Search for the soul of your message.
You will know when you find it, not because you’re an expert but because you are human.
A simple formula this ad uses so damn well:
Start in the middle of the story, explore the conflicts along the way, reveal the ‘why’ at the end… trust the process.
Never forget…You must STRIVE to create messages that matters not just for your audience, but for yourself… it will drive you to care as much as it drives them to take action.
First I consider how much does the price point impacts my target audience.
A pair of shoes at $40 (in general) will likely need less convincing to purchase then a pair of, say, $400 shoes.
A $200,000 crane to a mega-construction company would not have as large an impact to its budget then, say, a $2,000 course to an average individual, so the “depth” of the copy & persuasion needed will differ… even though the crane costs 100x as much. The price doesn’t matter as much as the impact does.
Another factor is “familiarity” of your audience with what you’re selling.
How much the target audience understands about your offer already should also be heavily considered. The more informed they are, the less depth you may need to go into to persuade them to purchase. For the informed lead you would want to spend more time in your copy building trust and seperating yourself from the competition as opposed to educating them on the product itself. If they are uninformed you’ll want to shift back to educating them on the product/service and its benefits to them, this education process in itself, when done well, will build all trust you need to make the sale!
Their familiarity will also influence how much “jargon” you can get away with in your copy, in general it’s a bad idea to use jargon at all – but if you know your target audience is very familiar with what you’re selling you can use it sparingly to get to the point quicker… thus requiring less ‘depth’ to your general copy pieces. For example, shoes marketed to professional athletes can use terms without explanation that shoes marketed to the general public would want to either avoid or use with explanation provided.
It’s worth repeating, however, that jargon should be used with caution, when in doubt leave jargon out, or at least translate that jargon in the copy itself somewhere.
Another important factor that determines the depth of your writing is whether you’re marketing to someone already looking for what you’re selling, or someone who looking for what you’re selling… e.g. “search ads” vs. “banner ads”.
For instance, the sales page for my book is LONG for a book page because I’m targeting a broad audience with banner campaigns… if I were to do a campaign directly to a more niche audience, say copywriters, then I could likely skip the part of the page that’s designed to persuade a broad audience of the importance of copywriting, therefore requiring a lot less depth in my writing.
Put simply, if you’re targeting a broad audience with a high impact price point there’s a lot more nurturing/persuasion that will need to be done then a more informed audience one with less impact.
To put it together balancing the following factors is the key to determining the depth your copy will need…
Of course, there are many more factors determining what kind of copy you should use within your marketing itself, for a more detailed write up on the subject check out my 7 Figure Marketing Copy Guide here.
Anyone else suffering from “inspirational fatigue”?
I feel like half the posts in groups & on profiles are long ranting battle cries designed to get you all riled up… I mean, I get it… but like, if everything is hyperbole then nothing stands out as especially important.
These days I’m just stoked if someone posts something tastefully simple yet profound…
Like… “It’s not always about doing things better, sometimes it’s about doing better things…” — Stuff like that really appeals to me in its depth & simplicity.
I’m sure there’s a more profound marketing lesson here to be explored in-depth, but in the interest of not turning this post into a “battle cry rant” I’m just gonna leave it with this…
When everyone zigs – zag.
Put simply ~ There are more ways to stand out then hyperbolic emotional appeal. Appeal to the other side of the spectrum and you might just find yourself a new audience that’s hungry for a change of tone.
Thesis. Recently the reckless abandonment of letting “a message” be the engine that drives an entrepreneurial pursuit has created a problem. The shift from a big idea creating the drive to be an entrepreneur to wanting to be an entrepreneur creating the desire to find a big idea has created a generation of ‘want-a-preneurs’ with an inkling of what they want, but no clear vision of why they want it.