048 How to Get Lazy People to Care about Your Ideas

The Transcript

How to Get Lazy People to Care about Your Ideas

Demian Farnworth: Hi, and welcome to Rough Draft, your daily dose of essential web writing advice. I am your host, Demian Farnworth, the Chief Content Writer for Copyblogger Media.

And thank you for sharing the next few minutes of your life with me.

So, we’ve all done it. We’ve all given away the farm. We’ve all given too much information. We’ve satisfied the interest of a reader or buyer by giving away too much information.

It’s a mistake all copywriters fall for … particularly early in our careers …

4 Awful Examples of Teaser Copy

This is what I mean by giving away the farm:

• A dust jacket that explains what someone needs to do to eat right — with the secrets of the book right there in the open.
• I’ve seen a sales letter that unpacks the secret to raising brilliant children — with the secrets right in the letter.
• I’ve seen an email newsletter selling a program … demonstrating the best ways to save money for your child’s college education … right there in the newsletter.
• I’ve seen a movie trailer that spills all the best lines, the funniest jokes, and the most exciting plot twists.

Don’t get me wrong: I appreciated the information. The problem is, I didn’t buy any of the products. I didn’t see the movie. I didn’t do what they wanted.

Why should I? They told me everything I needed to know.

See with physical products, restraint is just part of the deal. Cars, computers, or steak knives. You can’t start really enjoying these things until you buy it and make it your own.

Get the product in front of buyers, maybe give them a test drive, and they get worked up. Car salesman know this. Just hand the keys over and your selling job is done. You just have to close them.

But when it comes to selling intangible products like software or consultation or online courses, copywriters often over-educate … and end up giving away the farm.

This is what you have to remember: your reader has hunkered down, intending never to move again. Unless of course you give him something to get worked up over.

4 Proper Ways to Tease Your Audience

So here are a few examples on how to tease your audience:

• Say your readers want to run a marathon in four hours? Then tell them you have a 17-week training program that will not only get them across the finish line in 3.5 hours, but will also prevent them from dehydrating and even allow them to recover in just one day. And the key to convincing this reader is giving him or her a single powerful technique from the program — but that’s it. The rest describes benefits.
• Does your audience want to overcome crippling insecurity? Then tell them you have a seven-step system that will transform them into a robust, productive human being in seven days — but don’t give them those steps. Just let them get a good peek at one, maybe two, of those steps.
• Does your audience want to retire rich? Then tell them how you’ve helped hundreds of people retire before they turned 49 by using a legal but wildly lucrative investment strategy … but a strategy they can get their hands on once they go through a rigorous application process.
• Does your audience want to live to be 100? Then tell them you’ve figured out how exactly to do just that with the right combination of exercise, food, and vitamins. But don’t ever tell them what that combination is. Just tell them how it will make them live healthier and longer lives. Show them a better version of themselves.

When It’s Okay to Give SOME Information Away

See how that works? Yes, you can give them information — including valuable information your prospects can act on right away. But keep some good stuff reserved for after the sale. In fact, keep most of it hidden …

Instead, make plans to tease the dickens out of your reader. Don’t satisfy their curiosity. Or quench their thirst.

Do just the opposite …

• Promise them you have what they want
• Paint the picture of what it will be like when they get it
• Prove to them that you’ll uphold your end of the bargain if they buy
• And then push them over the edge

A New, but Super Cute Formula

If you didn’t catch that, that’s the four Ps formula. Promise. Picture. Prove. Push. A simple formula that will help you structure a persuasive, seductive article, podcast episode, video, or sales letter.

And it’s a a formula we will dig down deep into in the next episode of Rough Draft.

So, until tomorrow, take care, friend.