Persuasion

You’ve Been Warned

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Before you write a word of copy, remember this:

Trouble awaits your prospect if your marketing doesn’t work.

Obviously, you’re marketing to win business and earn money. But that’s not the sole objective.

Your message needs to help your dream prospect escape the trouble lurking near his doorstep.

Here’s an over-the-top illustration I often use to make this point.

Which is more arresting? A headline that says “We help churches stay off the IRS naughty list”…

Or this:

Cover of direct mail piece showing man in suit with handcuffs on. Headline says "Pastors, check writer, church boards & trustees, just because your heart is right with God Doesn't Mean Your Book Are Right With the IRS!"
Part of a real direct mail piece from a financial educator giving seminars for religious organizations.

Again, I’m using an extreme example to illustrate the concept clearly.

Most accountants and bookkeepers would never use anything like this. Which is totally understandable.

But if your prospect is in danger of going to jail… having his organization shut down… or falling so far behind in their retirement accounts that he’ll NEVER be able to stop punching a clock…

You might want to shake him up a little to prevent that happening.

Are you pulling out all the stops to help protect your dream prospects from the danger that awaits them?

These are things worth thinking about before you start writing your emails, sales pages, presentation scripts and even social media posts.

A Shortcut to Irresistible Trust

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I remember exactly when my favorite marketing guru… became my favorite marketing guru.

In fact, I remember the SENTENCE that won me over.

He said “The key difference between rich people and poor people is that rich people get paid upfront.”

(Ten brownie points if you can name the guru. Now that I think about it, that oversimplified bit of wisdom may be attributed to people I’m not aware of. So I’ll still give you brownie points if you name anyone who said this)

Not sure how true that statement is… but that one single idea gave the guru a patch of real estate in my mind. That patch continued to grow for years… and made me happy to spend a whole lot of money learning from him.

You may have your own memory of a paradigm-shifting concept or mental picture that impacted you in a similar way.

This kind of big idea can be a shortcut to irresistible trust.

When you reframe how your prospect sees himself, his goals, challenges or even his place in the world, you can gain permanent residence in his brain, too.

Your insights can become the lens through which he sees everything else in your area of expertise.

It’s almost impossible NOT to trust a person who helps you understand yourself and your world. Then, once the idea takes root, confirmation bias kicks in, and the Semmelweis reflex guards the door.

(Semmelweis reflex, in case you’re unfamiliar, is a behavioral tendency to stick to preexisting beliefs and to reject fresh ideas that contradict them, even in the face of solid evidence to the contrary.)

How do you create these epiphanies, practically?

Look for common, relevant questions your dream prospects don’t have a clear, concise answer for. Or mysteries that befuddle them. Then fill in the blank.

Take life insurance, for example.

People have long wondered what kind of policy they should buy.  Salespeople give answers that sound self-serving. Well-intentioned advisors give the real but complicated answer, “it depends.”

Dave Ramsey took the shortcut.

“Buy term and invest the difference” is a clear and simple recommendation that cuts through the confusion.

No one follows half of that advice, but Dave’s business seems to be doing pretty well. Countless adoring fans swear by his advice.

And who knows how many people have bought life insurance from somebody because he gave them a clear direction to move in?

Argue against the quality of the idea if you like. You can’t deny its influence.

Here’s my advice for the day:

If you’re trying to figure out how to gain credibility with your target audience – and who isn’t? – prioritize your perspective-shifting big idea as a proof element.

Giving your reader/viewer a clearer view of the world will often sink in more deeply than traditional proof.

Your big idea may be the shortcut to trust you’ve been searching for.

Becoming Irresistibly Trusted

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The first time I needed to file taxes, I was clueless.

But my brother seemed to get it. He’d been working longer than me, so it was easy for me to defer to his judgement. I just got my taxes prepared where he had his done.

A couple years later, he learned about another firm that could (supposedly) get even bigger refund checks. He switched, so I switched. No critical thinking involved, no hesitation. I didn’t need a relationship with the accountant. I trusted my brother.

Then we both got audited by the IRS… right around the same time the accounting firm went out of business.

After that experience, I filed with a big-box preparer. It seemed like the safe choice.

But just a few years later, my brother told me about a solo CPA who told him she’d get him a good return. So I switched again. No critical thinking involved, no hesitation. Because I still trusted my brother, despite previous outcomes.

Now, when you read that, it sounds crazy. And it is a little crazy.

It should have been obvious to me that I needed to do my due diligence, especially after the whole audit situation.

Here’s the thing: your average prospect goes through similar thought processes and experiences when it comes to trust.

Before going further, I think it’s important to clarify…

The Distinction Between Trustworthy and Trusted.

Because there is an important difference.

  • Trustworthy means “I (probably) won’t get burned if I trust this person/firm.” It’s safe.
  • Trusted means “I want to trust this person/firm. It’s in my best interest to trust this person/firm.” It’s attractive & desirable.
Contrasting two images. One is a grassy field with no people and a sign saying "there are no mines in this field." This represents being trustworthy. The second is a packed playground, which represents being trusted.

It’s possible to be worthy of trust but not be trusted by the people who need your help the most.

Showing off certifications, listing licenses, even bragging on your solid track record (in instances where you’re allowed to do that) can make you appear trustworthy.

That’s a good thing, but is it good enough? I’d argue that it’s not. Even the rarest of financial designations are shared by hundreds, if not thousands, of other experts.

Which brings us to the topic at hand: Elevating yourself and/or your firm from trustworthy to irresistibly trusted.

You’ve undoubtedly consumed a lot of educational content on building trust.

I’ll be focusing here on concepts and ideas that haven’t been hammered into your head already.

The Truth About Loss Aversion

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hands fighting over a chocolate glazed donut

Imagine it’s 11:51 PM…

You’re laying on the couch, scrolling on your phone and starting to doze off.

Just as you’re about to put your phone down, you get an email from the bakery you visit every morning on the way to the office.

It says:

“We’re giving away a dozen FREE DONUTS to our favorite customers — if you can come into the shop right away.

“The night shift employees forgot we close at midnight now, so they just pulled 300 fresh glazed donuts out of the oven. We can’t hold these beauties until morning. Get here by midnight and you can have a dozen FREE. The glaze is still dripping!”

You have 9 minutes to jump up and shoot over to the bakery, which is just down the street. You’d have to rush, but you can make it.

Or you could keep scrolling on your phone until you slip into sweet unconsciousness.

What would you do?

Now imagine a different scenario…

It’s 1:51 AM.

You had a brutal day. Your team stayed late working on a big project and they agreed to come in at 6:00 to help finish up before the deadline.

To show your appreciation, you promised the team donuts in the morning. But your favorite bakery doesn’t open until 6:30, so you picked them up tonight.

You just crawled into your bed to get a few hours of sleep.

At that moment, you hear your brother unlock your front door and walk into the house. He pops in whenever he’s in town and doesn’t want to pay for a hotel.

The first thought that crosses your mind is that you NEVER should have given him that key.

Your second thought: that dude eats everything in the kitchen whenever he stops by. And he loves donuts…

What do you do?

In the first scenario, there’s a strong chance you’re not taking any action. You’ll ignore the “irresistible” offer of free donuts and fall asleep on the couch.

In the second scenario, there’s a 99% probability you’ll fly into action. You’re jumping out of bed and running toward the kitchen to make sure your brother doesn’t eat your team’s donuts.

You see where I’m going with this.

We’ve always heard that people are twice as likely to take action to avoid pain than to enjoy pleasure.

Some more recent studies indicate that, in fact, people react just as strongly to gains as they do to losses.

Apparently researchers haven’t been able to replicate results proving that “loss aversion” alone has a significant impact on decision-making.

(I wanted you to hear about this from me.)

Now, I haven’t conducted any clinical studies. When I think about it, I haven’t run loss aversion split-tests in a while.

I assumed the old info was true.

But based on experience, I still believe loss aversion is a compelling emotional force. The scenarios with the donuts above are solid illustrations.

So what’s the big takeaway here?

You know me. I’m always encouraging you to test different ideas to see what works best for you and your audience.

If you haven’t tried loss aversion as a tactic to increase conversions, give it a try. For example, you can use:

  • disappearing bonuses
  • real scarcity where people will miss out on the opportunity
  • expiring credits toward purchase (instead of discounts)

Test this stuff against simply trying to “add more value.” Then draw your own conclusions.

My second point is this: Researchers found that loss aversion begins to take over when losses are serious (because self-preservation is a priority for the brain).

When you’re using the negative argument, intensify the size and severity of the potential loss. Show the reader how much it’s going to cost him not to act:

  • Heart disease is inching closer every minute if you [BLANK]
  • The IRS could take thousands right out of your bank… unless you [BLANK]
  • Your wife will lose interest in you if you don’t do [BLANK]

Big losses, big reaction.

Give it a try in your own marketing.

What Your Spotify Wrapped Really Reveals About You

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I don’t know about you, but I’m not familiar with too many “offers” that get 50% conversion.

From any company.

Paid or free.

And then there’s Spotify Wrapped.

Fine, maybe it’s more of a feature than an “offer.”

But they package it up, offer it for a limited time and promote the heck out of it.

I haven’t seen this year’s numbers, but 51% of users checked out their Wrapped in 2022. About 14% of them also shared their results on social media.

The whole thing works pretty well. So well that YouTube and Apple have borrowed the idea. (Duolingo, too!)

What makes Wrapped so enticing?

It’s focused on the #1 most interesting topic on the planet: YOU.

We’re all the center of our own universes. So we’re incalculably interested in ourselves. How could we not be?

As an extension to that idea, we’re also fascinated by anything we believe can tell us more about ourselves. Help us understand ourselves better.

With Wrapped, we already know we listened to music all year. Spotify uncovers hidden patterns and tell you what your listening habits really say about you.

Over the years, they’ve diagnosed your music “personality” and assigned you to a city based on your music selection.

All ways of giving you ways to think about and categorize yourself in your own mind… share your (favorable) findings with the world… and compare/contrast/connect yourself with other people.

Genius.

People can get really attached to their categories. Myers-Briggs. Political parties. Astrological signs.

Even a simple dichotomy like entrepreneur vs. 9-5er.

And once they put themselves in a category, they can easily begin using it as the lens they see the world through.

This reality can produce profound influence.

Think about ways you can show your prospects and clients more about themselves. Help them understand themselves in a helpful new way.

And if you put them in categories you define – or give them a way to self-assess themselves into one…

You have an opportunity to shape how they see themselves, their optimal next steps, and more.

It’s a powerful position to be in. Use you power wisely.

P.S. Once people accept their categories, they see things differently. And they see different things.

There are certain ways to “trigger” those individuals with email subject lines.

I share more details about this in the Secret Handshake chapter of Subject Line Science, now available on Amazon Kindle and paperback.

This is one of the concepts David Garfinkel and I discussed on my recent appearance on The Copywriter Podcast. Enjoy!

Give Your Readers Rose-Colored Glasses

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Copywriter sunglasses with reflection of a bundle of roses in the lenses.

You’re a reader, right?

I know you’ve seen copy like this before:

I want to point out a few things about this copy device, which I call an identity preframe.

You see them at the beginning of sales pages/VSLs, webinars and occasionally on a website homepage.

Maybe you’ve even used something like this before.

Here’s the thing…

The identity preframe is set up to look like a filter.

A few seconds or centimeters of copy to make sure you’re only talking to ideal clients (and everyone else knows not to waste their time).

The example above even had a STOP hand and explicitly tells the reader to leave if he doesn’t meet the criteria.

It’s not a filter.

When done right it:

  • makes you identify a characteristic you possess (or think you possess) but wish was more pronounced
  • gives you a sense of empowerment
  • heightens the desire for the transformation.

Despite its construction, the copy isn’t designed to make anyone stop and leave. Rather, the idea is to make most readers stay and read more. To think “this presentation/pitch is all about the me I want to be.“

The example above goes a step further.

Bullet point #3 adds guilt into the mix. You’re going to fail your loved ones if you don’t step fully into this identity.

This kind of copy frames the rest of the copy in the perspective of “the me I want to be.”

Appeals to (aspirational) identity hit at a deeper level than features, benefits, advantages and opportunities can by themselves.

And certainly deeper than saying “this is for service providers, parents and 9-to-fivers who are thinking about starting their own business.”

How are you getting viewers/readers to see “the me I want to be” in your copy?

Outsourced Thinking (and Why It’s a Good Thing)

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Thinking is hard work. Most people avoid it at all costs.

If you can earn someone’s trust, he’ll gladly allow you to do some of this thinking for him.

If you can display deep expertise on a topic he’s interested in, he’ll happily outsource some of his thinking to you.

If you can minimize the perceived risk or difficulty of changing perspectives/approaches, you may find you have a loyal convert… and a paying client.

[I took this picture earlier this month after speaking at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the city’s largest university.]

This may all sound kind of negative or “manipulative,” but there’s nothing wrong with outsourcing brain work. In fact, most people are craving this kind of leadership.

Nobody can know everything, and even if we could, it would take a lifetime to learn it.

Why do that when we can just plug into someone who’s already an expert?

With that in mind, you may want to:

1) Build your trustworthiness.

2) Demonstrate your expertise.

3) Think about how the person you want to persuade perceives risk as it relates to the topic you want him to think differently about. Can you minimize the risk or reframe it to make it less frightening?

Take these steps and you’ll amp up your persuasive abilities in a major way.

4 Copywriting Triggers for Instant Sales

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There are 4 triggers that instantly turn someone into a buyer:

Trigger 1: His wife says/implies “Bring home X and you’ll get… something special.”

Or on the flip side, “Bring home Y or I’m going to cry.”

Trigger 2: He sees your offer as an easy way to step into the identity he craves or amplify the part of his current identity he’s intensely passionate about.

You can make your reader connect the dots between your offer and his identity on his own…

Or you can make it more obvious.

Not enough copywriters intentionally appeal to identity. Most are too busy thinking about features and benefits.

I encourage you to be one of the elite few that leverage its power.

Trigger 3: When your copy reframes his problem in such a way that he realizes he’s been looking at it all wrong… but now that he understands, the solution (your product/service) is obvious.

Trigger 4: The Stack. There’s a lot of focus on what’s known as a value stack. I’m a fan of the lesser-known desire stack. Both work.

In the following video clip, I discuss these 4 triggers with copywriting expert Maria Lloyd.

Maria has written six-figure email campaigns for more than two dozen brands (you’d definitely recognize more than a few of them), with an average boost to ROI of more than 400 percent.

And now, for a limited time, Maria is teaching copywriters and ambitious entrepreneurs how to create and launch their own six figure email campaigns in her program, Crash Course to Cash.

To be more specific, the deadline is Friday, March 31 at 11:59PM Central.

When you sign up (for as little as $75 down), you’ll get access to a collection of deep-dive trainings to help you sharpen your copywriting sword and leverage those sales triggers we just talked about.

The, starting April 7, you’ll get 8 weeks of live, hands-on training with Maria and her team. She’ll work with you to help you learn the skills you need to write effective email copy AND you’ll actually be working as you go.

There’s no doubt in my mind this will be a life-changing training.

I’m excited to announce that I’ve partnered with Maria to help make Crash Course to Cash even more valuable. When you become part of this first cohort, you’ll also gain access to my Inbox X-Factor course.

Inbox X-Factor gives you 365 days’ worth of email ideas and inspiration… 100+ subject lines… and 10 video training modules revealing my personal strategies for writing emails with maximum selling power.

When I do make it available for sale again, I’m planning to charge between $200 and $300 for it. That’s a value stack for you.

You can’t buy Inbox X-Factor anywhere else right now, so if you’re interested in getting access, sign up here, plus get all the details about Crash Course to Cash.

Have a productive day!

Don’t Let AI Do This to You

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What’s up, my friend?!

I should’ve said it sooner: happy new year. Hope you’ve been able to kick off 2023 with gusto.

After guzzling all that sparkling grape juice, I realized I left out an important point in my previous email about my 3 predictions for the year.

The major distinction I need to add pertains to the first part of Prediction #3:

The value of real expertise will increase.

Here’s how I see this playing out in 2023…

There will be an avalanche of mostly mediocre AI-generated content published.

Quantity will likely increase every day, but quality will lag for a while. It’ll be at least 6 to 12 months before folks get over their giddiness and notice the diminishing returns.

That means two things:

1) High quality human-generated content will become rarer relative to speed-focused stuff spit out by AI… and

2) Human buyers (because bots have no money) will be increasingly impacted by marketing that feels authentically personal and/or delivers entertainment as part of the interaction.

Remember: TikTok gets more visitors than Google for a reason. Humans crave entertainment. They DEMAND it. That won’t change anytime soon.

AI is great at putting together information. It’s nowhere near ready for prime time when it comes to entertainment, especially in smaller niches.

Here’s the takeaway. Two things.

First, I encourage you to get familiar with AI tools. There’s some incredible stuff out there. I’m especially fond of HelloScribe for writing purposes.

But don’t let AI do all the work for you. I’ve had too many conversations with entrepreneurs who are overly optimistic about the copy-pasteability of AI output. 

Don’t fall for it.

It’s true. You can get decent content/copy from AI. It will continue to get better over time.

But it’ll be a long time before it’s great. A long time before it’s authentically personal, especially in certain situations…

Secondly, the time of being Switzerland and playing it safe is over.

Work on adding personality and, yes, even entertainment into your content and copy.

Copywriting is no longer “salesmanship in print.” It’s SHOWMANSHIP in print.

I’ll be talking more about this in the coming days and weeks.

For now, I’ll point you to a conversation I had with copywriting legend John Forde on the topic. (The video should start at 32:01.)

Have a productive day!

P.S. Even as artificial intelligence platforms improve their copy-pasteability, it’s still going to be a LONG time before they’re able to tap into the pure creativity of human copywriters.

Here’s a quick illustration using curiosity-drenched bullets:

AI can’t touch copy like this for multiple reasons.

Firstly, these bullets draw on context not included in the content itself. Particularly the one about the curse.

Secondly, AI still has a way to go into understanding why people use language the way we do. The bot is programmed to predict what word will follow the previous word, based on a bank of words it’s been trained on.

But it doesn’t understand what it’s saying, let alone why we say what we say or how to phrase copy/content for a particular emotional effect.

That’s why, for now, copywriters can still do what AI can’t do.

Long live the humans!

Is It Really True that “Facts Tell, Stories Sell”?

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How many times have you heard the sage advice that “facts tell, stories sell”?

Now, how many times have you heard it stated as a fact… instead of illustrated with a story?

Maybe you’re luckier than me. Maybe you’ve heard some good stories “proving” the fact that stories sell.

But here’s what makes it really interesting: “facts tell, stories sell” is both true and false.

Not that it’s bad advice. Quite the opposite. But something important is missing.

With one simple statement, a 10-year old Jeff Bezos made his grandmother burst into tears during a road trip in Texas…

He wasn’t trying to be mean. He wasn’t even trying to be persuasive.

He was trying to show off his intelligence.

The story goes something like this.

During this trip, Little Jeff heard a commercial on the radio saying that every puff of a cigarette takes 2 minutes off of your life. Nana Bezos smoked cigarettes, so Jeff thought he’d do the math to impress and inform his grandparents.

When he came up with his number, he tapped grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, “At two minutes per puff, you’ve taken nine years off your life!”

That’s when the waterworks started.

We don’t know if she gave up smoking on that day, but we do know this: that “fact” struck a deep nerve.

Why?

Because stories DO sell… and sometimes the right facts make a person tell himself an emotionally charged story.

Back to the Bezoses:

When Jeff said “hey Granny, you’re going to die 9 years early because of those cancer sticks,” here’s what happened…

Grandma Bezos told herself a story. Could’ve been:

  • This habit of mine is stealing time I should be spending with my grandson
  • My grandson will be so hurt when I’m gone. No more summer road trips… no more birthday cards… when we should have had so many more
  • My behavior is making this sweet boy imagine me dying. How could I be so selfish?

You get the picture.

Little Jeff didn’t have to tell any of those stories. Grandma did that on her own… automatically.

So here’s today’s lesson:

Keep in mind that your clients and prospects are prone to telling themselves stories based on the facts you tell them.

Choose which facts you share and how you share them wisely. Because the facts may lead your audience to draw different conclusions than you think, as illustrated in this video clip:

And YES, tell more stories.

Make sure to tell the stories that tell the stories you want to tell.

The good thing about telling a story (versus stats and facts) is that you have more control over the story that plays out in the other person’s mind. You can more skillfully guide him as he draws his own conclusions.

I may write about how to structure stories for maximum control over your reader/listener’s conclusions.

If you’d like to know more about that, stay tuned. My next article will dive into that.