Daniel Levis’ latest ‘Total Package’ article is titled “Indefatigability: Your Greatest Weapon on the Battlefield of Higher Response”. [Daniel Levis’ Article]


Daniel Levis’ latest ‘Total Package’ article:

Indefatigability: Your Greatest Weapon on the Battlefield of Higher Response

Dear Web Business-Builder,

In a 1987 interview with Gene Schwartz, Milt Pierce asked Schwartz what he considered to be the most important characteristics of a successful copywriter …

Schwartz replied, “There are four: indefatigability, clarity, craziness, and humility.” Schwartz went on to define indefatigability as relentless research. “You can always tell the ad that has had the best research. It has something I call “˜claim density’. It’s packed with facts, with information, with ideas. You can’t get that without doing a lot of research.”

In other words, your greatest asset as a copywriter is your curiosity.

It’s what inspires you to dig deep into the realities of your customer to discover his greatest fears … desires … and beliefs ““ as they relate to the product or service you wish to sell.

Without an accurate view of these things, you don’t stand a chance.

Think about it …

If you try to scare your prospect about something he’s not already afraid of … or if you promise him something he feels he already has or doesn’t want or need … or if you violate his beliefs in any way … or characterize him in the wrong way … or vilify the wrong enemy ““ your copy can read beautifully … like it were the finest gem written by Makepeace or Carlton or Bencivenga … and still fall flat on its face.

Get these things right though, and the most basic, bush league writing in the world can pull like a pack of mules in a thunderstorm.

The most important things are the appeal, tone and integrity of your communication …
Of course, when I say “appeal”, I am talking about the predictable universals that drive all human behavior ““ such as the desire to make or save money … to be seen as smart … to be attractive … to belong … to be safe … and such. Accurate prioritization of these fundamental appeals is deathly important. But there’s more …

There are infinite details in the way those appeals are presented that will have your prospect mentally nodding his head, “YES, this is the way for me. The person writing this really understands me and my needs. They’re talking my language. I can trust them to lead me away from my fears and toward my dreams.” Or not.

To give you an example: Suppose you’re selling financial newsletter subscriptions. You know people are looking to put their money to work and grow their wealth. And your editor has a solution. Is it enough to just tell your prospects about it? No.

You have to find a path that harmonizes as closely as possible with what your prospects already believe. And gradually expand those beliefs as necessary to embrace any new conclusions you need them to make.

… Are your prospects bullish, or bearish?

… Are they afraid of inflation, or deflation?

… Who do they blame for their investing failures?

… Why do they want to put their money to work and grow their wealth?

If you come down on the wrong side of prevailing belief, or fail to connect with the most immediate hopes, dreams and fears of your prospect, your promo is doomed.

Every product or service you wish to sell has such variables. And they need to be known.

One of the biggest copywriting mistakes in the world is to write in a vacuum ““ yet it happens all the time.

Out of laziness … or ignorance … or relying on the advice of others, it’s very easy to get caught up in your own little world of erroneous assumptions and totally miss the prevailing mindset of your customer.

What makes things doubly challenging is that there are aspects of that mindset that are changing. You are dealing with a moving target. A target that is moving more quickly by the day.

In pre-Internet times, when you were writing a direct mail package, you could ask your client for the data cards of the lists your promo would be targeting … and you could infer your client’s mindset from the editorial and promotional packages those lists were sending with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Nowadays that’s tantamount to trying to drive your car by staring out the rear view mirror.

Information travels much faster now. And that means the opinions … and the fears, desires and beliefs they foster do too.

To base your promotion on what’s working now in other publications is a probable recipe for failure. Priorities change and therefore the order of benefits that will yield the highest level of interest and desire for your product or service change too.

You need a better way to
take the pulse of your prospect …

Of course, I still read the data cards. And I still immerse myself in the current editorial and promotions of the target lists. But the real gold is in the feedback to those things and the dialogs they inspire. You’ll learn more about your target market from reading their comments about the editorial than from the editorial itself.

In a perfect world, I’ll write a fishing piece ““ a piece of editorial specifically designed to elicit the current mindset of my target. I’ll ask specific questions, the answers to which reveal their relevant beliefs, fears, and desires, giving me a base of data to work with.

Being able to write a piece like this is not always possible, of course. Your client may not be set up to allow comments to their editorial. They may have no desire to do so.

Sometimes you have to do a little digging to find a forum that you can use. The idea of encouraging prospect feedback to promotional materials is relatively new. And in some markets, most of the editorial is still predominantly one way.

What complicates things further is the need for some measure of statistical significance in the comments you use as research vehicles. You need to sift through a lot of them to gather any kind of meaningful insight into your market. Typically I’m looking for several hundred comments before digging into a post.

For a current project I’m working on none of the target lists had open blogs. So I read all of the current editorial content from each list to get a snap shot of the prospect. And then went in search of other editorial commentary with open blogs that targeted a similar profile.

What did I do when I found it?

Mine it, of course. Here’s what I mean …

The key to getting an accurate read on a market is to gain both qualitative and quantitative insights …

I achieve this goal by using a spread sheet to classify all of the relevant comments into categories. I then quantify the categories.

As example, 36 people indicated a fear of inflation in the text of their comment. 2 people indicated a fear of deflation. Given the choice, which boogie man do you think I’m going to trot out in my copy?

Forced to support the case for one or the other, I know exactly what I’m up against. I know I can simply mention the accepted belief and build my conclusions on top of it. And I know that I will have to ease into the contrary belief slowly, strategically and methodically before assuming it will be accepted as a supporting premise.

Research of this depth requires patience and as Gene says indefatigability. But the benefits are huge …

It gives you tremendous confidence to write something that’s a little edgy, because you’re not guessing about how it will be received. You know in advance how your market will react. You’ve seen them in their natural habitat, reacting already. Without this objective insight into your audience, you’re going to second guess some of your best ideas.

It suggests all kinds of angles that you simply would not arrive at on your own or by thumbing through your swipe file. If you’re stuck for a theme or a way into a piece, look no further than a lively blog post for inspiration.

It gives you tremendous empathy for your market. There’s nothing like getting your hands dirty classifying and quantifying blog comments to become intimate with the audience responsible for creating them.

It allows you to see how your target audience communicates. You can get accustomed to the lingo they use and the level of sophistication with which they discuss the issues that are important to them. And you can create a voice that will be naturally resonant.

And probably most important of all, you can prioritize your appeals effectively, putting the most important benefits first and expanding on them repeatedly throughout your copy.

I hope you found this little article helpful.

Patient, careful research … approached in a spirit of genuine, open-minded curiosity is probably your most powerful weapon for higher response.

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis

Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor

THE TOTAL PACKAGE

Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant & direct response copywriter based in Toronto, Canada and publisher of the world famous copywriting anthology Masters of Copywriting featuring the selling wisdom of 44 of the “Top Money” marketing minds of all time, including Clayton Makepeace, Dan Kennedy, Joe Sugarman, John Carlton, Joe Vitale, Michel Fortin, Richard Armstrong and dozens more! For a FREE excerpt visit http://www.SellingtoHumanNature.com.

He is also one of the leading Web conversion experts operating online today, and originator of the 5R System (TM), a strategic process for engineering enhanced Internet profits. For a free overview of Daniel’s system, click here.

Attribution Statement: This article was first published in The Total Package. To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to The Total Package and claim four FREE money making e-books go to www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.

The Total Package

*IMNewsWatch would like to thank Clayton Makepeace for granting permission to reprint this article.

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