Dynamic Copywriting

I suspect Joe Wurzelbacher was ready to fall out of his chair Wednesday night when John McCain used him as an example of why he disagreed with Sen. Barack Obama's tax plan.

Wurzelbacher, aka "Joe the Plumber," has become an instant celebrity after he asked Obama a question about how the candidate's tax plan would effect him.

But my point here is not to discuss politics, but how putting a face to your ideas and issues can propel them far beyond mere facts or figures can. What McCain did was nothing more complicated than to tell the Ohio plumber's story as a way of getting his political message across.

All of us have messages we want to convey. In business, one of the most compelling stories any company can tell is about quality.

• Why do your building materials save energy costs?
  
• Why do your burgers taste so great?
  
• Why do your clients gain so much more than your competitors' clients?

Another persuasive story form is the success story.

Success stories are small vignettes about real people your products or services have helped. They focus on how these people were able to solve their problems because of a business relationship with your company.

Success stories are extremely powerful for the same reason Joe the Plumber's story is a better way to illustrate tax plans. Few of us understand the inner workings of economic policy (although lately it could be argued that we are all becoming experts), but we do understand about people.

When I read about a client who overcame a serious legal problem because of the hard work of his lawyer, I understand (and more importantly, I believe). When I read about a good marriage counselor that was able to help a couple work through their problems and save their marriage, I cheer them on and I form a bond with the people this story was about.

Stories sell because they communicate on a gut level. They let us experience the emotional joy of witnessing a problem being solved and a stressful situation overcome.

So the lesson here is to go out and find your own "Joe the Plumber" story that you can use to help communicate your message. Illustrate your facts and figures with real life examples using real people. Put faces to your communications and they will resonate.


COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Heather Margolis, Director of Marketing, and Yoshi Watanabe, Principle Software Engineer, of Kadient, Inc. Kadient has already been the topic of two previous blog posts I've written, but I was so impressed by how they go about doing business that I asked if I could interview them by telephone.

Kadient makes sales coaching and enablement software that makes the lives of salespeople easier by giving them the content they need, when they need it, depending upon the situation they are in.

One of the constant problems sales executives experience is that their sales people often don't actually use sales support software provided by their companies. If they perceive that the program is too awkward, too hard to learn or gets in the way of actually making sales, most employees will stop using software and go back to doing things the old way.

Mr. Watanabe spoke about how the company in general, and the development teams in particular, underwent a paradigm shift that is unique among technical companies. Traditionally the emphasis is on product excellence. The thinking is that if a company makes the very best, most technically advanced product, the market will come to them.

He said, "It is not uncommon for developers to create products with no idea of how it is used and who is using it and what problems they are having."

This, of course, made me think of the old expression, "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." Perhaps this is a great idea in principle, but it ignores the reality of marketing and the necessity to open up two-way communications with customers. It also begs the question of whether the mousetrap is better in just its creators' eyes or in the eyes of those people who are intended to use it.

Mr. Watanabe describes how Kadient's paradigm shift began. "We asked ourselves: Ok we've built our software (the first version). Does it really help the users solve their problems? And after getting feedback from users, we had to admit that the answer was no. It was confusing and cumbersome to the users and didn’t solve some of their major painpoints."

The system, they realized, was the center of their focus – not the end users' needs.

So Kadient shifted their thinking from just product development to "User Stories." They brought together people who had daily contact with actual customers and users, product managers, developers and the marketing team for a two and a half day session.

Everyone who represented users and had contact with them were given index cards to describe what users wanted, not just when it came to the product, but also in day to day life. For instance, a sales rep is working with 20 prospects at a time and may not remember every status. They may also be a young professional always on the go and needs things to be quick and easy.. At the end of the session they had produced 100s of index cards with statements about what their users wanted.

These wants, of course, were then shown to actual customers, users and buyers within the companies they serviced for further refinement.

This led to an understanding that some users wanted some things while other users wanted different things. With this understanding, Kadient created several different "buyer personas" to help them make each of these buyer needs more personal.

For example, one of their buyer personas is a sales rep named "Anya." Anya is a successful sales person for a financial services company who has been in the top 10% for the last five quarters. Her goal is to do less of her own administrative tasks and free herself to spend more face time with actual customers.

"Luke" on the other hand is a 25 year old with sales talent but is not achieving the company's expectations for him. He needs a system that will help him build a better pipeline of prospects and needs help understanding these prospects' needs.

Obviously, Kadient has many other buyer personas, but Anya and Luke illustrate how they have put effort into personalizing the needs and goals of two types of end users. But it is what Kadient does next that really seems to set them apart.

Ms. Margolis said, "We segment a market, but then we go a step further above and beyond."

In company meetings it is not uncommon to hear conversations that begin with, "What would Anya do?" or "What would Luke do?"

In other words, they don't think of their buyer personas as mere segments of their marketplace, they think of them as actual people. Composites of many similar users, but people nevertheless.

They have created life-sized cardboard cutouts of Anya and Luke that get moved around within Kadient's building. One day they can be in a conference room, another day in the lunch room, and another in someone's cubicle. The idea is to get to "know" Anya and Luke as if they were real people.

And it is not just the marketing people who are tuned in with these personas. "The thing that I am the most impressed with is how the engineering and product development people have embraced the concept of buyer personas and user personas. It makes our sales, marketing and development teams much more in-tuned with each other," said Ms. Margolis.

So what kinds of results have these ideas delivered? The day before our conversation, Ms. Margolis was interviewing a buyer with one of their customer companies. This customer will save $500,000 that couldn't have been realized if the product wasn't actually being used.

The feedback she gave Ms. Margolis was that, "They employees keep talking about how easy Kadient's software is to use."

Perhaps that is the greatest testament Kadient could have had.



COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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As I listened to Hillary Clinton's speech last week in the Democratic Convention (I know, I have been drawing a lot of marketing lessons from the presidential race, but I promise not to turn this into a political blog), I was struck by how often she weaved "case studies" into her speech.

She talked about a single mom who had adopted two children with disabilities and then lost her job. She also talked about a young marine who was worried about his buddies who were still over in Iraq. And she talked about people who were worried about getting needed healthcare for their families.

I've noticed that Mrs. Clinton has done this often over the course of this campaign. The people she talks about are real people she has met along the campaign trail.

Ronald Reagan did this too. Many of his speeches were laced with stories about actual people who were facing incredible challenges.

And you have to admit that regardless of your political persuasions, the use of these "case studies" makes for effective communications.

Now let me tell you the wrong way to do this. There is a personal injury lawyer who advertises extensively here in the Dallas / Fort Worth area. Imagine the most annoying, most grating lawyer ads you've ever heard. Well this guy is worse.

He calls himself "The Texas Hammer" and he promises to "fight for you to get you the money you need." (Sigh).

Anyway, he also lists some of the recent cases he has one. Well actually he lists the dollar amounts of the awards he has won. He tells very little about the clients themselves as human beings. He might say they injured their leg or wrist or whatever, but no information about them as people that would make us sympathize with them or relate to them.

In other words, they are presented as dollar figures, not as people who were helped out of a difficult problem.

Don't make this mistake.

I've seen a lot of case studies that do the same thing. The subjects are presented as cardboard, lifeless characters who are little more than extras in their own movie.

But readers want to connect with the people they are reading about. Allow readers to experience the emotions and problems of your case studies subjects. Delve into their fears, the raw emotional nerves of their troubles. THEN when you show how they escaped from these problems, the reader will cheer for their happy ending as they would for a dramatic movie.

Hillary won 18 million votes, and I have to wonder if a lot of them were a result of her ability to tell compelling stories about our fellow citizens. And if it works in politics, it will also work in business.


COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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I just read a really great article by John Jantsch in his "Duct Tape Marketing" blog that shows how storytelling can be used to promote even the most unlikely of products.

The article, which is called Blogging Customer Stories, is about a New Hampshire Sign Making company named Lincoln Sign Company.

What Lincoln Signs does that is unique is they blog about the process of creating custom signs for their customers. As they put it, "we are using our blog to sell the EXPERIENCE of getting a sign.” As they blog about a customer's sign, they are, of course, giving the customer additional exposure, but they are also creating a case study about the sign and the details of making it.

For Lincoln Sign Company, they benefit because they create web content, get traffic from search engines, and enhance to value of their signs. Here are some more quotes from Lincoln Sign Company's blog:

"It has been said that the best marketing one can have is for a customer to want to tell your story to someone else. We want to provide a tool to help people tell a story about your business."

“At the end , you get more than a sign, you get a sign, AND the story of how that sign was made.”

"Telling the story of these signs being made educates a potential customer about the process and care that is taken in presenting their "brand" to the world. There are days we wish we could give anyone thinking about purchasing a sign a tour of our shop, and this weblog is our opportunity to do just that."

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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I just read a free ebook I want to recommend to you on how to use storytelling techniques in ads and other marketing copy.

The ebook, The Greatest Marketing Secrets of the Ages, is by the legendary online marketing guru Yanik Silver.

It is basically a history of direct marketing and advertising writing by some of the historic copywriters in the past. What really jumped out at me was how many of these classic ads were presented in the form of stories. And even those that didn't had a "backstory" that seemed to exist behind the actual copy.

For example, he talks about Max Sackheim, who wrote the classic ad "Do You Make These Mistakes In English?" This ad selling a mail order English grammer course, was so successful that it ran for 40 straight years.

It was basically a story about a man who was embarassed by his poor grammer and this course helped him comport himself with greater dignity and earned him a promotion.

The book also mentions two ads which sold mail order food that were supposedly written in the words of the fisherman and grapefruit grower whose meticulous standards provided their customers with outstanding product.

Then there is the story of Claude Hopkins who turned Van Camp's pork and beans into a money machine. At the time, only 6% of housewives cooked store-bought canned beans. The other 94% cooked their beans at home (it takes about 16 hours to prepare beans, and even then the result is usually crispy beans on top and mushy beans below).

What Hopkins did was to tell the story of the process Van Camp's used to select their beans, how they used soft water in the cooking process, how the skins were made less tough by using lime, and how the steam ovens they used were sealed to keep the flavor in.

This was a story, and it was hugely successful in getting housewives to buy Van Camp's pork and beans.

There are also examples of how storytelling has been used to sell Ethan Allen furniture, overcoats, magazine subscriptions and books.

I should point out that Yanik does use this free ebook as a platform to sell his own products, but that doesn't get in the way of conveying some very useful information.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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If you haven't checked out Casey Hibbard's blog on case studies, Casey Hibbard's Success Story Marketing, you will find it to be a wealth of really useful information on how to market any product or service using case studies and customer success stories.

Right now she is wanting to collect examples of companies that have successfully used their own customers' success stories to promote their businesses. In other words, she is gathering case studies on successful uses of case studies.

Here's what she needs:

-- Examples of creative, unique uses or formats for customer stories. Not just your ordinary web site or sales use.

or

-- Examples of stellar results with customer stories - with any type of use. Maybe your business added customer stories and have seen more web site traffic, more upsales, more cross-sales, or bumps in sales in a certain vertical market.

If you have these examples you would like to share with her, send them to casey@compelling-cases.com.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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I just ran across the following article by marketing guru and the father of the concept of "positioning" in the marketplace, Jack Trout, called Greatest Stories Never Told about marketing stories that you never hear of. The organizations he mentions, Wal Mart, Southwest Airlines,SKF, the Bestty Crocker division of General Mills, Papa Johns Pizza and even the Democratic Party are fascinating, but these organizations seem to not realize the power of actually telling these remarkable stories.

Religions also spread their messages with stories. While I'm not familiar with Islam and Hinduism, I do know about Judaism and Christianity.

Christianity is based entirely on the story of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. While he was alive, Jesus himself spread his message with stories he called parables.

Judaism tells and retells its great stories too. During the Passover holiday the story of Moses leading the people of Israel out of Egyptian captivity is told to hearers who realize this one story sums up what it means to be Jewish.

If religions spread their messages with stories, why aren't business organizations? Does your company nit pick over quality issues? Then there is a powerful story there.

Does your company take great pains to service the customer after the sale? Then tell this story too.

How about product development? Tell the story about how your company spends time, money and manpower to make sure your new products have no equal in the marketplace.

Do you have lots of satisfied customers who overcame big problems as a result of doing business with you? Tell these stories in the form of case studies and get the word out in press releases, print ads, presentations, or your web content.

What other business stories are out there? Give me your feedback with examples of great stories that need to be told.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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One of the things that happens to us as we go about our task of daily living, is that we build mental constructs of our world based upon how we interpret our experiences.

For example, I really struggled with my grades through high school and barely made it to college. I had the ability, but I lacked any belief in myself as a student.

This lack of belief was a construct I had created in my mind.

Annette Simmons, in her book, The Story Factor, illustrates another type of construct.

She was at a storytelling festival in 1992, standing next to a rough-looking man who illustrated the power of stories for her. When a young black man got up to speak, the rough-looking man uttered a racial epitaph under his breath, folded his arms in front of him and stared away from the speaker.

But as the young man spoke and told his stories, something changed. The rough-looking man became deeply involved with what the young man spoke about and ended with tears in his eyes.

In a sense, this man is like our would-be customers. They may have mental prejudices and filters built up as a result of things they've experienced. But a story can get through to them when no other form of communication can.

In my own story, it was hearing about other people who had learned to develop good study skills that inspired me and allowed me to believe that I too could become a good student. One movie in particular that influenced me was the Paper Chase, which was about a Harvard law student who spent hours and hours studying while falling in love with his hated professor's daughter.

It was the power of such stories that enabled me to radically transform my beliefs in my own abilities. I become a top student who was able to get into and succeed in law school, one of the toughest academic arenas there is.

Stories had broken through my construct that I was a poor student and helped me make a 180 degree turn in the opposite direction.

Have you ever had the frustrating experience of trying to counsel someone with a problem, who shot down every single solution you proposed? "I've tried that already," "That won't work in my case," or "I can't do that because ___."

Such a person has a construct that won't budge against logic, facts and reasoning. But tell that person a story about someone else in their situation and watch them listen. Watch them change like that prejudiced man Annette Simmons mentioned in The Story Factor.

I have a little secret to tell you. Whenever I've watched Spiderman or Indiana Jones in action, I tend to think I'm that character. I become that character while I am reading or watching the story. And even after that story is over, I tend to feel heroic.

What about your customers? What about the people who have built up constructs that don't let them see that what you offer is different? What stories can you tell that will help them see your solutions in a new light?

I would suggest that case studies - customer success stories about your other customers who were faced with big problems that were overcome because of your product or service, might be the big answer to how to communicate to these would be customers. Set aside your facts and logic for a while and just tell your marketplace stories.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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I just read (and Dugg) Vin Montello's post announcing his new ebook called Seven Story Secrets That Skyrocket Sales and wanted to let you folks know about it right away.

As you know, I've been on my own kick lately about the power of storytelling as a marketing tool. To put it simply, STORIES SELL.

What got my attention right away was his very first secret which had to do with telling a story in the copy's headline. I can't imagine a reader being able to resist the kind of headline he talks about.

The other thing that struck me is that Vin is also just giving his ebook away, free and without even asking readers to opt onto a list. I wonder if Vin has been reading my email here, but I originally planned to use the ebook I finished last week, The Plot Thickens: Why Case Studies Create New Customers as an opt in device. But I got some really good advice from David Meerman Scott who suggested that it would have a better chance of going viral if there were no strings attached.

I really recommend that you read Vin's ebook and also Digg it or Stumble it. It really should be bookmarked.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

I just read a great article on Patrick McEvoy's terrific blog, Rainmakers' Best Practices, called How to Sue Drug Companies for Free.

The article features a very simple video that was posted on YouTube on May 1, 2007. Briefly, the video is a very simple presentation by a young lady sitting at her desk discussing Defective Drugs and how to sue Drug Companies.

McEvoy says the video has received over 6500 hits in the year it was first posted, and asks lawyers why they don't put up similar videos that explain a legal problem they work with.

Just imagine, he asks his readers, if a simple, five minute video could generate over 6000 people calling their law offices or visiting their web sites? How much new business would that little video create for a lawyer?

What really struck me was how easy it would be for anyone to produce a similar video to market their own business or professional services.

The easiest way to attract new business, is to give away free, valuable information. "How to" articles, white papers, tip sheets or other formats all demonstrate that you are an expert in your field.

But let me also mention another way to produce a simple video if you (like me) are lacking in a lot of technical know how.

I recently discovered that Powerpoint presentations can be converted to videos by using Microsoft Movie Maker. Movie Maker comes loaded on most Windows packages (which means you probably already have it on your computer, even if you don't already know it).

Just take an existing Powerpoint presentation, or create a new one, and turn it into a video with Movie Maker. You can even record your own voice narrating the presentation.

Then you simply upload the video to YouTube, or any of the hundreds of video sharing sites. I bet you will be astonished by the traffic you receive.

Be sure you read Patrick McEvoy's article and watch the video at How to Sue Drug Companies for Free.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

What do you find more credible, someone who brags about how their company is "the best," or a third party endorsement by a very satisfied customer of that same company?

It goes without saying, doesn't it, that a third party can give your message far more believability than you could ever give it by "tooting your own horn"?

Third Party Testimonials

Third party endorsements are the ultimate marketing tool, if you can get them.

This is why companies spend so much time and money on public relations. One mention in the media is worth millions in advertising. Not because the exposure reaches more people, but because the impact of being touted by a newspaper, television program or radio show is so much more credible.

Depending on which research study you read, the average American is exposed to over 10,000 advertisements or marketing messages a day. Which begs the question, why in the world should they tune into your message amidst all that clutter?

A third party, who has experienced how good your product or service is, and how helpful your customer service staff is, will be listened to. The hearer knows this is a different message than the typical self-serving promotional material most marketers proclaim.

As a result, this simple message by another party will always cut through more of the clutter than your own message which is always viewed as suspect if it is heard at all.

The Power of a Compelling Story

Now, in addition to the power of a third party singing your praises, what if you communicated your message in the form of a compelling story?

A story with a plot and drama. A story in which one of your customers faced a major problem and your company helped them resolve that problem and achieve a successful outcome?

Stories are powerful. They engage people and draw them in. They allow people to see themselves and their own circumstances in this other person's or other company's struggle to overcome a problem.

So now we have considered the possibility of communicating your message by means of a third party endorsement and a compelling story. What if your message also contained useful and valuable information?

Helpful Information and Expertise

This information could simply be in the form of a few tips on how to solve problems or avoid costly mistakes. It should also contain your company's expertise on solving or preventing such problems for your clients.

In other words, the useful information you convey should demonstrate that your company is very good at what you do without bragging or "tooting your own horn."

So how can you package your message in such a way that it contains a third party endorsement, a compelling story and helpful information?

Case Studies: A Very Powerful Marketing Tool

We are talking here about case studies, also known as client success stories.

I'm sure you have some satisfied customers who are pleased with your product or service. Why not ask them if you can have someone interview them for a case study? As mentioned earlier, the case study will have a plot which consists of the client's problem and how you helped them solve it.

But it should also contain quotes from your customer's key managers who say good things about you. And it should conclude with valuable, practical information from you.

The finished case study should read like a short magazine article, and can then be included in an ad, sent to the media as a press release, or posted on your website. (Read a previous article on this site, Ten Ways to Boost Your Sales With Case Studies, for more ways to promote your business with case studies).

Regardless of the form, you can bet that your case study will cut through a lot of the clutter that bombards your prospective customers each day. The same people who ignore your costly ad campaign will pay attention to a well-written success story.

You will probably find that most of your business clients will be very willing to be featured in a case study. All you really have to do is ask.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

As I mentioned recently in an article called How to Use Case Studies to Promote Your Business, case studies can be one of the most effective methods of promoting your business.

A good case study is the story of how your firm solved a serious problem for one of your customers or clients. The customer, of course is the star, but you or your firm is the agent of change that turned the situation around.

In a real way, a case study is better than a referral because it is a compelling story. When other business people read how you solved someone else's problem, they will likely realize that you are the best person or business to solve their problem as well.

How can you market your business with case studies?

1. Include it in a press release. The media is always looking for new stories that contain a practical problem solving element to them. Your press release may be no more than an abridged version of the case study with a mention that the full version is available upon request.
   
   
2. Send it to prospects or existing customers. Sending out case studies is a great way to keep in touch and to let people know what you do. The story "feel" of a case study makes it seem much less like a marketing piece, and therefore softens the sales message while at the same time making it more effective.
   
   
3. Give it to your sales people. Sales people love case studies because they are "proof" of your effectiveness in solving problems. They can use them in their presentations to demonstrate key points andas testimonials. They also make convincing sales brochures.
   
   
4. Post it on your website. Providing quality, useful content on your site is a powerful way to increase traffic.
   
   
5. Use case studies as articles in your newsletter. These success stories show real world examples of how you solve problems in your market place. Even if your newsletter is an internal piece for employees, it still helps to educate your own people.
   
   
6. Use case studies as a speaking topic. If your executives occasionally give speaches or talks, a case study makes an excellent presentation. It can be adapted as a powerpoint or a handout.
   
   
7. Include case studies in proposals for new business. When you are competing for new business, a proposal that contains one or more case studies demonstrates very effectively your firm's competancies.
   
   
8. Adapt case studies as lead generation materials. Not only is it a great free giveaway, it can also be a tremendous enticement for prospects to request the full version if your piece only gives them the first part of the case study. Think of it as a cliff hanger that they must request the rest of the story to find out how a problem was resolved.
   
   
9. Use as testimonials. As a general rule, client testimonials are nice to have but lack the power of a story. By asking clients who send in positive feedback to be interviewed for a case study, you convert their comments into a compelling success story.
   
   
10. Use as a trade show handout. Case studies are much better than free golf balls as a way to interest prospects and turn them into clients. You might even enlarge the case study to print on your exhibit wall for all passersby to see.
    

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

I'm always a little surprised at how seldom businesses use case studies to market themselves.

When I use the term "case study" I'm not referring to the kind of academic case histories used in law school or business school (and probably a lot of other professional educational programs I'm not as familiar with).

The case studies we are talking about here are simply "success stories" in which one of your clients is the main character, and your product or service solves a major problem for this client.

Suppose, for example, that your client is a mid-sized distribution center that was having a lot of trouble running out of inventory and getting their customers' orders fulfilled. Your company provides a comprehensive inventory management system that gives instant tracking of what products are needed for each customer and what vendors have those items in stock.

Your company and your customer work together to solve their inventory problems and the issues of getting their customers' orders delivered in a timely manner.

The result is beyond your customer's expectations and their business jumps up in earnings accordingly.

In essence, this case study is a three-act play of sorts.

• Act One: Your client had a problem that was causing lost business, extra costs and a lot of anxiety for its executives.
  
• Act Two: They discover your company and your service and you work with them to achieve an ideal solution to their problem.
  
• Act Three: The results are excellent. Their problems are not only solved, but the people involved are happy (you always want to put the human element in a good case study).

Case studies are effective because they are stories. We remember stories and will read them when our eyes glaze over at other marketing materials. When we read about the "characters" in a story or a true life case study, we tend to identify with that person's situation, struggles and journey toward a resolution.

This last point is really true. Think back to some fantasy movie you've watched in which the situation is very far removed from your own personal reality, like the Spider Man movies, or Battlestar Galactica, or Robin Hood. I'm fairly certain you don't spend your spare time swinging from tall skyscrapers, fighting battles in space or defending the poor from evil knights with bows and arrows while wearing tights (ooh, bad visual), but you still relate or identify with characters in a good story.

The same is true with case studies because they are stories. You are probably not in the distribution industry, and your problems are probably not the same as the business I described above. But you do face problems that need to be solved, and as a result, you might still consider the systems company as a firm that could help you.

In the next article in this series, I will write about how many ways a case study can be used to produce excellent results for promoting your business.


COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

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“It was a dark and stormy night….”

I'm sure you know how Snoopy's opus goes from there: “A shot rang out,” “a woman screams,” and “a pirate ship appears on the horizon.”

As far as communication devices go, it is hard to beat the old fashioned story. Opportunities for mixing stories with copywriting abound and some of them are pretty darn good sales tools.

I like to think of a story as a “before and after sandwich.” You start with the “Before” condition. This is where your customers have a problem. The problem produces pain. The customers try other solutions to no avail, but eventually the pain becomes intolerable and they seek you out.

The other slice of bread is the “After” resolution. The problem is solved, the pain is gone and the customers are grateful to you and your company for coming to the rescue.

The meat of the sandwich is how your product or service moves this person from the “Before Condition” to the “After Resolution.” This is where you show off your skill, expertise, benefits, quality, hard work and customer care. This is also where you show how and why you are unique from all the other solutions the customer tried before finding you.

You can incorporate stories on your website, direct mail or your advertisements. If you capture the emotional import of why your customers must solve these problems, your story will be powerfully effective.

Your stories can be true, as in the case of client testimonials or case histories, or they can be fictional as in the case of a “composite” character who is made up of several of your real customers.

In order to be truly effective, make sure both the Before” and “After” situations are full of emotion. This point was brought home to me yesterday when I saw Will Smith’s new movie, “Pursuit of Happyness.” In most respects I would rate this as an outstanding movie. Smith and his real-life son both gave the acting performances of their lives. The story was gripping as well.

But the one complaint I had about the movie was its ending. After going through all the trials and misery this man went through, and after witnessing his unshakable courage, the ending came quick and was over too soon, without giving me the chance to enjoy his triumph with him.

If you are going to make your readers/audience live through all the emotional pain of a story, you should also let them experience the joy and triumph that comes at the end. As a marketing message, a story without an emotional payoff, just doesn't deliver the goods.

I’d be very interested to hear about what your experiences have been in using stories with your copywriting and marketing efforts. Make a comment and tell us what you think.

COPYRIGHT © 2007, Charles Brown

freelance copywriter, ghost writer, web content writer, white papers

This is the third, final, and perhaps the most important, article in a series on the topic of features vs. benefits. It will deal with the emotional reasons people buy any product or service.

This series was inspired by the many ads, websites and marketing materials I’ve seen recently that seem to offer little or no benefits to the would-be customer. Hints, yes. Vague references to something better, yes. But very, very few strong benefit statements that boldly tell the customer how this product or service will change their lives, solve their problems or open up new opportunities for them.

So now let’s get started on the all-important emotional benefits.

Emotions outsell logic and facts 10 to 1. There’s an old but true saying that goes, “people buy on emotion and justify with logic.” Even for corporate customers, your material must convince a human buyer who makes decisions in part based on how these decisions will further her career or cast her in a bad light with others in the company. Leaving out the emotional element can, and often is, fatal to your efforts.

Emotional benefits go right to the heart (literally) of why people make decisions. Often called “psychological triggers,” these reasons are the needs that operate like software in our brains.

Take, for example, home exercise equipment. The logical benefits behind making such a purchase might be to lose weight, to be healthier or to have more energy. All valid reasons that should be included in your copy if you are selling such a product.

But the emotional benefits might be to look good to members of the opposite sex, to enhance your own confidence, to help your career because you look better, to be accepted by others or to be able to wear certain clothing in the summer. All of these reasons might sound slightly shallow, but they are a part of all our psychological makeup.

According to John Caples in his book, Tested Advertising Methods (Fifth Edition) a partial list of these psychological triggers (which he calls appeals) is:

• Make more money
  
• Save money
  
• Retirement security
  
• Better health now
  
• Health care security
  
• Security in old age
  
• Career advancement
  
• Sex, acceptance by the opposite sex, love or affection
  
• Greed, including all the things that money can buy
  
• Fear of loss, fear of failure or fear of losing
  
• Duty/Honor/Professionalism, which means our altruistic motives of doing what’s right or best for others or simply doing our jobs well, or doing what’s right for our employer or organization
  
• Desire to avoid embarrassment or rejection
  
• Desire for acceptance or popularity(or as Caples puts it, the desire to be one of the “in” group)
  
• Competitiveness (which might include the desire to own a better car than your neighbor)

As you look over this list of psychological triggers (which is by no means a complete list of the emotional reasons people make decisions) you will notice that sometimes different triggers can be used to sell the same product or service.

For example, going back to that corporate buyer mentioned earlier, she might be motivated by her professionalism to do what was right for her company, her desire for career advancement, her fear of hurting her career by making a bad decision (back in the 60s, 70s and 80s a common business proverb advised that no one ever lost their job for choosing IBM), fear of making a bad decision which might turn out to be an embarrassment

With all this said, I’d like to mention a very good method for making all these emotional reasons and psychological triggers very real to the reader of your material. In her bookWeb Copy That Sells, Maria Veloso uses a device she calls the emotional scenario to paint a vivid picture for the reader.

What Veloso’s emotional scenario does is create a story-like scene in which the reader can see and feel the emotional cost of the problem they now face. Then she puts the reader right inside another scene to contrast that problem scene, which show how they could feel if the problems were resolved. This second scene allows the reader to experience the ownership of your product and assumes that the sale has already been made.

It works like this (we’ll go back to using the home exercise equipment mentioned earlier):

It’s 2:00 in the afternoon and you find that you are having to tuck your shirt back in again because your “spare tire” keeps your clothing from fitting right. You’ve been trying to catch the new woman’s eye for weeks now, but you think she doesn’t pay any attention to you because you look out of shape and over weight. On top of all that, you are getting tired and listless and don’t know how you’ll have the energy to make it until the end of the day.

Now imagine it’s just four weeks after buying your new Super Ab Cruncher. Your clothes fit great and you feel more lean and muscular than you have in years. You feel like a bundle of energy and your boss has complimented you twice this week on the productivity level you have been performing at. On top of that, the new woman just asked you out for drinks after work.

Ok that would definitely need more work before I would ever put that on an ad or website, but as rough as it is you still get the idea of to put the reader, as the main character, into an emotional scene.

Remember that your customers and clients are first of all people, not analytical machines. It takes more than facts and logic to persuade any human to make a decision or take action. If your ads, website or marketing materials fail to take into account the emotional nature of the people you are writing to, you will never see the results you are looking for.

freelance copywriter, ghost writer, web content writer, white papers

COPYRIGHT © 2006, Charles Brown

As a general rule, you just can’t go wrong making your customer the “star” of your advertisement, web content or sales letter. Another way to put this is to focus on solving your customers’ problems (and I include needs, wants, fears, ambitions, desires, frustrations etc. under the umbrella of “problems”).

But there is an exception to this rule. Many successful ads have told stories in which someone else appears to be the “star.”

These people all had a problem, and all found a solution to that problem. Look back at some of the very powerful ads you’ve read, seen or heard that were first person stories about someone who found relief from a difficult situation.

Or look at those stories that were not in the first person, but had the feel of a case history. Again, the formula is the same. A person, family or business faced a serious problem, which are leading to very painful consequences. But fortunately (just in time) a solution arrived on the scene in the form of a product, company or service, leading to a “happily ever after resolution.”

Now, I would like to suggest that these story-like ads were not exceptions to the rule after all. If these ads are well written, the customer identifies with the person being talked about. His problems are your customer’s problems. His pain is felt by your customer. The serious consequences he faced are consequences you customer might face.

In all these cases, your customer is still the star, albeit by identification. This is why stories are so powerful. If your customer identifies with the person facing this problem, or if your customer has also faced this same problem, the customer sees himself in your ad.

This opens up a lot of ways to approach your ad. If you can present your ad as a story or a case history that your customers can identify with, they will form a connection with the person you portray.

Stories are incredibly powerful selling tools. As long as your customers are the “starts,” even if by identification.

COPYRIGHT © 2006, Charles Brown

I have already written a number of posts to this blog about freelance copywriter secrets that extol the benefits of constructing a story structure around client testimonials. Dry quotes seldom have the force of stories that tell how bad things were before the client discovered your services and how great things are now that they have done business with you.

So it's more than a little humbling to find this article by Richard Stooker that says the same thing I have been trying to say, but he says it so much better than any of my efforts.

Please read this very succinct but powerful article and find out how to transform your clients' testimonials into emotionally charged stories.

Charles Brown
Freelance Copywriter

How to Sell More Through Marrying the Power of Testimonials to "Once Upon a Time" by Richard Stooker

Most marketers understand the power of testimonials. What too many don't realize is that telling an extended testimonial as a story ramps up their power.

All of us hunger for stories. We love to follow along as likable people solve interesting problems. We love satisfying conclusions (maybe because they're so few and far between in our real lives!).

All too often marketers content themselves with typical lame testimonials such as: "Loved your weightloss product, it's great."

Better marketers include benefits and specifics: "I lost 83 pounds in 11 months, without dieting or exercising."

Great marketers understand that their prospect really craves the story behind the testimonial.

"I was so overweight my husband and kids laughed at me. I weighed 385 pounds. I was ashamed to leave my house. But the more miserable I felt, the more high calorie I wanted to eat. Then one day I got your letter in the mail and decided I didn't have anything left to lose.

"When the package arrived in the mail, my fingers were so fat I could barely open the little cap on the bottle, but finally I popped it off and took my first few capsules.

"Frankly, nothing happened the first few days. I might have stopped, except your directions warned me not to expect instant miracles. The second week, I noticed that my clothes weren't as tight."

. . . and so on.

Don't you start to feel happy for her? She had a problem, she found a solution (your product) and therefore is now on the road to a healthy body weight.

Suddenly your prospect can start to think that she can lose weight too. She's probably no worse off than the woman in the testimonial.

Now she can start to believe that she can lose weight without dieting or exercising too.

So customer success case studies help dissolve what's often the biggest unstated prospect objection to any problem: "It wouldn't work for me."

Sometimes this is a deep psychological defect on their part. Sometimes they just really believe that ordinary testimonials are written by people who aren't like them, that somehow the deck was "stacked" in favor of the testimonial writer. (And sometimes they're right.)

But when you give them plenty of personal detail, document efforts and mistakes and eventual triumph over real obstacles, you help them visualize a solution to their own problems.

Case studies are often used in business to business marketing, especially in the high tech industry, to verify that a company can solve another company's problems.

The truth is, every company that sells a worthwhile product should use these extended testimonials or case histories to sell their products -- to businesses and consumers.

c. 2006 by Richard Stooker

Start taking advantage of the power of case studies in your
marketing now.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_Stooker

It’s hard to think of a commercial website that could not be enhanced with client testimonials or case histories, which are real-world stories about how your company or product solved a problem for a client. When effectively written, these factual accounts read like a story, with a main character, a plot and a resolution.

But what about fictionalized stories? Do stories about people who aren’t real or events that didn’t actually happen have a place on your website or advertisement?

The answer is a resounding, “maybe.” The first consideration is an ethical matter. Will the reader or visitor know that the story is fictional?

Think about all the ads you watch on television or see in magazines. Most ads use fictional characters who encounter a real life problem. In other words, you the viewer, know you are watching an actor playing a part and know you are watching an advertiser dramatize the benefits of its product in a story-like format.

We are a commercially savvy culture now, and we intuitively know we are watching a fictional story that depicts a person with a problem being solved by the advertiser’s product.

In the same way, a story may be very effective way to communicate the benefits of your product or service on your ad or website. Here’s what I mean. There are probably a couple of hundred books like the One Minute Manager series, that convey a non-fiction message, but use fictionalized characters and events to communicate these lessons.

If you read these books, you understand the story is fiction. But the message being delivered is real. These books are very effective teaching tools simply because we tend to pay closer attention to a story that we do to a dry book of non fiction.

Your fictionalized case history would do the same. Sometimes people have difficulty grasping benefits, so you solve this problem by dramatizing both the problem and the solution using fictional characters and situations.

Your fictionalized case history shows a person with a problem that your company solves. This person is seen grappling with a real headache until your company comes to the rescue, the problem is solved and the headache goes away.

Do your readers or visitors think this story is real? No, but they do believe that the story is realistic. It is realistic because your company does solve real problems just like this one.

COPYRIGHT © 2006, Charles Brown

Did you know that there is a single food item that tastes great, is packed with vitamins and nutrients, and that eating this food three times a day will cause you to shed weight at a rate of 2 to 3 pounds a week? And if all this were not enough, this same food provides so many other health benefits that it can literally add years to your life?

So what is this wonderful food? -------------------- It is the apple.

OK, by now you are thinking, “what does this story about the apple have to do with being a freelance copywriter?

Everything! The first job of your copy is to grab a reader’s attention and hold on to it until that person has read every last word of your advertisement, web content or direct mail piece.

So I ask you, did that piece about the apple hold your attention? Were you hanging on until the last word so you could find out what food item provided all those benefits? Or were you about to lose interest and stop reading before you got to the last word?

Curiosity, when it is combined with powerful self-interest benefits, is an irresistible attention grabbing device.

But what if I had not held back on the identity of the food item until the end? What if the piece had begun with the words, “the apple can do many things for your body …?” Even though the benefits would have been the same, the hold it had on you would not.

I call this technique of arousing curiosity by listing the benefits before identifying the subject, the “Cart Before The Horse” technique. And it is very easy to do. Just reveal one benefit after another, but hold back the crucial identifying piece of information until the very end.

You can also use a string of negatives or warnings just as easily. Here is an example:

Many companies lose thousands, and possibly millions, of dollars by making a very easily corrected mistake on their websites. This one mistake insures that their sites lose countless dollars in lost revenues, prevents them from ever achieving high levels of traffic and almost guarantees that their visitors will buy from someone else.

And if all this were not bad enough, the cost to fix this single mistake is ridiculously small, and if corrected, will produce an almost immediate surge in new sales. (By the way, I hope I haven’t lost your interest yet. Do you want me to go on? OK.)

What is this one mistake that costs companies so much money? It is the failure to use their sites to capture opt-in email subscribers who give their permission to receive follow up email messages.

Implementing the “Cart Before The Horse Technique” is extremely easy. Start with the six words, “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why,” and “how” to write a rough draft. Then decide which of those six elements will arouse the most curiosity and self interest if withheld until the end.

Once you have done this, you are free to torment (I mean “keep in suspense”) your readers until the very last word.

If you want to write better ads, marketing materials or web content, the best place to start is by studying the successful ads written by others. And I can think of no better place to start than the most famous ad in history.

In the mid 1920s, a recent Naval Academy graduate with a degree in electrical engineering was looking for work. The post-war military was downsizing and John Caples had been offered the option to forego his commission as an ensign in the Navy.

His first job was as an engineer, but he found it completely boring. Looking again, he landed a job as a copywriter with a mail order agency. One of his first assignments was to write an ad for a correspondence course offered by the U.S. School of Music.

John produced four pages of copy that began with the headline, “They Laughed When I Sat Down At The Piano – But When I Started To Play …”. Following this headline came a first person narrative by a man who impressed all his friends (and silenced his scoffers) at a party by his new-found ability to play the piano.

The ad became an instant success. Not only did it pull in record-breaking sales, the headline became part of the culture. Vaudeville comedians spoofed the ad with punchlines like, “…because someone stole my piano stool.” Other copywriters borrowed the formula, and spun it into countless imitations.

And even today, you will see imitations.

But what made 25 year old John Caples’ ad so successful? There are several factors:

• He used a story to sell his product. Stories are powerful. They help us to understand and believe in a way no other communication device can. When we hear a story, we feel a part of it and adopt the emotions of the character.
  
  
• The main character silences those who laughed at him. Who doesn’t want to put our critics in their place. The party scene in the ad shows this man as the center of attention because of his musical skills. Again, who doesn’t crave that kind of admiration from our friends?
  
  
• The ad offers self improvement. Not only does it show how to acquire the ability to play the piano, but it improves his social life as well. The benefits offered go far beyond mere musical instruction, they offer status.
  
  
• Social proof. Even though everyone realized this character was fictional, the ad still made learning to play the piano seem easy. This is the power of social proof, which demonstrates to us that if someone else can do it (even a fictional person) we can do it as well. You can learn more about how to use social proof to write persuasive copy at Freelance Copywriter Secrets: Social Proof-An Awesome Copywriting Tool.
  
  
• The ad is a two-step ad. This means the reader doesn’t have to make the decision to buy right away, he or she can send in a coupon and request information. 2-step ads lower the bar and require a smaller commitment. Check out a recent article on 2-step ads at Freelance Copywriter Secrets: Why 2-Step Ads Make More Sales.
  
  
• Best of all, the information offered is Free. There is power in that word. In a 2-step ad, the inquirer can be curious and get answers without paying a cent. But the seller benefits because the inquirer has “opted in” to receive follow up information (ie sales letters) to cement the sale at a later date.

No doubt you have either seen, or will see again, one of Caples many imitators. When a formula works this well, other copywriters inevitably make it their own.

COPYRIGHT © 2006, Charles Brown