A few months ago I made a post about “rational purchasing consciousness” the essence of which was to underscore the need to communicate emotional benefits subtly in order to avoid harming the consumer’s desire to perceive themselves as a smart shopper.
In other words … “Show Them, Don’t Tell Them”
At that time, several people asked for more detail on exactly HOW to do this.
So Sharon and I recorded this little audio … hope you enjoy!
Dr. G 
www.HyperResponsiveMarketingSecrets.com
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
This was VERY helpful but it still left me with a question if you don’t mind. The original item I was interested in was how one painted a picture of the key emotional benefit in words. You mention here that you do it with mood and tone and I believe also with stories about that emotional benefit.
So I want to check if I’ve understood you correctly by using your illustration. You mention that feeling youthful (or avoiding feeling near death) was the fully laddered emotional benefit that we want to communicate but only indirectly. You mentioned very briefly collecting or imagining stories of what someone would do if they felt youthful. Since you didn’t give an example let me make a silly one up and say that if you felt youthful, you’d spontaneously join in a street dance on some corner. Are you suggesting that you actually describe that story with all the color you can but without mentioning that you’re doing it because of feeling youthful?
If that’s the case then I’m wondering how you transition the copy to that story. So you say, hey, there’s a great moisturizing hand cream that makes your skin feel so soft. It just feels so good that you might find yourself spontaneously dancing to the music of street musicians. I know the example is forced but is that what you mean?
Thanks!
Hi Chuck, thanks for the question. You’ve correctly understood the instructions, but the example of weaving it into the copy is too abrupt and obvious to the consumer.
It’s very difficult to show you without spending hundreds of hours studying the market myself…
But I recently faced this task myself (weaving stories and images around a set of emotional benefits) when I had to write a sales letter for emotional eating IMPORTANT: there’s a toggle link about midway through the salesletter which says “click here” if you want to read another example… that was the story within the story. It’s also a really cool way to shorten your salesletters but still get additional converting copy into them for your most interested prospects (I learned it from Michael Fortin)
Now, I’m admittedly NOT a copywriter, and have always said I succeed by emphasizing research (I say the RIGHT things in “B-” copy, and outsell people saying the WRONG things in “A+” copy)
Still, we managed to weave a story within a story here and it’s very effective. (Note: the product itself is being revamped so you can’t order it at present)
We’ll keep looking for examples and posting them here.
G
Thanks for the clip Glenn.
May I ask a question…how do you record this MP3 clip? Are you using iTunes to record? Also, what is the screen recording software that you use and where can I get it?
As always, thank you for the great content!
Thanks for the thoughtful answer and link. I studied that and it was so on point that it cost me some sleep last night! The reason is that you definitely answered my question of how to paint the picture but now I find I don’t understand the other end well enough. Let me explain.
This discussion started with a “prime directive” (forgive the Star Trek reference but it feels appropriate) to NOT directly mention the underlying emotional benefits in the sales letter/web page. The reason I understood was that customers don’t want to feel that their buying decision is emotional but rather a rational one. However, I went back to your famous list of 37 emotional benefits as well as the excellent interview you two did on how to make use of those and I find I’m confused on how to interpret the prime directive.
I think your sales letter for emotional eating touches on many emotional benefits in your list, especially from the “healthy narcissism” category. In particular, the one that hits me the hardest is the sense of control – which is on the list of 37 benefits. It seems to me you even name that benefit in the sales copy several times – for example, the 11th bullet point from the bottom in your list of “Some of the Many Reasons to Get the Emotional Eating Secrets Power Pack”. Doesn’t that violate your prime directive to not name or express those benefits directly in the sales copy?
I must have misunderstood the “prime directive”. Can you straighten me out (at least on this point
)? Thanks!
What if you were to do it 3rd party. For example, so and so had this emotional experience and used this product. That way the reader doesn’t feel that you are talking about them. They will feel detached but still will pick up the emotional benefits through the third party. Am I making sense?
Now, I\’m confused. I thought you had a cat… actually 2 kittens.
But Sharon says you don\’t.
So, what is the real deal?
It seems to me that talking about the pain (etc.) that can
be eliminated makes sense more often than not..
Some bread winner may not like to be reminded they should carry
life insurance to protect their children.. even if a man does not
like it, Mama may.. and if she wears the pants, then it will work.
Nicht wahr?
Gdansk
Katy
Yeah… we adopted 2 kittens last year.
Within 3 days I started sneezing, wheezing, and breaking out in hives and had to find them good homes. (One “Harvey” now lives with our housekeeper). Very sad.
Of course, none of this stops me from wanting to try again. There’s just something about having a cat purr on your chest which makes life feel complete to me.
G
PS – Yes, people will surely act to eliminate pain if you pain the picture correctly. But you’ve gotta make your product the hero, and be sure you don’t become associated with the pain itself, which is what we see happening more often than not when people try to do this.
I’m allergic but have 2 cats anyway. Claritin helps me out
As to the pain discussion, I’m still a bit confused — and just when I thought I was close to grokking all of this stuff.
If we paint the pain clearly and make the product the white knight to chase all the pain away, then that sounds like a good pitch to me.
But how does that connect with the 37 fundamental emotional benefits and how to communicate them appropriately? If the pain for example manifests itself as “loss of control” then it seems, from some of your earlier interviews, that you’re faced with a tricky situation. You want to claim that your product restores the user’s sense of control but then the more explicitly you do that, the less persuasive you become — if I’ve understood you correctly. Rather you want to strongly imply that the product restores control and let the prospect make the final connection him/herself.
Is that right or am I just wrapped around the axle for no good reason?
A partial grokker in pain…:-)
Hi Guys;
Three things;
First, Excellent insight as to the meaning a given condition (dry skin) is often \’laddered\’ to a degree one would scarcely imagine (confront own mortality; used up; hag, etc.); wow. However, the example(s) given as to how to present this indirectly (show vs state) were not clearly demonstrated – More detail next time perhaps?
Second, as to the cat allergy thing – D.D. (darling daughter) has the same problem with the dog & 2 cats (she insisted we get
– Found a natural breakthrough you should try – Oralmat drops – This will give you the lowdown:
http://hsibaltimore.com/1999/01/01/australian-breakthrough-against-asthma-and-allergies/
Now maybe you can \’have your cat & breathing too\’.
Last, Jill & I will be at the System again this April – You two, too?
Best Regards,
Rick
Hi Rick, thanks for these
(And we’ll try to get you more detail next time)
Unfortunately Sharon and I won’t be at the System this year. Rob Sieracki (Chief Operating Officer at Rocket Clicks) is going to speak in my place. I’ll be speaking at Perry’s advanced adwords seminar in Maui, and combined with the 4x/year travel to Rocket Clicks for strategy meetings I’m afraid my calendar is just overbooked this year. Sorry we won’t see you (and everyone else) there.
After much thinking of review of not only the material Glenn and his wife have published but also numerous resources on copywriting (including a brief email exchange with a well-known copywriter Glenn has mentioned on these forums), I resolved my own confusion on the topic in this post. I thought I\’d share the outcome of my research here on the chance it would help a few others.
I\’ll cut short the long path I took to get to this conclusion and just present the end. ( If any of the readers for some reason would like me to elaborate, let me know and I\’ll do that.) After lots of false starts, I finally realized that the best way past my own roadblock was to spell out the key principles behind the question at hand. Below are the set that I think apply.
<b>Principle 1:<\\b> Customers buy on emotion but justify with logic.
<b>Corollary 1a:<\\b> Know what emotional benefits apply (by doing research)
<b>Principle 2:<\\b> Customers want to think of themselves as smart buyers.
<b>Corollary 2a:<\\b> It\’s better to \"show\" an emotional benefit to the prospect than to \"tell\" them
<b>Corollary 2b:<\\b> Make sure that if you choose to explicitly \"tell\" an emotional benefit that it\’s one the customer prospect would be proud of.
<b>Principle 3:<\\b> If there\’s a story in the ad, the customers need to identify (resonate) with them.
<b>Corollary 3a:<\\b> Make sure that what the character does in the story truly resonates with the target customer.
With those principles out of the way, the first thing that is clear is that I totally misunderstood what I had characterized in my question as the \"prime directive\". Stories that illustrate the benefit (with or without assisting visuals) are totally ok and even beneficial.
On the specific question I posed re the stated benefit of \"control\" that was in the emotional eating copy, the answer to that, for me, centered on how one applied Principle 2 above. It was crucially important for me to remember that the frame of reference for the target customer in this case was someone who accepted \"emotional eating\" as a problem. That filtering happened way up front at the top of the copy and was emphasized by the URL chosen. Therefore, control as a benefit was totally consistent *for that prospect* with being a smart buyer. In the end, that\’s why I think the mention of that is appropriate. I can imagine other prospects in other markets whose frame of reference would regard that explicit mention as a negative; but in this case, it works.
So that, in a very limited set of words, is how I resolved this question for mysefl. I hope this helps at least one other person out there.
Thanks Chuck for your detailed presentation
One last thing I’ll say is, the emotional eating copy will perform even better as we figure out how to show the prospect the benefit of control more than telling them. This will involve replacing certain phrases and subheads with more pictures, stories, and vignettes, and I find is something which evolves over time as you test and tweak your letter.
Makes sense! Thanks!
An excellent discussion. I have found the emotions spring from the belief level of mind but modifying beliefs is more therapy than sales. Selling is creating the desired image in the customers mind then getting them into that image. It is very easy to sell someone a house if they see themselves there. The key is to instill enough trust (important to get past the filters) to be heard then get the customer into the “house”. Symbols are used to support the process and the message must be congruent. The emotions are the customer’s validation of the process and in ideal sales both parties gain. Modern day analysis of patterns and trends are the ideal way to maximize results.