The importance and power of using of emotion in your sales copy

Four Steps to Powerful, Emotion-led Copywriting

In my ongoing journey of studying marketing and copywriting, one person has had a major impact on my understanding of just how powerful emotion can be, when it comes to successful marketing campaigns.

 

That person is the (now retired) American copywriting genius, Clayton Makepeace. And Clayton promoted a very simple step-by-step sequence that makes it easy for anyone to harness the motivating power of emotional copywriting…

 

1. Identify the enemy — and make it personal! No matter what you sell, there’s somebody out there in the same, or a similar field who’s seen as the ‘bad guy’.

 

In alternative health, it’s probably greedy mainstream doctors and surgeons and drug company fat cats (all motivated slightly more by money than by healing patients).

 

In the investment field, it could be lazy brokers, inexperienced self-appointed expert IFAs, and so-called trading ‘Gurus’ promoting their infallible training programmes.

 

With personal finance, the enemy could be money-hungry, deceitful bankers… robotic tax collectors… and anyone else who assumes that your money is rightfully theirs.

 

So ask yourself, what enemy is making YOUR prospects feel powerless, insulted, frustrated and angry?

 

Whoever it is, personalise the enemy. It’s far more effective to lampoon greedy, immoral individuals, rather than the orgnaisations who employ them.

 

2. Identify the things “the enemy” does that frustrate or anger your prospect, insult his intelligence or render him powerless.

 

Does the enemy deliberately only tell half the truth, and hide vital information from your prospects? Does he treat your prospect as if he’s incapable of understanding the finer details?

 

Is he dismissive and conceited — an authority or high-profile figure just begging to be brought down a couple of pegs?

 

List as many offences as you possibly can.

 

3. Pinpoint how YOU feel about these kinds of people — and how you would feel if someone did these things to you.

 

Then express those feelings more articulately and with greater emotional power than your prospect possibly could.

 

Write exactly as you would speak to your partner or colleague if you had become the victim of one of these scam-artists or immoral charlatans.

 

4. Position your figurehead (e.g. Company Founder) and his/her product as being the solution to the negative things the enemy does AND the reliever of all the pent-up anger and frustration that your prospects feels about them!

 

Make your author righteously indignant — and explain why he or she is absolutely livid about the way the prospect is being treated. Say everything your prospect would just LOVE to tell the enemy. If you feel it’s appropriate, draw analogies with other well-recognised infamous characters.

 

Here are some examples of emotional copywriting that give you the general idea of how to add power to your words:

 

“Many financial advisors are perfectly willing to sew seeds of impending market doom, or exaggerate personal risk factors — just to get at your wallet!”

 

“Take a glance through the financial reports of any large utility company and you can almost hear the cynical laughter from crooked CEOs and their fat-cat advisors…”

 

“Of course, some people in the medical community don’t think you’re smart enough to understand your diagnosis, or even have an opinion about your own health. It’s all too complicated for you. What rubbush!”

 

N.B. If you’d like some guidance or feedback on how to apply these powerful copywriting techniques and methodologies to your own marketing materials, simply let me know, and we’ll jump on the phone together for an hour.

 

I’ll show you just how easy it is to add real bite to your sales messages, and how you can quickly generate higher engagement and response from your best prospects.

 

Simply go here to book your slot in my diary, and tell me a little bit about your business, and your ambitions and goals.