When writing copy for your websites, reviews, squeeze pages, videos or sales letters, appealing to your viewers emotions is the best way to make them take action.
The problem with this is that in some niches, traditional copywriting tactics simply don’t work anymore.
We’ve been taught to write based on things like fear and asking questions like “what’s keeping my customers up at night?” But sometimes you need to go deeper, especially online were consumers are more savvy.
People’s fears have been played with too many times – by other people…by the media…you name it. And frankly, they’re tired of being manipulated, so they’ll do everything they can to build up walls around their fears and tell you, by their actions, that they’re “just browsing”.
A better way to write copy to appeal to these jaded-yet-hopeful customers is to focus on the real emotions underneath the fear.
And 4 of these emotions are:
1) Desire
People want things. And not small things, either. They want a new car, a big screen TV, a vacation, a second home and they want the OPPORTUNITY that brings those things.
It’s more than just money though – desire can come in the form of wanting to quit the 9-to-5 grind, wanting to spend more time with your family, and so on.
Being able to ETHICALLY push someone’s desire button by promising the fulfillment of their aspirations can immediately send them scrambling to take action.
2) Despair
On the opposite end of the spectrum is despair. Despair means the prospect’s situation is so dire, it is emotionally painful. There’s not a lot of time to waste and the pain is agonizing.
These people don’t want your promises – they want proof. Case studies, testimonials, video walk-throughs, anything you can do to bolster their confidence will have a marked effect.
Prospects who are suffering from despair won’t wait to take action. They want you to cut through the fluff and filler and get right to the point.
3) Dissatisfaction
These people are in the middle of desire and despair. They’re not happy with their job, their life, their relationships – and they need help.
They either want someone to show them the way, or give them the tools and direction to do it themselves. These are the people who want answers.
Walk them through the steps they need to use your product successfully and to start seeing results. Help them take one successful step at a time.
4) Disappointment
Disappointment differs from dissatisfaction in that with dissatisfaction, you have a prospect who hasn’t really tried to find a solution because they’re not sure where to start. They feel hopeless and alone.
Disappointment is when someone has tried and tried, and come up short of the results they wanted or were promised. These are perhaps the most difficult segment to market to, as they feel all marketers are the same.
They’ve probably been lied to, walked on, ignored and they’re highly suspicious and downright cynical at times.
If someone is constantly disappointed, or they tell you they’ve tried offers like yours a million times and haven’t gotten results – it’s not you, it’s them, and I’d be wary of working together with these types of people simply because they’d rather look for a lack of success than start small and work their way up.
By keeping these four emotions in mind when writing copy, you’ll be able to dig deeper underneath the “mask” the customer is wearing, and position your product to appeal to what’s truly bothering them and how you can solve it.
Please share your opinion by leaving a comment below.
Thanks
Comments 15
Good stuff Alex
Author
Thank you Len
Good advice, to add to this I would recommend reading Ca$hvertising. It turns this into a science.
Author
Thanks Baadier,
Will check out that book
Thanks, Alex, for cutting to the point. There appears to be a big subjective part of it all that only test, trial, and error will reveal the truth of the matter. And everyone is going to be different – their experiences are all different.
We can only try.
LW
Author
Hi Lydia,
Yes – Copywriting is a science that can only be mastered by trial and error.
Alex, another great subject for a post.
Words are very powerful in marketing and when they are written in an hypnotic style with the emotions of a potential customer in mind.
John
Nice one Alex, as always original and useful. Thanks! 🙂
Hi Alex – you always provide such value in your blog posts – thank you.
Great Information Alex, I try to to do what you are talking about here, but a lot of times, I feel like I don’t do a very good job.
I have read this post twice and maybe next time I can do better.
Thanks for pointing all of this out.
Hi Alex,
Yours is one of only three or four blog posts that I don’t delete in my email list, simply because I feel that your content is well written, and the blend between content and sales message is a good one.
Copywriting is a huge part of success when marketing anything, either offline or online. The emotions that you demonstrate are absolutely powerful drivers in buyer behaviour and I commend the way you have described it in your post.
Good stuff, as always!
Thank you for the informative article. Based on my own experience and on what you have said here, I won’t market to disappointed people on everything that is related to IM/making money online niche because it is really the most difficult segment to market today.
Here is an example of what I have noticed on Flippa: even a year ago it was pretty easy to sell brand new websites with “huge potential” that did not make any money yet for a few hundreds of dollars. Today you hardly can sell the same websites for $100-$150. Nobody wants a website with “huge potential for profit” but is not making money yet, but there are bidding wars for the websites that have proven steady income.
All the best
Hi Alex,
Thanks for the excellent information. Anything that we can do to increase the likelihood of our visitors taking the action we want them to is all for the good.
Whatever we do, we should want to aim to get into the minds our our prospects, so that it seems that we know what they want before they do. It’s certainly a skill (one that I’m still working on!) but the points you make here are all important to reaching that aim.
Kind regards,
Glenn
Hey Alex, great post:-) It’s all about visitors taking action!