Great writers write to the emotions of your readers. And they focus on just four emotional appeals.

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During the past four months one of the things I’ve been trying to experiment with is telling more stories. Historical stories, fake stories, personal stories.

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These days, you want to write a headline that will blow up on the social web. A headline that will get people to pound the “Share” button … a headline to clog our Twitter feed with thousands of retweets. But there’s a problem …

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Allow me to tell you a story. A story that you will probably be able to relate to in some sense. It’s about a stout, whiskered man who thinks sound decisions can come only from a cool head. And that copy should always be short.

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In spite of being a literary snob, one who turned up his nose at anything that smacked of business … when I was first introduced to the world of direct-response copywriting … I fell in love.

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In the last episode I walked you through the magic that is an Upworthy headline as an introduction to a concept called The 5 Stages of Audience Awareness.

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A few years back Upworthy stormed the publishing world — and eventually proclaimed to be the fastest growing media company ever with 47 million monthly uniques after just 17 months of existence.

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Here’s yet another way to build credibility and trust when it comes to making a bold claim … which is simply this: explain the mechanism behind your claim.

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Imagine it’s late afternoon, Sunday. You are curled beneath an afghan, still bloated from the fried fish you inhaled for lunch. You are sleeping heavily. Until your doorbell erupts.

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If you want people to believe in something that’s true-but-hard-to-believe — you simply demonstrate that your product does what you say it does. Show them how it works. Here’s one famous example …

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While Enlightenment-era thinkers like Denis Diderot, Benjamin Franklin, René Descartes, David Hume, and Thomas Jefferson — giants from the age of reason — would like you to believe otherwise, we are not as rational as we think we are.

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You could have a great product, a revolutionary idea, or a compelling piece of content, but unless you position it with the right approach that instantly captures the imagination of your ideal prospect, forget it.

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Your product has two identities. But your customer buys your product because of just one of these identities. Oops.

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Which desire you lead with in your headline matters. Get it wrong, and even the greatest copy won’t matter.

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We all long for something. Love that will last. The ability to influence people. Scenic vacations. Financial independence. Less anxiety. Copywriters call these mass desires.

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Ever wonder how you could get more people to believe you? To trust you? It’s easy, actually. And quite odd the way it works.

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Do you want a simple, sticky formula that turns your listless copy into something that rivets attention, stokes desire, and gets action?

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