Persuasive Copywriting
Cause People to Realize the Truth, Rather than Just Telling it to Them
SPOILER ALERT!
If you haven’t already watched the short film I blogged about recently, watch that first! You’ll get more out of this post, I won’t spoil the ending for you, and the video will leave you feeling proud to be a copywriter.
*******************************************************
OK, having watched the video you know now that the “ad guy” changes the old man’s sign from:
“Have compassion, I am blind”
to
“Today is a beautiful day, and I can not see it.”
So let’s talk about the ad guy’s copy transformation. In my mind he did 3 things perfectly:
1. He surprised readers with an unexpected reality hook
It was indeed a beautiful day, but it was also an unexpected observation to read on a panhandlers sign. One normally expects a request or offer like, “Will work for food” or “Please help a disabled vet” or some such. “Today is a beautiful” day is surprising, capturing the reader’s attention, causing him to wonder where this is heading.
2) He used his reality hook to create an advantageous emotional response.
Whether they wanted to or not, passers-by took at least half a second to confirm the truth of that statement – to mentally assent that, yes, today was indeed beautiful. Think about how different that thought is from 99% of the pedestrian concerns most of us walk down the street with; how liberating - even for a half-second - to stop worrying about the next meeting or deadline and look up to see what a beautiful day it really is.
This is a crucial step, too, because, as discussed in the book Made to Stick, shifting people into an empathic or emotional state of mind is crucial to the success of charitable requests. Psychological research shows that if you prime people to think analytically, they’ll give far less than if you primed them to think emotionally. The “Today is a beautiful day” opening primed people to think emotionally.
3) He forced reader participation by requiring them to connect the dots.
Nowhere did the new sign actually say, “I’m blind.” Readers had to draw that conclusion for themselves by reading “and I can’t see it” while connecting that with the context clues offered by the old man and his pan-handling. This bit of reader engagement means that readers “see” the reality of the man’s blindness for themselves, without the typical internal push-back or cynicism generated when a marketing claim is shoved at a person. This is an incredibly powerful writing technique explained by this Monday Morning Memo from Roy Williams.
Also note that the new sign avoided a hard sell by implying the request. The ad man let the collection plate, combined with the reader’s realization of the man’s blindness, be the call to action.
Now, applying this to the web, I’d say there are 2 more, extremely important points to make:
4) Eliminating conversion flaws and increasing usability can only take you so far.
The ad guy didn’t try to make the collection plate bigger or more prominent. Nor did he set up a card-swiping machine so people could donate via debit card. Usability wasn’t the issue; persuasion was. If your website optimization strategy only addresses usability flaws or general best-practice issues, you’re never going to achieve breakthrough performance for your website. You have to address persuasive gaps as well.
5) It’s worth the money to pay a good copywriter what he’s worth.
The dramatic improvement in conversion caused by the new copy may have been fictional for the film, but it’s a recurrent reality on the web – at least for those companies who understand the value of persuasive copy.
Unfortunately, too many companies are willing to spend thousands to tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars on a website redesign while balking at paying decent money for a top-notch copywriter. Don’t be one of those companies.
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Written by:Jeff Sexton
Do you share Susan’s Cynicism?
Yesterday Susan Greene wrote this comment to my previous post:
Great video, great message. Now imagine that the guy in the suit worked for a corporation, and his boss asked him to come up with the words for the beggar’s sign. His sentence would have been made into a paragraph by Corporate, watered down by Legal, and politically corrected by Human Resources. I’m thinking it would be a completely different message by then. Uh oh, I think my cynicism is showing again. [emphasis mine]
Yup. Nothing like the mental image of some tone-deaf suits destroying the impact and emotional nuances in one’s copy to spark a good, hearty rant. I’m right there with you, Susan. But believe it or not, this is a problem that personas can go a long way toward solving. Seriously.
You see, absent a well defined and imaginable audience, most people tend to do one of three things:
- Market to themselves. We all naturally tend to fall back on what WE like and what WE find motivating. Great if we’re selling to people just like us; not so great otherwise.
- Market to Stereotypes. As in, “hey, let’s target our advertising towards soccer moms!” People are funny like that: they know when they’re being talked down to.
- Market on Price. Not that you’ll immediately advertise a sale, but it’s easier to talk about features than real benefits when you’re not clear about the prospect’s emotional itch. And that’s a game of emphasizing features vs. price.
Most clueless revisions and edits fall into these three categories. A lawyer might Latinize your copy because it sounds more like the formal language he’s around all day. He’s making your copy sound like the language he respects and that “speaks” to him. He’s marketing to himself.
Same thing with executives. As a group executives naturally skew towards a Competitive temperament. Plus, Executives with non-competitive temperaments often find themselves operating in that mode due to the professional demands of their jobs. So they tend to re-write copy to better speak to them:
- Put the bottom-line up front
- Bullet out the important points
- Get rid of the fluffy crap and don’t get dragged down into the weeds
- Etc.
And that’s great for Competitive temperaments, but it can leave everyone else cold. Unfortunately, Competitives only make up 15% of the population. So now you’re potentially leaving 75 85% of your audience unconvinced. Yikes!
Unfortunately, telling a client or boss that they are marketing to themselves never goes well. Never try this one at home, kids, ‘cause that conversation aint going to stay about the copy. Same thing with pointing out stereotype-based copy. There is simply no neutral way to say these things; they’re always interpreted as an accusation.
Fortunately, personas can say things you can’t
Instead of telling the VP of marketing that he’s re-written your copy based solely on what appeals to him, imagine being able to pull out the persona you’ve been tasked to write to and having a discussion about how well the VP’s copy would or would not connect emotionally with that persona.
Now you can put your objections to his edits in terms of what the personas – and therefore the customers – do and do not like, rather than what you or your editors do and don’t like. Telling a VP that his version of the copy fails to address the emotional concerns of Sally is far less threatening and far more persuasive than telling him his edits have sucked the life out of your copy.
And this works for everything:
- for explaining that Sally doesn’t understand the jargon-filled features your editors are trying to cram into the copy
- for arguing the more appropriate connotations of one word over another, for example, “normal” rather than “average”
- for explaining that Johnny really DOES want to know the details and methodology
- etc.
In short, personas give you a vastly more objective basis for discussing the emotional nuances of your copy as well as the tone-deaf edits that might be threatened upon same. With personas, these conversations DO stay about the copy and they usually do end up going well.
So while I admit that ranting about bad edits can provide a nice break to the day, I’ll also tell you that successfully defending your copy is infinitely more satisfying – and that personas are an excellent tool for achieving that goal.
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Written by:Jeff Sexton
Texting, Linguistics, Gender and Murder
I’ve done a lot of research on male vs. female communication styles. But apparently these gender differences aren’t limited to conversation, there are also distinct linguistic styles in texting. This bit of linguistic difference even helped convict a man of murder.
Jenny Nicholl disappeared on 30th June 2005. A linguistic analysis showed that text messages sent from her phone were unlikely to have been written by her but, rather, were more likely to have been written by her ex-lover, David Hodgson. A number of stylistic points identified within texts known to have been written by Jenny Nicholl were not present in the suspect messages. Instead, these were stylistically close to the undisputed messages of David Hodgson.
I have to tell you - the mere thought of a term like “forensic linguistics” makes my brain buzz. I’m just enough of a geek to think that would be one cool job.
What we say, and how we say it, write it, or text it says volumes about who we are.
Why is this important to you if you’re a marketer and not a prosecuting attorney? People respond when you speak “their language.” Even subtle differences in wording or phrasing can make a huge difference in conversion.
I was working with a financial client recently, and we found the word “legacy” had different meanings for different people. For some, it was positive. For others, it sounded egotistical.
Ahh…the power of words. Thanks to Jeff Sexton for sending me the forensic linguistic article. I love Jeff’s writing and always find it insightful, even if he does use “thesaurus words.” 
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Written by:Holly Buchanan
7 Principles of Web 2.0 Copy - Twitter Style!
Bryan likes to tease me about my (in his opinion) way-too-wordy, overly long, and serialized blog posts. He has even started suggesting I join twitter to practice short-form writing styles (you can follow Bryan @TheGrok). But since I need a distraction like twitter like I need a crack cocaine addiction, this twitter-style post will have to suffice.
So here you have it, the 7 principles of Gr8t Web 2.0 (read short-form) copy:
1. Brevity – Twitter = learn to say lots in 140 characters. What must you say in 140 characters? Can you say it powerfully, as well as quickly?
2. Acknowledgement – Meaningful acknowledgement is often peer acknowledgement; what point is there to sharing photos on FB or FLICKR except peer acknowledgement?
3. Participation – For shared platforms, more use = more value. Always entice people to take the next step, just like facebook gets you to load a photo.
4. Sharing – Sharing has to start with YOU! Sharing = participation, acknowledgement, and authenticity. What real value are you sharing?
5. Authenticity – Posing kills peer acknowledgment. Don’t pose for it, show it through transparency. What can you put on the line to communicate credibility?
6. Interaction – Can I talk to you, or only just listen? How long is the lag-time for feedback? Can I interact with others, or just you / the host?
7. Speed – Kathy Sierra best explains Web 2.0-style speed. Participation, sharing and acknowledgment all require speed of interaction & feedback.
This is great practice. As marketers and writers we must learn to say more in fewer words these days. Feel free to take a shot at revising these 7 in the comments below, adding your own, or feel free to tweet them and link back here (http://tinyurl.com/twittercopy).
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Written by:Jeff Sexton
Is the New Mint.com Marketing to Women Through Design?
The best marketing to women experts will tell you that marketing to “women” as a generalized category is usually less than ideal. It’s not about marketing to women, it’s about the female customer, and about seeing her real. And that means NOT marketing to a stereotype, which is something that I couldn’t agree with more.
But then where does that leave broad-based gender differences and reality-based demographic information? For instance, women make or influence 85% of all consumer purchasing decisions and control the finances in 53% of US households. Actually, to me, that last statistic seems low. If “controlling the finances” means balancing the checkbook and paying the bills, I’d bet far more than 53% of the household finances are controlled by women, either way, that’s a lot of checking accounts in female hands.
And that brings me to the new Mint.com redesign. Bryan Eisenberg turned me on to Patrick Sullivan’s analysis of both the old and new Mint.com websites over at his Edit Weapon blog. Great stuff to be sure, and his analysis turned me onto a miniature (and admittedly non-scientific) trend: most guys I talked to didn’t like the new mint redesign as well as the old (beloved) website. And yet the new site was outperforming the old site by 20% according to some accounts. What gives?
Well to me it seemed reasonable to believe that the new site might be preferred by and outperforming with female visitors rather than the tech-centric guys I was talking to. And in taking a closer look at the design, it seemed as if it lined up with some well-known broad-based gender preferences.
My guess is that guys prefer the old site because of the design cues and because of the buying mode they’re likely to be in when they are not in charge of a family’s finances. The old site:
- seemed dark even when it wasn’t,
- immediately directed your eye to bottom line benefits, and
- made it easy to either “Just Do It” or “Learn More”
All of these things seemed like they would appeal to faster decision makers who had a bit less (emotionally) on the line. The old site promised to “Put your finances on autopilot,” which is definitely a non-budgeted guy thing.
Comparatively, the new site:
- has a decidedly friendlier, lighter, and more open feel to it
- doesn’t harshly direct your eye, but lets you gather the information as you wish
- provides immediate credibility clues through prestigious magazine endorsements underneath the headline.
- explains HOW and WHY mint can accomplish great things for you within the first paragraph – and does so without visually “shouting” at you.
- lets visitors go beyond just “Learn More” to learn about benefits of concern to someone who has to handle a family’s budget or finances: “all your accounts in one place,” “easy budgeting tools,” “Find Instant Savings,” etc. Yes, this requires more brain power or emotional investment to navigate, but it’s clearly more compelling if you’re the one trying to stretch a family budget.
- Replaces “Put your finances on autopilot” with “How mint can help you live a richer life,” which - when you think of richer in it’s more suggestive or emotional connotations – also seems more broadly appealing to females in charge of the family finances.
So my question is, so you guys and gals also find this to be the case? Do your female friends prefer the new mint while your male friends prefer the old? Do you think my analysis is on-target or am I somewhat biased?
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Written by:Jeff Sexton
The Best of GrokDotCom 2008, So Far…
Earlier this week it came to our attention that a significant part of our readership never received their email newsletters (for some people this has been several months worth) due to an internal operational glitch. Can you say ooooops! So we’ve put together a list of the top 10 posts you may have missed:
Tapping the Power of Social Media to Advertise to Women
3 Things Viral Videos Must Do to Make Money
Free Whitepaper: “Marketing in a Recession” (Don’t Miss This)
How to Gain and Act on Customer Insights
How to Prioritize Your Optimization
What Your Bounce Rate is Trying to Tell You
5 Copywriting Keys to Landing Page Credibility
Optimize Your Copy for Skimming and Scanning
How to Avoid Marketing to Yourself
The 7 Deadly Claims (Part 5) — “100% Risk-Free&…
P.S. Always Be Testing - our new book is unleashed and don’t forget to sign up for our Free Webinar: August Session of “Always Be Testing” Webinar Series
Did we miss any of your favorites? Please let us know in the comments below.
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Learn Web 2.0 Copywriting Strategies in an Evening of Enjoyable Reading
Want your website to sound open, uncontrived, and authentic? Keep reading! In our previous compendiums on copywriting advice, most of the links to Roy Williams’ Monday Morning Memos never made it into the post due to some kind of technical glitch. So to fix that, I started compiling most of my all-time favorite MMM’s that dealt specifically with writing.
Yet as I was compiling these links and re-reading the Memos, a central theme seemed to emerged: many of the Roy’s memos dealt with “The Feel of Real” and how to capture that in your copy - what many of us might call Web 2.0-style copy. With this in mind, I began sorting and grouping those Monday Morning Memos to further highlight this theme.
Read through this collection of Memos and you’ll come away with a sounder idea of the voice of “new marketing” than 95% of the folks hyping that term. And if you want the executive summary, just read the first 2 links in each category - and then let yourself get drawn into the other titles as they spark your interest. Either way, enjoy…
Framing and Understanding the problem:
Hello and Goodbye from John and Jane Doe
Pricing Value, and Saleability
The Solution – How To’s
Facts vs. Value-based statements
The Solution – Advanced Techniques & Examples
Revealing the vivid unexpected
The Language of Shadow and Silence
Magic WordsCan You Make It Talk?
Mental Images, Emotions, and Word Associations
The Magnetic Power of the Mental Image
Visual Images vs. Mental Images
Persona-based Copy
I hope this bit of reading has left you with a strong sense of what authentic, respectful copy sounds and reads like. Better yet, I hope you came away with some great techniques for producing this style of copy. Please feel free to add your own experiences, comments, and links via the comments section.
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Written by:Jeff Sexton
Optimize Your Copy for Skimming and Scanning
Copy is one of the most crucial elements of any E-commerce site. And while most discussions of Web copy focus on creating great copy, it’s also important to ensure your copy is formatted for the online world.
Great copy that comes in dense blocks of text often never gets the chance to convert visitors because it never gets read.
Most Web pages - as well as the copy on those pages - are skimmed and scanned before they’re read. Web visitors want to make sure they are in the right place and reading the right section or content before digging in. So making a few easy formatting changes can yield some huge conversion improvements by allowing visitors to easily orient themselves to your content.
We pointed out how Amazon did this earlier this year, and now, we will give you a few other strategies and steps to optimize your pages for skimming and scanning.
- Bullets- Listing out items in bulleted lists makes it much easier for a visitor to get useful information. Bulleted lists work great for emphasizing multiple benefits, as each benefit gets sufficient space to stand out and all of the benefits can be quickly scanned by visitors wondering if a given product or service will satisfy their needs.
- Bolding- Within paragraphs of copy, it’s a good idea to bold the more critical text. Visitors’ eyes will be able to quickly latch onto those important, bolded points amidst the rest of the text. That said, use bolding sparingly as too much will simply overwhelm visitors and actually hurt your visitors’ ability to skim and scan your text.
- Hyperlinks- Hyperlinks’ contrasting blue color and underlining also grab the eye and cause hyperlinked words to pop out at visitors. But since links are clickable, those hyperlinked words and phrases can also be used to qualify visitors and move them to pages and messaging crafted to speak to and answer more specific needs and questions - stuff that may not interest everyone but that will be important to specific segments of your audience.
- Sub-headlines- Break your content up into sections and label those sections with Sub-headlines (also called subheads). Once you’ve done that, try reading just the subheads and see if you come away with the gist of page’s content. Not only will this help visitors quickly scan the page for content, but it will also allow them to skip down to the section that’s most important to them. And as an added bonus, Sub-headlines help create needed whitespace for your page layout.
- White Space- White space makes it easier for visitors to find information and focus on what they are really looking for. Ensure you leave white space by breaking up long paragraphs (consider more than 5 stacked lines to be too long), using sub-headlines and bullets, and by maintaining decent margins and line spacing. Web copy should never look intimidating or too densely packed.
- Jargon- Using highly technical words or industry jargon inhibits skimming and scanning for anyone who isn’t 100% familiar with the terminology. As a general rule, copy on a broad-audience website should be at or below a fifth grade reading level. If specific technical terms are necessary, say if they are a key search term, link them to a glossary or FAQ, or explain the terms within the text itself.
These are a just a few simple changes that can dramatically improve your Web visitors’ ability to skim and scan your text, and find the information important to them. Not only does this make visitors happier, it makes them more confident in purchasing from you. As a reminder, you should test almost any changes you make on your site, but this is a great area to get started on and can bring back some really good results.
Editor’s Note: In fact, one of Dan’s clients increased his conversion by 24% by reformatting their page for skimming and scanning.
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Written by:Daniel McGuigan
Do You Believe Mattel’s CEO?
Nothing tells you more about a company than how it handles a crisis.
Recently, Mattel (MAT) has had two product recalls; one for toys with lead paint, and another for toys with powerful small magnets.
Mattel chose the usual large company route: Have your CEO do a public apology, looking serious and sincere, outlining the problem and emphasizing the steps you’re taking to deal with it.
Has this approach ever worked? I’m not being cynical here, I really want to know.
Here’s why, in this case, I don’t think it worked.
It’s obviously a highly rehearsed and planned speech from CEO Robert Eckert, in a suit, sitting in a fake environment. Everything about this video screams planned, rehearsed, fake — right down to his choreographed hand movements. Maybe it’s just me, but when he says, “I’m just as upset and disappointed as anyone,” I cringe.
I’m thinking, “Yeah, because of all the money you’re gonna lose.”
Let’s put ourselves in a parent’s shoes. More specifically, let’s put ourselves in a mother’s shoes. (Dads are just as concerned but, in my marketing to women research, I’ve learned a whole lot about moms, so I’m going to focus on them.) She’s thinking, “My child may have been exposed to something that could possibly harm him. I’m not ‘disappointed’. I’m scared. I’m angry. I am downright pissed.”
“Upset”. Good word. “Disappointed”. Not so much. The word “disappointed” may work for the lawyers, but not for moms.
What’s the purpose of this video? Is it designed for shareholders and investors? Mattel is taking out ads in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and USA Today. This choice of WSJ and NY Times makes me wonder if this PR effort is indeed aimed at investors. If so, I would give the video higher grades.
But if this video is aimed at parents/mothers — “consumers” in corporate speak — then it could be greatly improved. Here’s how:
- Lose the suit. The CEO looks too formal. Who are you trying to impress? Do you feel more powerful in a suit? Come down to a more believable level. Come down to my level. (I understand that for investors the CEO needs to look serious and businesslike, and that they might take offense if he were wearing anything less than a suit. But for moms it only ads to the perception that “he’s not one of us”.)
- Get rid of the fake background. It’s too sterile. You look like a talking head on a set, not a real person.
- Use words that parents are using, not corporate double-speak. You build rapport by making people feel you’re like them; by speaking in their language. Almost nothing about this performance — and it does come across as a performance — makes me think this CEO is like me. Sure, he opens with “I’m a parent of 4,” but he looks and sounds like a CEO, not a parent. How much more effective would it be if he said, “I’m a dad with 4 kids.” And for another example, look at this phrase: “Nothing is more important than the safety and wellbeing of children.” How much more powerful would this be if he had said “your children” or “our children” or even “our kids.”
Moms have particularly strong B.S. detectors. I’m not saying this CEO is insincere, but if he wants consumers or moms to believe in his company, they first must believe in him. I’ll let moms and dads speak for themselves as to whether this video achieved that goal.
What do you think? Can Mattel withstand transparency?
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Written by:Holly Buchanan
Copy Perspective Monday: What is “Substance”?
Last week’s article on Style vs. Substance, kept driving me back to one question: “What is substance?”
It seems a pragmatist would insist that anything the customer is willing to pay for automatically becomes substantive. And while I abhor the reductive sophistry in such definitions (tell me “quality” means simply “meeting standards/expectations” and I’ll be tempted to punch you), I feel this particular definition is worth accepting — at least provisionally, and for the purposes of a thought experiment.
With that settled, I want you to think of your least favorite color. Now, how deeply discounted would a car of that color have to be before you’d buy it? For the sake of the experiment, assume you can’t flip or trade the vehicle; you’ll have to own and drive it. Let’s say it’s a $30,000 car in a butt-ugly rust color (or whatever turns your stomach). Would you take that car for $24,000, knowing you’d have to drive it?
Is color worth $6,000? Does $6k make color substantive?
Closer to home, how many of you have bought a black MacBook? Last I checked, it was about $200 more than the comparable white version and the only “substantive” difference is a $50 hard drive upgrade. Apple hasn’t had any problems selling them at this price. I own a white MacBook. I talked myself out of the “outrageous” surcharge for the black one, and I kick myself every day for not recognizing color as a substantive element of my laptop.
Moving past color, what about, say, feel? Does a slick-shifting gearbox count for anything on a car? Is that a substantive difference? It won’t show up on a speck sheet. Same thing with steering sensitivity and precision. How about the bank vault-like thud of a Mercedes door? Sure, that thud conveys more than feel; it indicates build quality, right? Well, Toyotas are commonly thought to have better build quality and they don’t have that thud. So the door heft is more Teutonic style than anything else; it conveys quality on a purely emotional level.
But that’s just it. Buying decisions are driven by emotion, and style affects us emotionally. So, of course stylistic differences have a huge impact on how and what we buy — as much on major purchases like homes and cars as it does with jeans or cologne. Solid doors can be more convincing than consumer reports.
And that leaves just one question . . .
Why do we differentiate between logically substantive differences and style? Because self-identity involves our emotions at a far deeper level than what one might call superficial style. If saving several grand on an ugly car means I can pay for private schooling for my kids, then style takes a back seat to being a good dad — that’s the stronger emotion. If I see myself as a level-headed guy, paying a price premium for a Mini Cooper may not to cut it, unless I can justify it on the grounds that it’s actually a practical car with surprising interior room, great gas mileage, and solid performance. Because all those things are true, the Mini has sold well. Even still, Minis are predominantly bought by people with a dominant Myers-Briggs type of “SP” or “NF”; Spontaneous and Humanistic temperaments, people with few hang-ups over needing to be “logical.”
As a (Competitive) “NT,” I’m not exactly Johnny bean-counter and the $150 difference wouldn’t pay for much schooling, but I still talked myself out of the black Macbook, whereas I would have had no problem paying that $150 for a “logically substantive” upgrade such as a faster processor or more memory. My emotional response to the cool black color of the high(er)-end MacBook gave way to my emotional need to make a rational decision, thus validating my identity as a “reasonable” guy.
So what’s the bottom line? Don’t just focus on the product or even on your customers’ superficial demographics. Focus on the customer’s self-image, then use that insight to decide what’s substantive to them. If it turns out a “stylistic” quality is substantive for your customers, then style-heavy copy might be the best way to persuade them and convey value.
[Editor’s note: Stay tuned next week as Jeff Sexton, Future Now copywriting instructor and Persuasion Architect, guides us through Copy Perspective #4, “Time vs. Money” (which was to have run that this week, but substance couldn’t wait). You can also learn from Jeff first-hand on September 17th at our Persuasive Online Copywriting seminar in New York.]
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Written by:Jeff Sexton
