What’s the “supposedly secret but actually hiding-in-plain-sight” way to write better headlines?

(The way that’s probably going to make you weep?)

Here it is: write at least 25 headlines each time—for each piece of copy. 

Yes, 25. 

Back when I used to teach copywriting in night school—yes, this Rule of 25 consistently made my students groan. 

They hated me for it, but I haven’t found a better method of producing good work.

Because when you write 25 headlines, most of them will be awful. 

Some will be good or even great. 

And once in a while, you might come up with something incredible. 

Because by forcing yourself to keep going, you’ll push past what’s trite or cliché and get to something better.

Let me demonstrate.

Here are just 10 of the headlines I created when I wrote for Craig Ballantyne and his Perfect Life Workshop, in the order I came up with them.

1. Gain Hours Of Your Life Back—While Doubling Or Even Tripling Your Income—With the Powerful, Proven Strategies I’m About To Share With You

2. It’s Impossible to Go “Off the Rails” When You Learn These Simple Strategies—Instead You’ll Double or Triple Your Income And Save Ten Hours A Week Or More

3. Master The Secrets I’m About to Show You And You’ll See Phenomenal Results—You Too Can 2X Your Income and Shave 10 Hours of Wasted Time Off Your Week

4. My Amazing Process Will Help You Double Your Income and Rescue 10 Hours A Week from “Time Thieves”—And I Want To Show You Exactly How

5. Just By Using These Little-Known “Time Management Tricks” You Can Become Almost Superhuman—You’ll Earn More, Stop Wasting Hours on the Small Stuff, And Enjoy All The Good Things In Life You’ve Ever Wanted

6. Yes, You CAN Change the Trajectory of Your Entire Life In Only A Single Day—2X Your Income, Work 10 Hours Less Per Week, And STILL Have Time for Everything That’s Important To You

7. What Will You Do Once You 2X Your Income And Find An “Extra” 10 Hours A Week Of Free Time? The Possibilities Are Endless—And They’re All Yours

8. I’ll Help You Blow Through What’s Holding You Back So You Can 2X Your Income And Work 10 Less Hours Per Week. The Best Part? It’ll Only Take Us A Day To Do It.

9. How Does Twice As Much Money And 10 Hours a Week of “You” Time Sound? If You Said “Impossible,” You’re In For a Big Surprise

10. Most People Never Learn The Crucial Lesson I’m About to Share… Are You Ready to Join Me And Become One of The Smart Ones?

Some of those aren’t too bad, right? 

And that’s precisely what this process is supposed to do—help you get past the obvious ideas and dig deep into better headlines. 

Oh, and if you’re curious about what we ended up using on the Craig Ballantyne site, here’s what we ended up settling on.

We started with a pre-head.

For overworked entrepreneurs who want faster results…

Then we moved into the main headline:

What If You Could Cut AN ENTIRE WORK-WEEK From Your Month—While Earning TWICE As Much Money? Yes, It SOUNDS Crazy… But My Students Do It All The Time—And So Can You.

And finally, we used a subheadline as well:

It’s Not Only Possible… It’s PREDICTABLE When You Learn My “Millionaire-Maker” Formula for Earning an Extra $10,000 Per Week and Saving 2 Hours Per Day

No matter what you think of these—whether you feel they’re too hard-sell, or you think they’re not hard-sell enough—I wouldn’t have gotten to the final version without pushing myself to 25.

The post The “Rule of 25”—and how it can force you to get creative appeared first on Wrixon, a copywriting and content agency.

I briefly taught copywriting at the University of Toronto. (It was fun for a couple of terms… Until it wasn’t.)

When I did, I would walk people through classic headlines they could use to inspire their creativity.

But it’s hard to look at 80- or 100-year old examples and think of something that gets us fired up today.

Then I discovered a Russian podcast host living in China who works as a portrait photographer.

Her name is Marina Barayeva, and she has quietly come up with the best approach to headline formulas that I’ve ever seen.

Marina’s approach centers on some fundamental building blocks: 

• Specific numbers
• Exciting adjectives
• Nouns that imply a promise
• Superlatives
• Negative phrases
• “Call to action” words

And using those building blocks, she has created six formulas that I think are very powerful.

Marina Barayeva’s six headline formulas

Barayeva has created six different formulas you can use to crank out headline variation after headline variation until you find the perfect one.

You can change the order of the words if doing so helps you write a better headline.

You can also get creative and add words and phrases as you see fit. These formulas are not “Thou shalt,” but more like “Try this.”

Formula 1: Number + Adjective + Noun + Keyword + Promise

11 Examples of Memorable Headlines You Can Clone in Seconds

Formula 2: [How to] + Action and/or Keyword + Promise

How to Craft Memorable Headlines The Easy Way

Formula 3: Adjective + [Guide to] + Action + Keyword + Promise

Grab This Valuable Guide to Producing Memorable Headlines—It’s Free!

Formula 4: Superlative + Number and/or Noun + Keyword + Promise/Detail

The Top 11 Techniques You Can Use to Write Memorable Headlines Like the Pros

Formula 5: Negative Word + Action + Keyword + Promise

Want to Write Memorable Headlines—Fast? Don’t Make This Mistake

Formula 6: Call-to-Action (+ Number) + Noun + Keyword + Promise

Try These 6 Strategies to Write Memorable Headlines On Autopilot

Each of those headlines has a slightly different flavor—and it was super easy to come up with them.

And to prove how simple this technique is, I’m going to show you another batch of headlines for the keyword “learn poker.”

Number + Adjective + Noun + Keyword + Promise

4 Easy Ways To Learn Poker Away From the Table
11 Tricky Techniques You Need to Master If You’re Trying to Learn Poker

[How to] + Action and/or Keyword + Promise

How to Quickly Learn Poker Before Your Next Home Game
How to Choose Poker Books That Can Help You Learn Poker on the Couch

Adjective + [Guide to] + Action + Keyword + Promise

This Easy Guide Will Help You Learn Poker in Just 2 Hours
Grab This Valuable Preflop Guide Today and Learn Poker Techniques To Grow Your Game

Superlative + Number and/or Noun + Keyword + Promise/Detail

The Fastest Way to Learn Poker? Download this Free PDF
The Top 11 Resources That Can Help You Learn Poker in 2019

Negative Word + Action + Keyword + Promise

Stop Worrying About How to Learn Poker And Just Do This Instead
Trying to Learn Poker? Don’t Fall Down This Rabbit-Hole

Call-to-Action (+ Number) + Noun + Keyword + Promise

Learn Poker Like The Pros! Here Are the 7 Advanced Strategies You Need
Overcome The #1 Confidence Killer You’ll Need to Block to Learn Poker

I understand this stuff might come more easily to me, but I wrote these headlines in about 10 minutes. And it won’t take you much longer—especially if you keep practicing.

In other words, Barayeva’s formulas can help you can get creative and crank out some great headlines.

The post The only six headline formulas you’ll need appeared first on Wrixon, a copywriting and content agency.

Copywriter extraordinaire Michael Masterson (real name: Mark Ford) says the best headlines embody four U’s: 

• Unique
• Ultra-specific
• Urgent
• Useful

In this post, we’re going to dive into those four Us to see what we can learn.

U #1: Your headline should be unique.

If you’re saying the same thing as everyone else in your space, readers will tune you out. 

That’s why your headlines need to be unique. If your reader feels they’ve “seen it all before,” they just won’t pay attention to your headline. 

But what does “uniqueness” look like? 

It comes from not just what you’re saying but the way you’re saying it.

Take a look at this headline:

This Organic “Dream Cream” Eliminates Visible Signs Of Aging So Gently and Naturally That Plastic Surgeons Want It Banned—For Putting Them Out of a Job!

We’re not saying the same old “eliminate visible signs of aging” stuff here, that’s for sure. 

U #2. Your headline should be ultra-specific.

You want to use your headline to “include” your ideal customer—and exclude everyone else.

Because the more dialed-in your headline is, the better it will typically perform for your target audience.

I’m saying “typically” perform there because, yes—you can be ultra-specific and still write a crappy headline. Maybe you’ve targeted the wrong audience, or you’re not solving a problem your reader has.

For example, here’s an ultra-specific headline that is still pretty blah:

4 Digital Marketing Tactics Busy Chiropractors Need to Know Now

It’s bland and boring—not to mention more of the same stuff you see everywhere.

Here’s a better variation:

4 “Set It and Forget It” Marketing Machines Used By The Most Successful Chiropractors—And How You Can Put Them To Work For You

U #3. Your headline should feel urgent.

Without a compelling reason to act right now, most readers won’t act at all. But if you can develop a sense of urgency, you’ll create the impression that your reader can solve their problem faster.

Take a look at this example:

Put These 6 Instant Confidence-Boosters To Work For You Today… And Be A “New You” Tonight

Can you see how this headline creates urgency?

U #4: your headline should be useful.

Promise a benefit in your headline—readers need to know what’s in it for them.

Take a look at what we’ve seen so far.

Here’s the skin cream headline again:

This Organic “Dream Cream” Eliminates Visible Signs Of Aging So Gently and Naturally That Plastic Surgeons Want It Banned (Because It’s Putting Them Out of a Job!

What benefits are we promising? Younger-looking skin. Beauty. A gentle, natural alternative to plastic surgery.

Summing up

Can you write a headline without considering Masterson’s four U’s? Sure you can.

Should you?

That depends on whether you feel like writing great headlines or having your copy ignored.

Totally up to you.

The post The “Four U’s” of great headlines appeared first on Wrixon, a copywriting and content agency.

Here’s a quote from original “Mad” man David Ogilvy, from his book, Ogilvy on Advertising:

On average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.

Ogilvy’s math doesn’t seem to add up, and I can’t find the source of his stats.

But in a way, that doesn’t matter.

Because here’s the point: show your copy to 100 people.  The majority of them will stop at the headline and move on. 

Now, here’s even more bad news—

There’s no “easy” way to write good headlines. And no guarantee you can markedly improve the number of people who read your headline and stop in their tracks.

Now, you might see formula after formula promising that if you just plug your product name into the blanks, then you’ll magically come up with something great.

But no, that’s not true either.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom.

The good news is you CAN generate more conversions if you remember four simple principles.

1. Your readers want to solve a problem.

By speaking to that problem in your headline, you’ll naturally attract more attention. And you’ll be able to stay away from some of the flashier fireworks that read as “desperate” on today’s Web.

2. Clickbait might get clicks, but it hurts your sales.

Readers have become tired of clicking on things that end up disappointing them.

Be enticing, but don’t overpromise.

3. Your headline should align with both your objective and your Big Idea.

Ask yourself, “What’s the point of my copy—and what do I need to say?”

4. For the best results, use the words your readers use.

The right word can instantly convey expertise and authority.

Have a quick look at these examples:

The 6 Secrets of Member Retention for CrossFit Boxes

Master These RD Marketing Strategies NOW (Before Your Competitors Do)

Three “Can’t-Miss” Ways to Reliably Double Your Family Office Leads

“Family office,” “RD,” “boxes.”

These bits of jargon are used by the industries the headlines are targeting: CrossFit gyms, registered dietitians, and investment professionals.

Using words like these yourself can help to earn you an “in.” (Or at the very least, keep your readers from instantly ruling you out as a pretender.)

Getting back to Ogilvy, it doesn’t matter whether he was quoting scientific proof or just blustering.

Because this much is clear to me, and I hope to you, too—you’ve got a lot riding on your headline.

And you owe it to yourself (and to your offer) to make it as effective as you can.

The post Four things to remember when writing headlines appeared first on Wrixon, a copywriting and content agency.

Between Abraham Maslow’s needs and Steven Reiss’ long list of human desires, there are a lot of moving parts to remember.

So to make things simpler, I’ve created a “cheat sheet” of 10 Buyer Wants.

Every single time you successfully sell something, you’ll find it was because it ticked one or more of these 10 boxes for your buyer:

1. I want to feel secure.
2. I want to feel comfortable.
3. I want to feel like I’m connected to people.
4. I want to feel sexy.
5. I want to be free.
6. I want to become a better me.
7. I want to give back.
8. I want to feel excited because I’m bored.
9. I want to be part of something bigger than myself.
10. I want to matter to others—both right now and after I’m gone.

To write better copy, take your offer and look at it through the different lenses on this list.

How many of the 10 Buyer Wants does your offer address? Can you touch on more?

It’s easy when you try.

For instance, imagine you’re a financial planner trying to sell your services.

You could emphasize security. “Your money is safe with me.”

Here’s an appeal to comfort: “It will be easy to make investment decisions because I will help you.”

What about connection? “Join my elite group of clients who know the real way to build wealth.”

Sexiness is easy here: “When you become a millionaire, everyone will want you.”

Everyone wants freedom, so this is another easy one: “This is the key to financial independence.”

Becoming a better version of oneself: “By investing your money properly, you’ll finally become like the rich people you admire.”

Giving back: “Invest with me and we’ll help you create a charitable foundation.”

And although you might not think finance is exciting, it can be: “Finally you’ll learn how to master the ups and downs of day trading and make them work for you.”

Being a part of something bigger is often religiously motivated, so here’s an example of that kind of appeal: “We’ll help you build more wealth so you can tithe more.”

And “mattering” to others is, if your heart’s in the right place, a lot of what accumulating wealth is about: “Together, we’ll build a legacy that will live on long after you die.”

Interesting, right?

The good news is it took me about as long to come up with that list as it did for you to read it just now…

So trust me when I say this process isn’t hard.

It just requires some creativity, and some thinking about what buyers really, truly want.

The post 10 Buyer Wants: consumer psychology made easy appeared first on Wrixon, a copywriting and content agency.

I’ve talked at length about psychologist Steven Reiss and his 16 Human Desires—eight here, and eight more here.

But I want to take things from the theoretical to the practical, so let’s look at the simple example of a video game.

We’ll say it’s an online multiplayer fantasy world—a playable version of the Game of Thrones television show, where both men and women can pretend they’re living, fighting, and loving on the continent of Westeros.

The game could be seen to play into our desire for acceptance. “Are you playing The Throne Game? Oh, you have to—everybody who loves online fantasy is there.”

It satisfies curiosity—there’s always something new to do in Westeros.

Playing the game simulates the experience of having kin and clans and mates and sex: so it checks off the “family” box.

There is honor built into the players’ “code,” and idealism too. And definitely the independence factor—we are, after all, making choices in the game based almost entirely on what we want.

Does it speak to our desire for order? Of course it does—it’s a game, with defined rules. So as much as anything can happen, we know for the most part what’s going to happen on a broader level.

Power and romance—this kind of game definitely sates those desires. If you’ve ever played one, you’ll know what I mean… You can spend hours and hours completing tasks that help your character become more powerful. And in this kind of black-and-white fantasy world, there’s a straight line between power and desirability. (Some might say in the real world, too.)

Saving? These games often incorporate items we need to collect—precisely to stoke that desire for saving in us.

Social contact and social status, in an open-world game played by millions of people who compete for points to see who’s “the best?” That’s a no-brainer.

And yes, physically we might experience peace and tranquility in the meditative state—some might say vegetative state—that we fall into when we play video games.

Finally, yes, in an online world where there are nearly no consequences to violence, it can become quite easy to satisfy our need for vengeance. In fact, there are some who are concerned that this ability to sate the vengeance impulse in games can bleed out into the real world—pun intended—and cause violent attacks.

So really, the only two of Reiss’ 16 desires that this game doesn’t satisfy are those for eating and physical activity, right?

Well, you can get that desire for physical activity sated by proxy as you watch yourself ride a horse around a virtual world…

And you can eat while playing. Many, many, many people do.

Sixteen desires, neatly met by one video game.

It gives you some insight, doesn’t it, into why these things can become so addictive.

And I hope it sheds some light on how you can think about your own offer in the context of Reiss’ model of desires—

Suddenly you’re not just satisfying one or two anymore.

16 Human Desires blog series:
Steven Reiss and the 16 Human Desires, part one
Steven Reiss and the 16 Human Desires, part two
Steve Reiss in the real world

The post Steven Reiss in the real world appeared first on Wrixon, a copywriting and content agency.

In my last post, I looked at eight of the 16 Human Desires identified by psychologist Steven Reiss.

Here are eight more.

Physical activity

Have you ever seen a pair of 8-year-olds beat the holy hell out of each other for fun? What about two 48-year-olds sitting around for 12 hours on a Sunday, watching football? We LOVE physical activity, no matter whether we’re engaging in it, or we’re watching others do the same.

Power

The desire for power is closely related to the desire to be in control. We want to be on top of the heap—both because of the status it gives us, and because of the feeling we get when we’re there. (Heck, even kids sing “I’m the king of the castle, and you’re the dirty rascal.”)

Romance

Sex as a reproductive act—that’s a physical need. Love, as in “belonging?” That’s also one of Maslow’s needs, remember?

But everybody loves romance. You might like a bouquet of roses or a car door that gets opened for you. Or you might like the thought of being pursued or the way your partner puts on nice clothes just for you.

Saving

If you’ve never had the joy of watching a squirrel collect acorns and bury them all over the neighborhood—well, frankly, you’re living in the wrong neighborhood.

But you’re also sadly missing the chance to reflect on our own desire to collect. Fact: we get a lot of joy out of collecting things, whether those things are cigars or Swarovski crystals or books or vintage automobiles or ex-wives.

Social contact

Quick—think of the worst punishment you could receive in prison. It’s solitary confinement, right?

But why is 23 hours a day in a cell by yourself so horrible? Because, a few exceptions aside, we like to be around other people from time to time.

Status

Here’s another place where Maslow and Reiss are on the same page—humans want friends. We want to be in groups. And we want those friends and groups to think we’re successful, or cool, or someone to be imitated.

Once we have friends and belong to groups, we seek the esteem of others that will help us gain status. (As an aside, you should listen to Frank Zappa’s “Status Back Baby.” Pretty funny.)

Tranquility

Listen, what’s that?

(Shhhh…)

That’s peace, my friend.

Wasn’t that refreshing?

Seriously, maybe it’s just me, but when the kids are yelling, and there’s music playing, and my wife is asking me a question, and the dogs are barking…

It’s time to meditate. Calmaté, ese, everybody loves tranquility.

Vengeance

Ewwwww. Vengeance is ugly.

But it’s inescapable. The desire for revenge lives in every one of us.

Sometimes when somebody wrongs us, it’s enough to hear them say they’re sorry. Sometimes we pursue legal action—using the system that our society set up to give us revenge in an “acceptable” fashion.

And sometimes we make a big bowl of popcorn and watch a revenge fantasy like Keanu Reeves in John Wick, or Liam Neeson in Taken, or we read The Count of Monte Cristo or hell, even Beowulf.

Yep, we want revenge so much, so often, that it seeped into our entertainment hundreds or even thousands of years ago—and it ain’t going anywhere soon.

What’s next?

So now, between this post and the last, you have a list of Reiss’ 16 human desires and—just like with Maslow—you can think about which of them your offer is speaking to.

But I’ll talk more about that in my next post.

Steven Reiss and the 16 Human Desires, part one
Steven Reiss and the 16 Human Desires, part two
Steve Reiss in the real world

The post Steven Reiss and the 16 Human Desires, part two appeared first on Wrixon, a copywriting and content agency.

Steven Reiss was, like Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist who studied human motivation.

His life’s work—or at least the work for which he’s important to us as copywriters—involved looking at thousands of people…

And identifying 16 basic human desires.

Maslow told us what drives us as human animals. But Reiss provided another level of clarity, saying “We may know what people are subconsciously driven to strive for… But I can tell you what they think they want.”

Here are the first eight of the 16 basic desires Reiss says we all share.

Acceptance

We want social approval from others. We want to be included in society and social groups. This desire stretches all the way back to caveman days, where being excluded could mean death. 

Curiosity

Tony Robbins calls this “variety.” But whatever name you give it, this desire is what pushes us to go out and learn new things or have new experiences.

Reiss hypothesized that curiosity is evolution at work; by constantly trying to change, we’re subconsciously practicing adapting to new challenges and environments so we don’t die.

Eating

We need food to live, of course, but it’s also become a social experience for us.

This is why you see things like family dinner at Thanksgiving, “let’s do lunch,” and “Hey if you’re not busy I was wondering if maybe you wanted to get a bite to eat.”

Family

Family is a big driver, and not just because politicians or churches say it should be. Most of us just love being around the people in our clan.

It’s the reason we rush to post baby pictures on Facebook, or the pride we feel when our kids have kids of their own. And it’s the thinking behind the saying “Blood is thicker than water.” Kinship matters.

Honor

Honor is the feeling that our actions and our values line up—and that people respect us for that. You see, without other people, honor is simply pride… So being predictable and consistent in front of others is what’s important here.

Idealism

Sometimes when you hold on to an ideal—whether it’s “Jesus died for my sins,” or “I don’t want to work any more than four hours a week,” it helps you get through the trials and tribulations of life.

For an extreme example, look at Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning. He survived the brutality of a Nazi concentration camp, in large part because he gave himself something to live for—sharing his experience with the world so he could help make sure the same horror never happened to anyone else.

Independence

We’re social animals, which means we love groups. But we also love, love, love to feel unique and independent. In fact, even as we cling to others, we get much of our identity from a sense of individuality.

Order

Order means predictability, and predictability a weapon against chaos. It gives us control. That’s important, of course, no matter whether you’re trying to appease a vengeful god with a sacrifice at the altar, or planning your day so it doesn’t get away from you.

Eight more on the way

This stuff fascinates me, but to avoid getting carried away I’ve broken up Reiss’ 16 needs into two posts. You can find part two in my next post.

Steven Reiss and the 16 Human Desires, part one
Steven Reiss and the 16 Human Desires, part two
Steve Reiss in the real world

The post Steven Reiss and the 16 Human Desires, part one appeared first on Wrixon, a copywriting and content agency.

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who “cracked the code” that explains the psychology of human needs.

He identified the order in which we try to get our needs satisfied, from the most “base” to the highest. 

Maslow himself never represented his idea visually. But over the years it has become largely identified as a pyramid-shaped Hierarchy of Needs.

At the bottom of the pyramid are things we must have to survive—food, water, sleep, sex, excretion, and homeostasis. (Poorly summed up, that’s the body’s attempt to balance its internal chemistry.)

Next are our needs around safety—the ones we require for our physical survival.

Nutrition, shelter, protection from vicious attack sloths… You get the picture. If we’re afraid we’re going to die, we’re compelled to remedy the situation.

Now, you may have noticed that these survival needs and safety needs are about maintaining and protecting the body. (In other words, there’s not a lot going on above the neck yet.

From that point, though, we get into the “brain” needs—although I’ll get back to that dividing line in a second.

Love and belonging needs are next in the pyramid—which makes sense when you think about it.

After all, once we know we’re not going to die, we start to feel we can open up and connect with others.

In fact, we crave sharing “ourselves” with family and friends. We want love, and comfort, and companionship. We want to belong. (For even a small shred of proof, listen to a random sampling of any of the 40,000 songs added to Spotify every day… I’d be willing to bet my house that a big chunk of them are about love and sex.)

With love out of the way, though, we’re free to focus on esteem needs. Because we want so desperately to be recognized by others, don’t we? (Recognition here can mean everything from “Good job, here’s a promotion” to “You’re so manly” to “Wow, great car.”)

And finally on the pyramid, we feel a strong need for self-actualization—we want to become “the best person we can be.” 

That urge is what propels some people to take courses, what compels others to start huge businesses, what drives still others to get into politics, and so on.

But…

What does all this mean when you’re crafting copy?

Well, for a start, those “body” needs I mentioned above? They’re sometimes called D-needs, or “deficiency” needs. Because if we have a deficiency in one of those needs, we feel driven to fix it until the issue is taken care of.

And it’s only when that happens that we can explore the top of the pyramid—the B-needs, or “being” needs.

So whether you think of Maslow’s concept as pyramid-shaped or not, the important takeaway is this…

People can’t concentrate on needs at the higher levels until they’re able to ensure that the needs at the bottom levels have been taken care of.

For just one example, you’ll have to work harder to sell your course to someone who’s at risk of losing their job (and, as a consequence, their shelter).

Put another way—

Address more needs in your messaging, and it will be easier to convince people to grab your offer.

The post Thinking about buyer needs? Consider Maslow’s Hierarchy appeared first on Wrixon, a copywriting and content agency.

Cash-first copywriting peddles three toxic ideas to readers :

1. Enough is never enough. It doesn’t matter how much you have or how much you already do. You could have more—and be doing it more easily.
2. The problem is you. If you haven’t succeeded yet, it’s your fault. If you don’t have a flat stomach, or endless leads, or a lifestyle of ease, you’re doing it wrong.
3. You’ll be less of a failure if you buy. Success can be simple if you just get over your objections and buy now.

Real-world copywriting is rooted in what’s good about “classic” copywriting—but tempered for the world we live in today.

It’s still highly persuasive, but it’s infinitely more… Wholesome, I guess.

And it’s rooted in five emotions, which—when you use them in concert—make your readers feel a sixth.

These are the 6 Cs of real-world copywriting. 

The first C: CAPTIVATED

To get anywhere with anybody, you first need to get them to pay attention.

The second C: CONNECTED

To get people to buy online, you need to answer a LOT of unspoken questions they have.

Who are you? What are you offering? Why should I pay attention? Why should I believe you? What happens after I make my purchase?

When your real-world copywriting answers all of these questions, they can’t help but feel more connected to you—and to what you have to sell.

The third C: COMMITTED

There’s one more question readers have: “Why do I need this now?”

And you’d better answer it. Fast. Because unless your reader is committed to the idea of exploring what you have on offer—or you can get them that way—they’ll leave, and you’ll lose your sale.

The fourth C: CONFIDENT

Your reader also needs to be confident that what you’re asking them to do is simple, sensible, and safe.

These three things by themselves won’t guarantee that your reader will feel confident enough to come on board.

But without ticking these boxes, you can be sure they won’t.

The fifth C: CARED FOR

Any bully can torture a prisoner into compliance. It takes something else entirely to get someone to comply willingly.

Your buyers need to know that you’re looking out for them—that you’re a partner, not an adversary. 

They want to feel comfortable with the buying process, and that you’ve got their best interests at heart.

In other words—they want to feel cared for.

Finally, the sixth C

Real-world copywriting is about coaching your buyer, not coercing them.

It’s about making them feel captivated, connected, committed, confident, and cared for.

Which, of course, leads to the SIXTH C, the one that’s most important of all—convinced.

When your reader feels the 5 Cs in their head and their heart, they become convinced that buying from you is what they need to do.

And because the first 5 Cs lead naturally to the sixth, you can simply ask for that sale—because it’s just around the corner.

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