So like a bonehead I managed to leave behind my beloved Logitech VX Nano computer mouse on a recent trip, and I needed a new mouse fast.
Which was just the excuse I needed to try out Apple’s new Magic Mouse.
Now, few people fully believe me when I tell them the research on how 67% of e-commerce Website visitors who land on a site looking to buy end up NOT buying because they don’t get their questions answered.
And I think the reason most people don’t fully “get-it” is because their conception of a “question” is perhaps too narrowly focused. But more than that, I think it’s because the marketers and Web people just don’t put themselves in enough buying scenarios. They don’t focus in on the precipitating events that cause people to buy, and how those events affect the immediate concerns of the buyer.
And I thought my most recent purchasing adventure might shed light on this:
I want a Magic Mouse and I need it fast. No problem, I’ll just pick one up at Best Buy, right? Nope. They’re fresh out.
Maybe I can order one on Amazon through Amazon Prime? Nope. That mouse wasn’t eligible for Amazon Prime. Sigh.
I can always buy the darn thing directly through Apple’s Online Store, right? Yeah, but how soon can they get it to me? I’m using my old piece-of-crap Apple Mighty Mouse and too many days of that will drive me up a wall. I need this new mouse STAT!
Well, let’s check it out. Here’s what I see on Amazon’s order page: 
Notice the red-circled “ships within” statement by the picture of the mouse. That’s good, but 24 hours covers a fairly long time.It was Sunday evening and if the thing didn’t ship until Monday evening, I might not get the mouse until Wednesday. Frankly, I needed it faster than that.
Now, look at the 2nd red-circle and you’ll see that, when selecting next-day shipping, I had to enter my zip code. With all that info, Apple should have been able to give me an “Estimated arrival date: Feb 2″ type notice.
But I couldn’t get that from the site, and because I was a motivated customer, I called their phone number to get the info from customer service. Customer service worked brilliantly and they gave me 2 very-much-needed pieces of info to close the sale:
- Yes, outside of bizarre happenings, I’d get the mouse Tuesday
- If I didn’t get it Tuesday, Apple policy allowed me to get my express shipping fee refunded
So I ordered the mouse and it arrived on Tuesday. Cool.
But what if I hadn’t quite been that motivated to call? What if I naturally preferred to order it directly through Apple, but could have gotten this product somewhere else?
The simple answer is that I likely wouldn’t have called and would have gone to another site to buy the thing (or a logitech mouse) – a site that would have given me the answers I needed in order to buy!
So what should Apple do?
In the last red circle on the screenshot, I think they should have the estimated arrival date(s) for items, and for customers selecting express shipping, they should display their refund policy for late arrivals. So that the screen might look a bit more like this:
Obviously, Apple would want to A/B test this (as would anyone), as this very well might cause a few more people to take advantage of Apple’s refund policy. But I’d be willing to bet the added cost would be more than made up for by increased orders and increased express shipping orders.
Apple caters to a clientele that can typically more than afford their “gotta have it” stuff, and that are typically impatient to get their grubby little hands on whatever it is they’re offering. In other words, time is more important to their customers than money.
So answering customer questions about time would likely result in more orders for Apple.
Heck, they darn near missed my order, if it hadn’t been for their clearly published phone number and excellent customer service rep (and those points are e-commerce lessons unto themselves)…
But don’t limit this phenomenon to mere questions of item arrival, this dynamic applies to almost any question about your product related to the precipitating event surrounding your customer’s decision to buy – they can all make or break a sale.
The important questions for you are: have you considered your buyers’ precipitating events? And does your Website answer your prospects’ questions?
Or are you content with losing sales that should have been yours?
P.S. Not thrilled with the magic mouse. It’s heavy, doesn’t slide that well, and the shape is rather un-ergonomic compared to my Logitech VX Nano. Still getting used to it, though, so I might change my mind. If you have one or are ordering one, you’ll probably want to download this bit of software to accompany it: magicprefs.com
Widely considered a modern classic, showcasing one of Bill Murray’s finest performances, Groundhog Day is rightly celebrated as sublime romantic comedy. But while I bet you like the movie, too, I’d also bet you probably never guessed at the amount of subtext and profundity in the film. Seriously.
Check out this short essay from Touchstone Magazine – it’s a fun read and you’ll be blown away at everything the author reveals about the film:
P.S. Good writers are good readers. Increasing your ability to understand why and how authors (and directors) are able to weave their spells will make you a better writer. So don’t blow this off just because it’s not a copywriting-specific how-to piece.
Technically, augmented reality is confined to iPhones, iPhone competitors, and other advanced DARPA-like experimental gadgets. But that’s an idiotic techno-geek understanding of the phenomenon.
In truth, culture is the ultimate augmented reality.
As most people understand it, augmented reality technology overlays information onto the visual landscape being viewed through the smart phone/head-up display/gadget. Think of it as a real-time mash-up of info overlayed onto whatever you’re currently viewing.
But if augmented reality adds additional info onto what we normally see, it’s probably worth asking if we ever really see anything without “augmentation.”
Do you see a BMW as just a car, or do you read much more into those flying propellers? Does a person wearing a harvard sweatshirt come across merely as someone wearing a sweatshirt, or do the cultural implications of Harvard University “augment” your view of the person wearing that sweatshirt?
From this perspective, all branding is an attempt at augmented reality. So is all education and all culture. And perhaps on of the more amusing amalgams of all three would be Foster’s “How to Speak Australian” commercials:
I’m almost surprised Fosters hasn’t already come up with an iPhone augmented reality app loosely based around the premise of the ads.
Yes, “augmentation” happens all the time and often blinds us as much as it aids. Once taught that an apple is an “apple,” we quickly pass through the 2-year old’s fascination with it to see the apple as “only an apple” - to the point where it takes all of Cézanne’s painterly talent to rescue apple from “apple” and get us to see the thing sans “augmentation.”
And so it is with copywriting. Good copy often approaches subjects from an unusual perspective so as to “trick” the reader into seeing what’s really there – to overcome the dysfunctional cultural cues that cause us to dismiss things from consciousness.
A more humorous and superficial example of augmented reality at work within copywriting would be this bit of copy from Best Made Axe:
“When you own a good ax, you see the world differently. Scrap wood in the yard? Kindling. Ugly table? Kindling. Overdue library book? Kindling. Spouse? Someone who would love a beautiful bespoke ax this holiday! Best Made Axes are the deluxest woodcutters out there, with hand-finished hickory handles and fine-grain steel heads. They even come in custom wooden crates. (Kindling.)”
But the far more serious and powerful example would be the actual “augmentation” of perception that Best Made Axe has pulled off within its customer base. After exposure to Best Made Axe, these customers no longer see an axe as a utilitarian tool. They now see an axe (or at least a Best Made Axe) as a talisman, symbol, design element, and entrance ticket or initiation into a more self sufficient, virtuous, and (dare I say?) manly, world. Hence the company’s ability to sell out full production of $250-$500 axes. Axes whose technical/functional merit is likely no better than most $100 axes.
Yes, Seth Godin is right: starting a profitable brand in today’s world is very much the same as starting a “tribe.” What his readers often fail to grasp is that starting a tribe requires the creation of a worthwhile sub-culture. And that means creating a (functionally useful) augmented reality for tribe members/users of your product.
Wanna-be marketers fail because they don’t select an “augmented” reality that will help the tribe members - A reality that is more true than the one it’s supposed to replace or add to. Instead they hope to induce a delusion or infatuation around their product for purely selfish reasons. But a cult of personality is not a tribe.
So the question for you is: are you offering the world a better culture and greater insight, or are you merely peddling a self-serving delusion? Are you helping us see more of what’s really there, or are you hoping to add “the light that never was” onto a substandard product?
If your answer is the former, might I suggest that learning increases resolution? That your copy might provide more than a little learning disguised as artful fun, or serve to convey a bit of that high-res user experience. And that blogging/content marketing is often the best way to augment your readers’ reality over time.
The bottom line: augmented reality isn’t an iPhone app; it’s the ultimate marketing app.
Are you using it in your marketing?
25
Jan
I normally don’t do motivational pieces – unless I’m talking about motivating the customer to buy 
I don’t do them because they’re not my forte and because my readers would normally find better motivational content over at the blogs of Steven Pressfield and Tim Miles and Shawn Phillips.
But I was recently reminded of my high school swimming days and felt compelled to re-read the title essay from Dr. Keith F. Bell’s book on swimming psychology: Winning Isn’t Normal. It was worth ordering the book again, just for that essay, although the rest of the book carries every bit as much impact. I 100% guarantee relevance for writers, entrepreneurs, small business owners, etc and have excerpted the essay from the book, with the kind permission of the author:*
“Winning isn’t normal. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with winning. It just isn’t the norm. It is highly unusual.
Every race only has one winner. No matter how many people are entered (not to mention all those who tried and failed to make the cuts), only one person (or one relay) wins each event.
Winning is unusual. And as such, it requires unusual action.
In order to win, you must do extraordinary things. You can’t just be one of the crowd. The crowd doesn’t win. You have to be willing to stand out and act differently.
Your actions need to reflect unusual values and priorities. You have to value success more than others do. You have to want it more. (Now take note! Wanting it more is a decision you make and act upon — not some inherent quality or burning inner drive or inspiration!) And you have to make that value a priority.
You can’t train like everyone else. You have to train more and train better.
You can’t talk like everyone else. You can’t think like everyone else. You can’t be too willing to join the crowd, to do what is expected, to act in a socially accepted manner, to do what’s “in.” You need to be willing to stand out in the crowd and consistently take exceptional action. If you want to win, you need to accept the risks and perhaps the loneliness… because winning isn’t normal!”
P.S. I think this applies to copywriting without any special effort made to “translate” it, but this Monday Morning Memo from Roy Williams certainly takes the subject of this essay in a more writing/messaging-specific direction.
* As you might imagine, this is an extremely popular essay and so has been frequently excerpted and posted on the web without permission from the author and even without proper attribution. If you’d like to use this essay or pass it on, please contact the author to arrange for permission.
It’s a rare thing when I take exception to one of Seth Godin’s posts. But his last post on “Too much data leads to not enough belief” had me quibbling.
Of course, there IS a lot that I agree with in the post: namely that people respond to a story and a tribal affiliation far more strongly than they will ever respond to a spreadsheet. But I guess from a Web perspective, the idea of granularity and data as a hindrance to belief just doesn’t square with my observations.
What I’ve tended to see is the following:
- People go to the Web to check things out. They’re specifically researching a purchasing decision and are expecting more data from a Website than from an ad or even a direct mailer. When you don’t provide that data, people get suspicious.
- Content rich Websites tend to convert better than content poor sites. That doesn’t mean the data should take center stage or should replace a well-crafted story, just that those people who want to drill down on specifics, well, they want to be able to drill down on specifics. And they’ll find those specifics from somewhere, even if it’s from an ill-informed opinion on a forum somewhere.
- The mere presence of (and access to) data is often enough to provide confidence. Data can sometimes be like a privacy policy, most people just want to know that it exists and that you’re confident enough to show it to them without really wanting to examine it in any great detail. The mere fact that you have the information and have provided access to it is often enough to engender buyer confidence.
Can you imagine Newton Running being unwilling to show you the science behind their running shoes? What would that do to your confidence if they wouldn’t show you (or didn’t have any) data from their tests?
Again, I may not need to study their graphs or watch all of their videos or look up their patents, but the very fact that they’re passionate enough to get into the nitty-gritty details with me – the fact that they do actually have data – makes me far more willing to believe them and to buy a pair of their shoes than if they wanted me to just accept their product/idea on faith.
I also think that passionate proof is an essential element of any high-margin or premium product’s Website, which is one of the main reasons I wrote my critique of Best Made Axe’s lack of proof.
To me, data isn’t a hindrance to passionate belief – it’s proof of it. How can you be passionate about an idea, design, or product unless you’re willing to put it to the test and show off the results?
What’s Your Experience
Of course, I’m always willing to hear thoughts from my readers. What do you guys and gals think? What’s been your experience? Have you ever had a situation where less would have been better when it came to proof and substantiation?
Disappointed and unconvinced, I left their Website scratching my head.
Seth Godin has linked to them. Several online magazines have featured them, both in articles and within seasonal wish/gift lists. And, of course, they also have the audacity to call themselves “Best Made Axe,” all of which made me eager to head over to their Website to read up on these (self-labeled) best made axes.
And while their Website (and marketing in general) does some things incredibly well – these guys are routinely selling out of their entire inventory of $200-$500 bespoke axes, after all – there are HUGE gaping holes in the site’s content. Here’s how their site fails the visitor:
1) No discussion of the painstaking efforts to ensure top quality.
Look, I don’t want to be a jerk, but if you’re going to call yourself “Best Made,” it might be a good idea to substantiate that claim on your site. Tell me stuff like:
- What kind of steel are you using for the axe head?
- What kind of forging process?
- What kind of heat treatment?
- What kind of finishing process?
- Who is doing the forging?
- How are you attaching the axe head to the hickory handle?
- What are the ergonomics of the handle?
- What kind of extreme testing did you do to the finished product?
- How does the axe perform?
- How does your axe compare to other axes?
- In what ways is it actually better made than these other axes?
The Best Made Axe site does none of that. The most I get is the information that the axe is hand-forged of “fine grain” steel. Not nearly good enough – at least not when you want me to spend between 2X and 8X the price of a “darn good” axe in order to get your supposedly “best made” version.
2) No pictures of the manufacturing process
Don’t just tell me about the painstaking manufacturing process, SHOW ME. Literally. With pictures and video and stuff. Show me the manufacturing process and the ability of the finished product to outperform the competition.
The picture on the left is a perfect example of this. Saddleback Leather Co. manufactures premium, full-grain leather products. And they charge a premium for them. But their site goes into great detail regarding the superior quality and manufacture of their goods – content that’s fully illustrated with zoom-able photos and videos.
3) Not enough content from or about users kicking ass with their AXES.
Where are the stories of guys building their own log cabins with a Best Made Axe. Or how it has transformed a dreaded chore into an anticipated pleasure. Or about how just having the axe hung on the wall of their office has transformed their outlook on things. Or something!
The best I could come up with was to find Best Made Company’s fan page on FaceBook wich linked to a YouTube video of a guy opening a bottle with one of their axes. Not sure how impressed I was supposed to be with that, really.
Compare Best Made Axe’s Site to Those of Other Premium Products
Go ahead and compare the Best Made Axe site to other Websites for similar top-end/upscale products and see how much more thoroughly these other Websites sell you on their products’ quality:
Do you see how these other sites go into great detail about the design and manufacture of their products? How, almost on a point-by-point basis they explain WHY their products are better, and about the benefits that you, the consumer, can expect from purchasing this higher quality item.
Buyer Confidence and Buying Rationalizations
While not everyone will click through all of the detailed information provided on these example sites, and even fewer people will read through all that information, many people will scan through it, see that the quality information is there, that the passion is there, and gain the confidence to make the purchase.
Let’s be honest, Best Made Axe wants to charge you between $250 and $500 for an axe. You can pick up a Gransfors Bruks (what is commonly considered the Rolls Royce of Axes) at roughly $70-$120 for most models. You can pick up a very highly regarded, Maine-made Snowe & Nealey axe for even less than that.
What’s the quality difference between the Best Made and these other brands? What am I getting for 2x to 8X the price?
Even when it’s not about the money, it’s ALWAYS about giving prospective customers something to hang their hat on. The Best Made Axe certainly looks nicer than those other axes I mentioned, but most people are loath to admit that their money is going towards nothing more than status and brand name. If you want them as customers, you need to give them something they can hang their hat on, some other faux-reason they can use to rationalize their purchase, like (notionally) better quality, durability, and performance. Etc.
That’s what detailed quality and manufacturing information content on a website does: not only does it fan the desire for the product itself, but it provides visitors with the justification they need to rationalize the expense. It also gives them the firepower needed to explain their purchase to a spouse, significant other, co-worker or any other any-sayer.
So what about Your Website!
Is your site closer to Saddleback Leather Co.’s, or is your site closer to Best Made Axe’s?
Maybe Best Made Axe just doesn’t really have the goods when you come right down to it. Maybe they’re mum on the quality thing for a reason. Maybe it’s a “better to keep your mouth closed…” kind of thing.
Now, I’m not saying that’s the case, but you can see why a website’s conspicuous silence on the subject invites that kind of speculation.
So if your product really does have the quality edge, you’d be criminally negligent not to make your Website into the most eloquent spokesperson it can be concerning the superior design, quality, manufacture/delivery of your product or service.
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…
The daily “gind” of life so fully stuffs our memories that it often takes a special effort to see bigger picture changes. You just can’t get a clear “before and after” picture of things without taking mental snapshots at specific moments in time and comparing them.
But without some kind of associational prompt, most people won’t flip through their gallery of mental snapshots to make that B&A comparison.
Anniversaries are meaningful precisely because they provide that prompt; they make seeing the changes easy.
Nobody looks back on and reviews the last 12 months of their life in June. They save that for New Year’s – unless of course there’s some other prompt that sparks the comparison, maybe a college professor seeing yet another class graduate.
Or maybe the prompt is more associational than temporal, like revisiting a certain place, say your home town, the house you grew up in, or even your college campus. Inevitably, those returns bring back memories of your previous visits, thereby highlighting the changes that have taken place in your life (and in you) during the intervening years.
So what’s the practical application here? Three things:
1) We love stories and messages that bring things back “full circle.”
This technique, in fact, seems to be a favorite over at J. Perterman. Just check out the copy for these three items. All of them bring you back full circle with the last line or two of copy.
2) Your copy should bring the reader forward in time to highlight accrued benefits.
Provide readers a mental image of themselves looking back on and being thrilled with their decision to buy because of the change/improvements/benefits they’ve reaped over the course X months.
3) You shouldn’t be leaving this time-stamping thing to chance.
If you offer a service that moves your clients from point A to point B over a period of time, you should figure out how to stamp these points into your clients memories and how to graciously remind them of the anniversary. This will allow you to highlight the progress and change without chest thumping.
Same thing with durable goods. Let’s say you make flip-flops so darn good that people fall in love with them. Would it hurt you to send them a thank-you post-card or e-mail 6 months or so past the time of purchase? Let ‘em know you appreciate their business, remind them of all the great features that they’re still enjoying but may have taken for granted by this time, show ‘em a picture of what a new pair looks like, and let ‘em know that now’s the time to buy next season’s pair at a special price. By sending that kind of e-mail, you’ll have reactivated everything the client loves about your flip-flops while also highlighting the not-newness of their current pair and the opportunity to update.
What about you? How are you taking advantage of – or creating your own – anniversaries?
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?
I never would have guessed that a 30-second commercial could be structured on the same storytelling beats as a typical 90-minute movie.
And yet that’s exactly what the late Blake Snyder demonstrated in his last book, Save The Cat Strikes Back.
If you’re not familiar with the Save the Cat series of screenwriting books, let me explain. Blake Snyder breaks the typical movie down into 15 dramatic “beats,” that also coincide with traditional 3-act story structures and Joseph Campbell’s monomyth/hero’s journey cycle.
If you’re interested in learning more, you can download all 15 beats on the “Blake Snyder Beet Sheet” along with a diagram of how the beats line up with a basic 3-Act Structure over at the official Save The Cat Website.
At any rate, it’s important to keep in mind that these are the structural beats for feature-length movies – that’s what makes it so cool and semi-mind-blowing that they also work for a 30 second commercial.
So here’s how Blake broke down the dramatic structure of a Pledge Commercial, using these same structural “beats” that he uses to teach scriptwriting:
“The Day I Discovered Pledge
Opening Image – A downcast housewife. Home a mess. Dust everywhere. This “before” snapshot depicts the Set-Up, and even a Stasis = Death moment, for it looks like things won’t change.
Catalyst – Then our hero discovers….. Pledge!
Debate – “Should I use it?”
Break Into Two – Yes!
Fun and Games – With a spray can of her B-story ally, the delighted home maker flies through the house, dust vanishes like magic, tabletops glow. And the “false victory” at Midpoint shows she can live like this all the time. But there’s a problem….
Bad Guys Close In – To have the “new,” she must give up the “old.” Can our hero face the truth of what she must sacrifice?
All Is Lost – What “death” has to occur? What “old idea” must be gotten rid of? What is the “All Is Lost” moment of our Pledge commercial? Why it’s dropping Brand X in the trash! It’s the furniture polish that our hero used to use that is now obsolete.
Break Into Three – Having dispensed with Brand X, the synthesized pair finish up the housework with delight and…
Final Image – Dressed in her tennis outfit, racket in hand, a newly together housewife walks out the door, leaving the primally named Pledge atop a very shiny table to guard her home.
The End”
So what’s the point of all this? Three things:
1. To reinforce the importance of scripting your online videos.
That pledge commercial probably had very little dialogue, but the messaging was still scripted as intensely as a feature-length film. And the same thing occurs with the vast majority of high-conversion product videos and viral videos.
More importantly, if you can and should script an interactive video, shouldn’t you also “script” visitor interaction with your Website? Surely you’ve given thought to what happens on this or that page, but have you considered the overall “persuasive arc” that would take place as the visitor moves through your site?
2. To reinforce the importance of Story in your online messaging
We may claim to be “just the facts” kind of guys and gals, but we’re not. We wouldn’t be human if we were. As a persuasive technique, Story rules, even in:
- something as seemingly static as a photograph,
- something as short as a headline,
- or something as important as your opening “hook.“
3. To recommend Blake Snyder’s books to you if you haven’t read them.
His Save the Cat series is well worth the read, regardless of whether or not you have any aspirations toward writing film scripts. Just check out his Amazon reviews for his first and second books and you’ll see.
Welcome Back from the Holidays
Oh, and I also wanted to welcome everyone back from the holidays. Hope all of you enjoyed some much-deserved time off. Thanks for reading my stuff. I’m resolute in my commitment to bring you as much great material as possible in the coming year.
P.S. If you have any suggestions for topics or anything you’d like to see covered, feel free to e-mail me.