Marketing

The Evils of “Salesmanship in Print”

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“Salesmanship in print” is an outdated description of copywriting.

And not because everything is digital now…

If you saw my interview on John Forde’s Copywriter’s Roundtable, you know where I’m going with this.

I decreed that copywriting needs a new definition for this new decade.

Think about it…

Why do we constantly have to justify our use of the word “salespeople?”

Because the word conjures images of the sleazy guy hawking barely-functional cars off the New Jersey turnpike…

Or the fast-talking pitchman pressuring Grandma Sarah to buy penny stocks with her Social Security check.

Those negative associations can be tough to overcome.

The other risk is that a copywriter-in-training may assume those are characteristics to aspire to.

High pressure.

Deception.

Exploiting grandmothers.

Which is the opposite of how a copywriter (or any other human being) should act.

When we stop saying “salesmanship in print,” we can avoid some of that blowback.

So…

How should we define copywriting today?

“Showmanship in print.”

Showmanship adds storytelling, demonstration and drama to the mix.

You know, stuff that people enjoy.

Moving forward, showmanship will be more and more essential for grabbing attention, building interest, inflaming desire and producing action.

I’ll this cover this topic in future newsletters, so stay tuned.

But you may want to go deeper, sooner.

Today I’m opening Inbox X-Factor, which is designed to

  1. make it as easy as possible to send more emails to your list (and spend less time doing it), and
  2. showcase effective tactics and strategies that are working RIGHT NOW to help you make more money from each email.

I’ve had more conversations than I can count with entrepreneurs and marketers who struggle to email their lists as often as they know they should.

Many really aren’t sure how to make money with email.

In short, Inbox X-Factor gives you access to:

  • Timely email ideas and inspiration, so you never run out of reasons to email your list
  • Unique subject line templates and examples
  • In-depth training to help you unlock the money-making power of email. Studies show email produces 40X ROI. These lessons will help you get there.

And more.

For this week only, you can become one of first members of Inbox X-Factor for $47/month.

On Sunday July 5, the price goes up to $97/month.

If you have a list and an offer (or clients who have them)…

I believe Inbox X-Factor can help you making MORE money with email in LESS time — starting today.

Have a productive day,

Consider Yourself Hooked…

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Storytelling Hooked

Ambition.
Quick thinking.
Ruthlessness.
First kisses.

What’s the common denominator?

According to research from Netflix, these 4 story elements are highly effective at turning casual viewers into a devoted followers.

Through this research, Netflix also knows the precise episode of a series when people become “hooked.”

This is probably NOT the kind of information you’re used to hearing as a marketer or entrepreneur.

But it’s exactly what you need to hear right now — and I’ll tell you why.

While the economy sank into the abyss in March…

My clients experienced record sales. One had beat it’s previous best month by a massive 25%.

A huge part of our success has been telling the right kind of stories to our audience. Another huge factor is that we KEEP TELLING those stories.

We’ll dive into storytelling more in the future, but today I want to encourage you to inject more emotionally-engaging stories into your marketing and the content you’re producing.

Your pains and problems — and how you overcame them…

Your fears and frustrations — and how you found relief…

Your dreams and desires — and how you finally grabbed hold of them (or what you’re doing now that’s getting you closer)…

Even the mistakes you made…

These stories captivate.

If you tell the stories well, they audience will insert themselves into the story, experience some of your feelings and mentally/emotionally prepare to take the action that you took.

Then, keep telling those stories.

According to Netflix “In our research, we found that no one was ever hooked on the pilot.”

The pilot sells the audience on watching the next episode. But without the second and third episodes, it’s easy to disconnect and pay attention to something else.

If you feel like you’re being repetitive, just think of how many people binge-watch 10 episodes of their favorite shows at a time.

No one says, “I wish they’d make FEWER episodes of this show I love.”

It’s a challenge… but it’s a bigger challenge to keep your business running without devoted followers.

Coronavirus Marketing Kit

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Call me crazy…

I am 98% convinced that this coronavirus scare is overblown.

In fact, I’m about 95% sure it’s completely manufactured and manipulated.

But whether or not you agree with me, one thing is abundantly clear…

The concept has captivated people around the globe.

More than that, it’s driven people to take action.

Think about it: this may be the event that FINALLY gets people wash their hands after using public restrooms.

I don’t mean to be insensitive to those who have been affected by this virus.

But, as I’ve said in the past, anything that grabs the attention of millions can reveal important insights into human nature.

If your business can use some extra attention, can you afford to NOT pay attention to stuff like this?

Agreed.

Now, I encourage you to think about this topic for yourself to see what lessons you can uncover…

But I’d love to share a few of my thoughts.

Let’s start with the most obvious.

Fear Still Works… If You Know How to Work It

You’ve probably heard it a thousand times: the natural human reaction to fear is about twice as strong as the reaction to pleasure.

Makes sense, right? You have to be alive to enjoy… anything.

Despite having heard it, many of the marketers I interact with still hesitate to use fear in their campaigns. It just doesn’t feel right.

And I get that.

But let’s be honest. There are some frightening things out there. Things your customers should be legitimately scared of.

If they eat a pound of bacon for breakfast every day, they should be worried about heart attacks…

If they don’t pay attention to their wives, they should be worried about divorce…

If they can’t get people to buy from them, they should be worried about their relatives mocking them when their business fails. (The resulting money problems could lead to divorce, too!)

[Note the Body, Bank & Boo focus.]

Those are legit fears… and YOU can help them overcome them. Sometimes — more often than you might like — the best way to get their attention is to leverage that fear in your messaging.

Don’t feel funny about it. This is how you make the biggest difference you can make for your should-be customers.

So…

Even though the CDC says most people are infected with some form of the coronavirus during their lives…

Here’s why COVID-19 scares the pants off of so many people — and how that helps you be more influential

One:
This novel coronavirus has been dimensionalized to a greater extent than other strains. It’s seems more “real” and not just a far-away concept

I mean, even if you’re not actively looking for it, there’s a good chance you’ve seen a picture of the virus’ crown-shaped structure somewhere.

Even the name has been leveraged. “Corona” refers to crown. That isn’t unique to this version of the bug… but it now owns a little real estate in your brain that influenza does not.

An invisible germ has been made visible. Memorable.

Two:
There is automatically a fear of the unknown. We all know exactly where this virus comes from, right? An exotic sounding province in China (which is already seen by many as a nefarious force in the world) called Wuhan.

Name another illness that you know EXACTLY where it originated.

If you thought of Ebola and Africa (which is far less specific), remember how scared many people have been about Ebola outbreaks in the past?

Three:
There are lots of specifics. The media continually updates us on how many cases there are and where. The word “pandemic” is thrown around loosely.

They’re also sharing stories about supply shortages, quarantines and other scared people.

Although we don’t see many of stories like this one from the Washington Post…

Which brings us to…

Four:
Social proof works like crazy.

When everyone else is terrified, maybe I should be, too!

And…

Five:
Those supply shortages indicate a complete lack of ability to adequately respond to the potential pestilence.

It’s an effective force multiplier for the fear.

Not only is the disease deadly and spreading quickly… but the people we trust to keep us safe are simply unprepared to deal with the danger.

It’s one thing to go to war with an enemy. It’s another thing to step onto the battlefield with no ammunition.

Six:
There’s mystery about how this germ is spreading. I’ve seen the term “unknown origin” of new cases in the U.S. more than one time.

The unpredictability of “who’s next” makes it all the more nerve-racking… because it could be you.

Seven:
People, especially in America, have already been introduced to the idea of viruses threatening to wipe out our species or turn us all into flesh-craving zombies.

This is a more subtle influence.

Many of us have already seen this doomsday scenario play out in best-selling thrillers or on the Hollywood big screen. In the back of our minds, it’s not all that far-fetched.  

Okay, now…

Here’s a Quick Rundown of Action Steps for You

0) Try to get comfortable using legitimate fear to reach your potential buyer. It is one of the most effective ways to get him to stop and pay attention.

1) Don’t just mention the fear or the source of that fear in your sales copy. Dive into the details that make the fear real… tangible… visible. Refuse to be 1-dimensional in your descriptions.

2) Consider tapping into the fear of the unknown that all of us have. When your would-be buyer THINKS he knows what you’re going to say — or already knows how to deal with the fear — he’s going to tune you out.

3) Share specifics. Not just statistics, but stories. Both images and word pictures go a long way.

4)  Get as much social proof as you can. It doesn’t have to be testimonials or reviews of your own. Just show how many people are feeling what you’re talking about or doing what you recommend.

5) Don’t let your prospect overestimate his ability to fix the problem alone.

We all deceive ourselves some times. If he’s unprepared, it’s your job to alert him to the fact — and make him believe it. Don’t be a jerk about it. You’re not trying to make him feel bad about himself. You’re helping him be realistic and honest.

6) If possible, create an air of mystery about the source of your chosen fear.

Even as you’re giving details and specifics, an underlying mystery that makes the fear even more unnerving — and the solution that more urgent.

7) Leverage fear your ideal buyer already has. You don’t want to have to convince him he needs to be scared of the thing you’re talking about.

If your boogeyman isn’t something he’s already scared of, you can likely make a connection using the Body, Bank & Boo principles.

—

Question for you: have YOU taken any marketing lessons from the 24/7 coronavirus news blitz?

Feel free to share them in the comments.

Someone’s Been Indoctrinating Your Customers…

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Who decided breakfast is the most important meal of the day?

Have you seen scientific proof?

Don’t Google it. Take a moment and search your memory.

No one proved this claim to you… but there’s a good chance you accept it as truth.

What happened is this: you heard this statement early in your life… you heard it often… and from authority figures.

Maybe you never questioned it. (Most people don’t.)

I was shocked when my youngest son brought this chart home from school…

… because this is not education. It’s indoctrination.

And — cue exaggerated rage — who are these people to tell my son which meal is most important????

(As you might have guessed, the chart came from the vendor that sells lunch to our school district. Trying to grab a bigger share of the 8am market.)

I’m sure most parents didn’t think twice about it. Why should they? It lines up nicely with what they learned in school. 

There’s a useful persuasion principle at work here:

Someone is indoctrinating your children… and your prospects. It might as well be YOU.

The success of your business depends on the success of your indoctrination efforts. You must either:

  • successfully indoctrinate your should-be buyers — to define how they think about or make decisions in your area of expertise, or…
  • align your message with the indoctrination that’s already in place.

If your marketing or sales pitch has to convince someone that breakfast isn’t the most important meal of the day, you’re in trouble.

It’s worth spending time to find out what your ideal clients already believe (and why), and what they NEED to believe in order to make your product or service the obvious choice.

Time to do your research!

Here’s what I want you to do:

1) Always Be Indoctrinating. Otherwise, you could lose ground to the other voices trying to compete with you.

2) Build yourself up as an authority. That puts oomph into your statements, neutralizes some degree of skepticism/criticism and helps your message “stick.”

Don’t just BE an authority. Be KNOWN as one.

3) If necessary, re-position your product/service/self so it’s in a category all by itself.

When people see something familiar, they automatically put it into a category — and that category almost certainly has someone else’s indoctrination already installed.

When you create a new category, you get to set definitions “early… often… and as the authority figure.”

Have a productive weekend!

P.S. How does one go about this business of indoctrination? In my next article, I’ll fill you in.

“No, YOU have a consistency problem”

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copywriting consistency habits

Habits are hard to break. Harder than freezer meat.

That’s one of the reasons marketing can be hard work.

The difficulty of a marketer’s job is rooted in the dark nature of habitual behavior.

The habitual behavior of your should-be buyers, to be specific.

Let me explain what I mean.

You’ve probably read Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence — or you’ve at least heard of it. So you’re probably familiar with the principles of commitment and consistency.

People like to be seen as consistent. They want to feel consistent.

Marketers try to leverage that fact by seeking “micro-commitments” and “progressive series of agreement.”

There’s value in those concepts.

But listen…

These are attempts to produce consistency. The truth is, your prospects are already consistent.

Freezer meat consistent.

Therein lies the problem — and the opportunity.

Your potential customers are consistently, habitually doing the same things over and over again.

Buying the same things over and over again.

If they’re buying from you, hallelujah! If they’re buying from the other guy… ouch.

More than that, they’re avoiding doing the same things over and over again — and consistently rejecting the same kinds of offers.

So, let me ask you a couple questions:

1.
Do you think it’s smarter to get someone to micro-commit their way to consistently buy from you…

Or should you target people who are already consistently buying the types of products you sell?

2.
Should you spend all your time chasing new customers and weeding out the ones who stubbornly refuse to commit to what’s clearly the best option for them?

Or does it make sense to focus on (or develop) hyper-responsive buyers who already have habits that make you say “Hallelujah”?

Think about it.

Then do something about it.

Sell Me Their Eyeballs

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Your competition is more brutal than you may have realized.

Mostly because your biggest competitors probably aren’t who you think they are…   

I’ll share a tiny example, then a giant one.

Some years back, the Illinois Small Business Development Center used to bring me in to teach marketing during its entrepreneurial training programs.

Part of the job was to help the trainees understand what they’d face out there in the real world — and give them tools to win.

I remember one young guy named Omar. He was brimming with energy and ambition. He wanted to open a smoothie shop with healthy food alternatives for high schoolers.

Good stuff.

He was the first trainee to go over his assignment aloud during class.

While talking about his business plan, he listed his main competitors as Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds.

Now, it’s hard to be the person who bursts the bubble of anyone so full of excitement… but that was the job.

I told him — in front of the entire class (they needed to hear this too)…

…that he was wrong.

Starbucks may have been his most visible competition.

But Omar’s smoothies would have to compete with every other rival fighting for the attention and dollars of his target audience.

And Lord knows teenagers have their eyes divided between a lot of sugar-coated options.

His healthy, pricey smoothies would have to earn their way onto the priority list.

Not just against other beverages the teens were already in the habit of buying…

But against ALL snacks… fashion items… gasoline for their cars, etc.

That competition is fierce — and I wanted Omar and the others to understand the scale of the battle they were engaged in.

That’s the small example.

The giant example gets the point much faster.

It’s this quote from Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix.

entertaining copywriting

At Netflix, we are competing for our customers’ time, so our competitors include Snapchat, YouTube, sleep, etc.”

Sleep is hard to beat.

But it’s even harder when you don’t know that’s what you’re fighting against.

Do the research. Find out what you’re really competing with.

Adjust your game plan… and play to win.

And before you go, here are 7 tips for writing eyeball-wrangling headlines and subject lines:


3 Persuasion Lessons You Won’t Find in Copywriting Books

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stack of copywriting books

“What’s the biggest mistake copywriters make that destroys their conversions?”

When I’m out speaking, doing workshops or online trainings, that’s one of the questions that comes up almost every time. 

It’s hard to give just one ultimate copy faux pas. There are so many… and they can be extremely costly.

Some are obvious:

  • Focusing on your company or product instead of your prospect
  • Writing about features instead of benefits
  • Using technical jargon and stuffy, corporate language when you should write conversationally.

Other mistakes are much less obvious. I want to talk about three of them today. 

You’re not likely to find these mentioned in copywriting books. In fact, you probably won’t learn about them in many higher-priced courses, either. 

They’re hard won on the battlefield of direct response… where seemingly small slip-ups can cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Why is no one teaching these persuasion lessons? 

Because they’re not sexy. And they’re not easy to sum up in tweet-sized sound bites. 

But if you’re willing to dig a little deeper than most of your peers, this hidden wisdom can change everything for you.

Lesson #1: Your USP’s Magnetic Power Doesn’t Come From You

Copywriting and general marketing books often make a big deal out of finding and communicating your unique selling proposition (USP) or unique value proposition. And rightly so. Establishing your business, product or service as unique in the marketplace is important. 

But we’ve tried to make USPs simple, even mechanical.

A + B = C

Target Audience + Problem + Solution = USP

In the process of making formulas like these, marketers have completely missed the point.

No matter what it seems like, the most important characteristic of a USP isn’t its uniqueness. Customers don’t buy a product simply because it’s different.

Today, there are more options than ever before to solve every conceivable problem or satisfy any desire. 

People buy because a product or solution is uniquely suited to fulfill their specific desire.

A USP is not what’s magnetic. The attraction comes from within the would-be buyer himself.

To quote psychotherapist Anthony de Mello, “We see people and things not as they are, but as we are.”

Customers see your products as THEY are. Their desires and beliefs dictate how they perceive your business and your USP.

Here’s what that means for you. 

When writing sales copy, it’s usually a mistake to spend too much time focused on what you (or your client, as the case may be) think is unique about the product.

It’s far more powerful to highlight that specific need or desire that drives your ideal customer into the market in the first place. 

Write copy that awakens that desire… that shows them you understand that pain at a deep level. This helps the reader convince himself that what you’re offering is uniquely suited for his situation. 

Force-feeding your “one of a kind” product is more likely to create magnetic repulsion — the exact opposite of what you’re trying to accomplish.

Lesson #2: Copy Should Empower Readers (Even If the Message Starts With Negative Emotions)

You may already know the fear of loss is emotionally twice as powerful as the positive anticipation of gain.

That’s one of the major reasons fear-based copy can be so effective. When done well, it grabs attention, earns buy-in from the reader and prepares them for the hope of salvation… in your product or service.

Many entrepreneurs shy away from the negative stuff in copy. They don’t want to be fearmongers and scare potential buyers away.

Big mistake. 

Those businesses lose out on sales — and they allow readers to underestimate the severity and imminence of the problems they face. 

That being said, you can go too far with fear and pain. 

Rather, fear and pain are great for opening copy and when you’re closing the sale (fear of missing out)…

But in the middle of the message, we’ve found it boosts response to add empowering content to the main body of the sales piece. 

One of the most effective ways to empower your reader… to make it easier for him to take the next step toward his desired outcome… is to add an educational element to your copy.

In my own split testing, I’ve seen conversions jump as much as 25–40% by providing valuable tips, actionable recommendations, etc., right in the sales message instead of just “selling.”

Other great copywriters, including the legendary Gary Bencivenga, have reported similar results. 

If the reader benefits just from reading the marketing message, you’ve made the sale before the sale.

Quality educational content…

  • Establishes you as an authority on the subject
  • Differentiates you from peddlers who only care about making the sale and
  • Begins to demonstrate to the reader that HE CAN DO THIS, that this can actually work for him.

When you’ve done it right, a sense of hope may begin to form in the reader’s mind: hope that the result he imagines can finally become reality.

In so doing you win an important victory — and the long-term benefits accrue for both you and your reader.

Lesson #3: The “Who” Matters More Than the “What”

I hope the overstatement here is obvious. 

The most important characteristic of sales copy is that the product or service being promoted is something prospects actually want to buy.

But more than most marketers and entrepreneurs realize, the person the message is coming from is often a powerful sales multiplier.

You need to be the kind of personality your readers like. Someone they want to be around and hear from.

Someone they want to buy from. 

Think about celebrities the media are obsessed with. The ones whose faces are on magazine covers everywhere you go. A big percentage of the population drops whatever they’re doing to pay attention to these personalities.

You can give your readers a chance to become THAT interested in you. 

Put your unique idiosyncrasies on display. 

Show the reader you share certain values, i.e., you’re in the “same club.” That kind of affinity is one of the best shortcuts for writing persuasive sales copy.

This is why many financial newsletters come from a conservative or libertarian perspective.

The newsletter audiences tend to be older and more conservative, so the copy speaks that language. 

As divisive as politics can be, it can bond people together like Gorilla Glue when you’re on the same side. 

That sort of affinity turbocharges copy. It’s hard to teach that in copywriting books because different audiences have different affinity hooks.

It’s your job as a copywriter and marketer to find them.

When you share values in common (or at least appear to), when you’re on the same side and when you’re promoting a product or service that’s uniquely suited to scratch the itch that’s been driving your reader crazy…

… the sales copy feels more like a conversation between friends than anything else. 

This can skyrocket sales today (front and back end) AND increase loyalty over time. Even if the reader doesn’t buy from you today, he’s much more likely to keep reading your adventures whenever you send them out. 

By earning this loyalty, you get to sell to the reader time after time. More sales conversations equal more sales. And yet it feels less like selling to the reader.

Dive in and Reap the Benefits

These concepts don’t necessarily work with fill-in-the-blank templates. They require some customer research… and some creative thinking on your part. 

But I can tell you, based on tens of millions of dollars in products sold, these lessons can make all the difference in the world.

“Infotainment” Is on Life Support

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copywriting infotainment

If you want to be an effective marketer and an influential force in the lives of your ideal customers, it will be well worth your time to understand what I’m about to tell you.

And incredibly costly if you don’t. 

Let’s start with a few facts:

1) Your readers can get information on your topic from a million sources. Maybe more. 

Chances are, they’re already overwhelmed by the amount of information they already have (and are continually bombarded with). 

Simply being “unique” isn’t enough anymore.

Neither is being “better.” (Most potential buyers can’t tell whose info is better anyway.)

2) You readers can get entertainment from a million sources.

And let’s face it. Netflix and ESPN are hard to beat. 

For these reasons, “infotainment” based marketing is on shaky footing. 

It is useful to be informative and entertaining. In fact, I believe entertainment, in one form or another, is non-negotiable for entrepreneurs and marketers today. 

But, again, it’s not enough. 

The most powerful marketing I see are the messages that connect your would-be buyers with MEANING. 

Last summer I wrote a promotion that transformed my client’s entire business. 

The heart of the promotion was a long-form video sales letter that sold a low-priced front-end product. Up until that point, the client struggled a little to get front-end buyers, and those buyers generally took a long time to convert to one of the back-end products. 

The sales video, along with the emails and ads that drove traffic to it, connected the viewer to meaning in two ways: 

  • he would stop being a victim of the big Wall Street firms (we showed him 6 barely-legal ways they were already emptying his pocket), and
  • he’d become the hero his family needs to make it successfully through difficult times.

Note the emotional impetus isn’t what he’s going to get. It’s who he’s going to become.

A victor instead of a victim. A giant-slayer.  A provider and protector his family respects and admires.

My video destroyed the previous version in terms of front-end sales. The number of buyers who took the upsell skyrocketed, too (without changing the upsell copy at all). 

Suddenly, my client could buy traffic and be profitable in days… where it used to take months to break even.  

The company’s revenue tripled in 12 months. 

You don’t have to be a professional copywriter to use this principle to become an ever-more influential figure in the lives of your audience. 

Regularly help your should-be buyers see themselves becoming the heroic version of themselves they dream of being… because they work with you. 

No matter what you sell, there are deeper meanings at the foundation. That’s where the strongest, most enduring emotions are rooted. 

Connect your customers to those deeper meanings, and even Netflix will have a hard time competing with you. 

What Really Makes Your Customers Tick (Here’s a Hint)

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Robb Report’s December issue shared a study I found utterly fascinating and a little surprising.

You will find it instructive…as long as you don’t let a few caveats distract you.

Every other year, the U.S. Trust does a survey of high-net worth households to learn about their charitable giving.

In addition to how much they donate and what organizations are raking in the biggest piles of cash — which is also both surprising and instructive — the survey tried to uncover the motivations behind it all.

The results shines a unique light on what drives people to make the decisions they do.

Here’s a quick summary of key findings that give us insight we can apply to our emails and other persuasion efforts:

1) By far, the top reason cited for making donations is the alignment of the cause/organization with their personal values — more than 12 times more than a good sales pitch. **

2) In fact, a compelling pitch is the least influential cause mentioned in this survey.

3) The top 3 reasons are all about the giver, not the organization, cause or even the perception of need.

(Which is part of the reason Stanford University’s endowment receives more funds than St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital by a wide margin).

Takeaway: It is extremely important for you to gain an intimate understanding of what really matters to your audience. Self-identity is the core from which decisions are made…and the lens through which we all see the world.

4) Association with another institution (affinity, endorsements, joint ventures) is an open door to influence.

5) Giving your would-be donor/buyer first-hand experience of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it is a powerful way to shift his perspective in a favorable way toward your business, organization or cause.

Caveats (for those who’d like to quibble):

a. Donations and purchases aren’t the same. And the motivations for giving huge gifts may be different than for small ones.

b. Millionaires may be different than non-millionaires in many ways. So these takeaways may not transfer directly.

c. Surveys are flawed because responses may not be entirely honest. People answer in ways that are flattering to themselves and supportive of their self-image.

d. Compelling sales pitches are definitely more persuasive than this survey indicates. Or at least they can be.

How do I know? Because a good sales pitch communicate the alignment with personal values, makes the donor aware of affiliations and paints the picture of need.

** In my experience, people often underestimate the impact of a well-structured sales pitch. When they make their emotional decision and justify it with logic, they’re often hesitant to admit they were won over by a pitch. They’d prefer to imagine they discovered something that lines up with what they were already thinking of doing (which, of course, is what a good pitch does).

— — —

TD;LR…

People make decisions based on their personal values and their self-image more than any other factor. As an entrepreneur and marketer, you must discover those values you share with ideal clients and align your offer with those values.

Or find someone who’s already actively looking for what you sell.

Kobe Bryant’s Triangle Offense of Copy

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The LA Lakers retired my pretend cousin’s jersey last night.

Actually, they retired two jerseys for the two numbers he wore while he played.

Here’s a little trivia for you.

In addition to Kobe’s legendary basketball career, did you know he’s also started and sold an advertising agency… directed many of the Nike commercials he starred in, and is now involved in all kinds of marketing activities for his own company and others?

Yep.

Kobe is likely to go down in history as a Hall of Fame athlete and ad man.

Earlier this year, he spilled the beans on his Triangle Offense of storytelling and copywriting. I’ll let him tell you in his own words:

—–
“The product and the messaging must be one and the same, right? It’s like a triangle approach I take with all storytelling…

1) What is the essence of the product? What is the product here to do? What is the messaging that we want to represent?
2) How can we best communicate that plainly and simply?
3) And thirdly, how do both of those things relate to human nature as a whole?

If those three things align, then I know we have the right messaging.”
—–

It’s hard to beat that simple formula.

Get down to the core, emotional benefits. Share those benefits with clarity as they related to human nature and psychology.

The only thing I would add here is that you can go beyond general human nature and address the specific nature, dreams and desires of your specific target audience.

Of course, Kobe knows that. He just didn’t say it in this interview.