers expect to fix plumbing problems while on their backs, staring up at the underside of a cabinet, and working with rusted bolts. That’s how it is in the real world, and so they train for it. Because no one pays you to be an imaginary plumber in a make believe world where the pipes are all out in plain site.
I half-wanted to draw out the analogy between this and copywriting, advertising, and marketing, but I won’t insult your intelligence. Just let me ask you:
Are you a real professional at your chosen vocation?
Do you train yourself to handle far-from-ideal conditions and situations?
Or are you too busy dreaming of the perfect client/product/competitive market and bitching about the marketing equivalents of rusted bolts and tight spaces?
Want to get every visitor hoping to prove you right?
Want to have those same visitors actively searching for just enough substantiation to hang their hats on before rushing off to your shopping cart/checkout process?
Of course you would. Once your reader wants what you say to be true, once she hopes you’re “for real,” she’ll be routing for you the whole time she’s reading your substantiating copy/proof. And that’s the kind of audience you want.
So even before you think about how to prove your claims, establish credibility, or anything else, you’ll want to focus on establishing your readers’ emotional desire. Here’s how to do that…
A Seductive First Mental Image
“The core of a successful trick is an interesting and beautiful idea that taps into something that you would like to have happen. One of the things we do in our live show is I squeeze handfuls of water and they turn into cascades of money. That’s an interesting and beautiful idea.
The deception is really secondary. The idea is first, because the idea needs to capture your imagination.”
- Teller (of Penn & Teller fame) describing the neuroscience of magic
While all copy shares the challenge of capturing readers attention, the best headlines and openers move past gimmicks and shouting in order to intrigue and seduce readers with a mental image that the reader hopes to be true. Or wishes to make true.
Infomercials mastered this technique decades ago. They always open with a striking image or clip functioning as a seductive “proof of concept”:
- The Ginsu knife that cut through the tin can and could still finely slice the tomato
- The OxyClean that magically evaporate stains out of a white carpet
- The ShamWow leaving not a trace of water on the counter and soaking up 20 times its weight in water, every last drop in the tray
Only after the image captures the viewer’s imagination does the pitchman reveal the “secret” of how the product works.
Similarly, Lifelock.com first captures visitor’s imagination with the CEO brazenly publishing his SSN on the homepage. It’s only on the second or third page that visitors learn HOW LifeLock works to keep your identity safe.
And for many Web 2.0 sites, the opening page has become home to the quick 1-3 minute video showing you how easily you too can kick butt with their software/product. This screenr homepage video is a perfect example of that.
Why it Works
As it turns out, we’re really good at bending logic to suport out desires, because, really, does anyone really read Playboy “for the articles?” Our minds also suffer from anchoring bias and the effects of emotional priming.
Basically, an emotional image affects how we “see” or interpret the rest of the copy. Here’s an example: when test subjects were shown a video of a car accident, half of the test subjects were asked how fast the two cars were going when the “crashed” into each other, and half were asked how fast the cars were going when they “made contact.” On average, the “crashed into” group’s estimated speed was 10 mph faster than the “made contact” group. That simple phrase colored the entire memory of the film clip.
In a similar manner, your readers’ desire for a product can color their perception of your substantiating content. In other words, if you present a striking and seductive enough image, your readers will actually look to convince themselves with whatever logical proof you provide.
And isn’t that the way you want it?
Haven’t we all wondered what took us so long after we made some (really great) purchase that we procrastinated on for months or even years?
And this happens with items we’d likely have said we were “almost” ready to buy!
Isn’t it amazing how long most of us can want something that’s well within our financial reach before we actually pull the trigger and buy it?
Well, your Website visitors are doing the same thing! Especially for items or services that cost over, let’s say, $50.
And that ain’t good. Here are the problems with this situation:
- eventually, the buyer will forget about your product or service in order to focus on a new want
- “almost convinced” visitors don’t increase your conversion rate or put money in your pocket
- those customer just might buy from someone else – someone who could convince them to pull the trigger
If you want to increase your conversion rate, you have to help those buyers overcome their procrastination. And this Dumb Little Man article can help you do that. The article tells you how to beat your own procrastination, but the principles apply to copywriting as well:
1) Eliminate Fear
Buyers don’t procrastinate out of laziness. If they’re procrastinating, they’re usually afraid of parting with their hard earned cash and not receiving full value for their money. Re-check your copy to ensure that you:
- Have material that preemptively answers buyer questions and concerns
- Use risk reversals, or at the very least a guarantee
- Employ user reviews, or at least have authentic sounding testimonials
- Provide adequate substantiation and proof for your claims
- Demonstrate that your product delivers benefits despite normal human frailties
- Reveal your company to be solid, reputable, and trustworthy on your About Us page
2) Cultivate Desire
“…start with the end in mind. How will things look when they’re all done? What will you see and how will you feel?
If you can associate strong emotions with the end result, you can cultivate a burning desire.”
Steve Martile wrote this about personal procrastination, but simply switch the “you” to “your reader,” and you can easily apply this to copywriting.
- Are you acting as the movie director of your readers’ dreams?
- Are you helping them see how much your product or service will allow them to kick butt, both immediately after purchase and long-term?
- Does your copy cultivate desire?
It’s not uncommon to find copy that does one or the other well – either cultivating desire or eliminating fear. But copy that does both is much harder to find, which is why those companies and Websites that do manage to do both enjoy a competitive advantage.
* Hat tip to @copyblogger for tweeting the link to the Dumb Little Man article.