Copywriting

To change how people feel, just tell them a story.

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Speedmaster watch story
Ed White, during America’s first space walk.

If you’ve been involved in marketing for more than ten minutes, you’ve probably figured out that people buy things based on their emotions.

People don’t line up on the sidewalk all night to buy the latest iPhone for any rational reason.

It’s not like their existing iPhone is about to stop working.

They line up for the new phone not because they need it, but because they want it.

Their purchase decision is driven by emotion.

And it turns out that one of the best and fastest ways to trigger emotions is through stories.

You know this already, of course.

Every time you watch a movie you’re taken on an emotional roller-coaster. Movies are stories, and stories move us.

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Selling is giving way to storytelling. Are you ready?

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Selling with stories on a typewriterI have seen a lot of changes over the course of my career as a copywriter.

Back in 1979, when I got started, I wrote my copy on lined paper, with a pen. Then a secretary typed it up using one of those trendy new IBM “golf ball” typewriters.

By 1985 I was working on an Apple Macintosh computer, saving my files to those huge floppy discs.

Fast forward to 1995, when I wrote and published my first website. I fell in love with writing for the web from day one.

Over those first 15 or so years of my career, my job was the same. My job was to sell with words. I was a copywriter, plain and simple. I wrote sales copy.

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The copywriter’s cure for being slapped around the head.

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the elephant and hat storyLet’s open with a story.

Way back in the mists of time I had a boss and copywriting mentor called Dave.

I was a total newbie when it came to writing hard-selling, direct response copy for our clients. I was a decent enough copywriter, but had yet to develop the edge that would make me a worthwhile direct response copywriter.

Enter Dave.

He’d look over my shoulder as I was writing, and whenever he came across a line of copy he thought wasn’t as strong as it should be, he’d give me a slap around the back of the head.

Yes, this was back in the days when you could get away with that sort of thing.

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Optimizing a web page doesn’t mean it has to be all new.

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Start from a blank pageClients like to feel they are getting their money’s worth when they pay you to improve on an existing web page.

This is true whether you are writing an online sales page, subscription page or some kind of content page.

In my experience, clients not only want you to completely rewrite the current control, but they also want you to base the new page on a totally new idea.

If you give them a variation on the current page or, heaven forbid, just make some tweaks to what they already have, they become very disappointed and will likely throw your draft back in your face.

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Without segmentation, email marketing just ticks people off.

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email list segmentationWhen it comes to buying gifts for my wife, I’m pretty useless.

So I fall back on jewelry almost every time.

And I often buy her jewelry at a particular online store. I like their stuff, and so does she.

After over 5 years buying from them, I would consider myself a fairly valuable customer.

Which is how they fooled me, just for a moment, when they sent me an email recently.

Here’s the subject line:

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3 Ways to put an extra $12,000 in your pocket every year.

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Dog and coffeeAs the end of each year approaches, and the holiday season looms, most of us come up a little short.

We wish we had a little extra money in our pockets. More to save. More to spend on our families over the holidays. And more of a cash cushion so we can sleep better at night.

An extra $12,000 – one thousand more each month – would certainly make a big difference. In fact, for many of us, that extra thousand dollars a month would change our lives.

So how can we do that? Really, there are only three ways.

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