Creating Curiosity
I noticed a great example today of a story teaser that was deliberately designed to get you to click through and read more.
It was for one of entertainment stories in the Herald Sun, the online version of Melbourne’s largest circulating metropolitan daily newspaper (and claimed to be Australia’s most popular daily paper with more than 1.5 million readers).
Here it is:
As you can see from the last sentence, it’s deliberately incomplete and of course being an unfinished sentence it is designed to pique your curiosity … to get you to click and read the full article to find out what he really does think of his brother.
Having this type of “cliffhanger” is quite popular as a “plot device” in television series … keeping you glued to the screen over ad breaks or making sure you watch the next episode. You want to find out how the situation is resolved!
As creatures of ‘completion’, we want to complete what is incomplete.
Equally, this tactic can work in other mediums — like it has been used here in this example on the Herald Sun home page. For example, you could use it in blog post excerpts, on the outside of a direct mail envelope, within an email message that prompts you to click through to a website … in a printed newsletter so readers will be keen to read the next edition.
Keep the cliffhanger in mind to see if you can incorporate it into your own communication.
Check Your Messages Make Sense
Online selling platforms like eBay include some great automation tools, as eBay magician Matt Clarkson pointed out on the weekend at the eBay workshop he and wife Amanda presented on the Gold Coast.
For example, Selling Manager Pro includes a handy feature to help automate the messages sellers can send out during the buying process once an item has been sold.
I got one of these emails today from a seller, for an item I purchased for my wife Mel on the weekend.
It started like this:
Subject: Thank you for your payment. eBay item #____________ “name of the item”
Dear (eBay user),
We hope you enjoy your purchase. Your payment has been received for the following item:
(A table showing the Item title, Web Address, Item number, Buyer User ID, Seller User ID and total price.)
Thank you very much. Your business is much appreciated.
Please send payment for eBay purchase.
I accept the following payment method: PayPal, Money Transfer, Money Order/Cashiers Cheque
Please go to the URL below to complete payment: (linked eBay payment address)
Did you notice the error?
First of all, it starts off by saying thanks for my payment. That’s a good automated email to send as a courtesy, which establishes a little rapport (even without a personalised message).
And then it describes the payment received and the related item.
That’s great too — confirmation I did pay for the correct item as a buyer.
But then, it falls apart.
The message tells me to send payment, the acceptable payment methods and a link to paying via eBay.
I’ve already paid! So asking me here to pay again doesn’t make any sense. (For some inexperienced users, that may cause confusion and affect the buyer-seller relationship).
In fact, it would have been better from a marketing perspective to have a link back to the seller’s other items (or their store if they had one — in this case they do have an eBay store) … to encourage further purchases.
If you’re going to use automated templates (or any other manual or sequenced series of messages), make sure you check and verify yourself that the messages make sense from the buyer’s point of view.
Yellow Pages
Mal Emery has published an outstanding article about the right way to use Yellow Pages, in his latest Rebellious Rant.
I’m not just saying that because Mal has recommended his clients and subscribers contact me for a “done for you” Yellow Pages service!
It’s because Mal is sharing great advice about maximising the impact of your Yellow Pages ad and making it up to 750% more profitable.
Like Mal says, 60% of those who consult a category in the Yellow Pages, have NO company in mind — and of the other 40%, around one third (13%) are will to be swayed … that’s a chance at persuading more than 7 in 10 readers with an effective ad.
The regular Rebellious Rants are a great free resource for any entrepreneur or business owner, well worth a free subscription!
Persuasion is still persuasion
I noticed a new report online tonight to download about 19 “new” rules of “social media” copywriting.
With “web 2.0″ all the buzz, this list promised a lot about being engaging and memorable … and persuasive … using social media.
To get the report, I had to sign up to a mailing list first. That was not part of the original “promise” — I was expecting to download a report, not have to add myself a mailing list to do so. Anyway, I downloaded the report and unsubscribed from the list. That’s a thought stream for another day.
I’ve got to say the report wasn’t what I was expecting.
Of the 19 “new” rules — only five of them were “new” and were directly related to social media (”Make your message viral”, “Start the conversation”, “Create discussion topics”, “Generate buzz” and “Include your keywords”). Even some of those are just online adaptions of ways to generate publicity — the method suits the vehicle, but the objective really hasn’t changed.
The other 14 “new” rules are not new at all — they’ve been around long before they were applied in a social media environment.
Sure, social media has changed how you connect, engage and persuade your market — but the way the message is crafted is still based on long-proven copywriting principles.
Some aspects of the process have changed, but the underlying techniques of copy are still as relevant in the social media sphere as elsewhere.
Persuasion is still persuasion.
Believability in your copy
After reviewing a couple of lots of copy in recent days — one aspect which I noticed needed beefing up is the price “believability” factor.
For example, in one web-based sales pitch, a suite of 10 products were claimed to be worth over $34,000 (a specific amount was used, which was good to include) and being sold for just $47.
With such a discrepancy between the price offered and the value claimed, questions will immediately pop in to a prospective buyers head. Questions like …
Yeah right! Are you exaggerating? How do you justify $34,000? How do you justify making the cost only $47? Why are you selling it so cheap? Or is $47 actually more than it’s really worth? Is the whole package really worth $34,000? If you’re making this up, what else are you making up?
They’re legitimate questions you must address in your copy to persuade the buyer that your offer is genuine and trustworthy.
In the example above (the figures I’ve used are close to the actual figures in what I was reading) there’s also other benefits granted to the buyer, including Private Label Rights (to re-brand the products as your own), resale rights, the ability to give away the product. This creates more questions to answer to address a buyer’s fear about how many copies of the product will be sold (that will be competing against the buyer)… how quickly will they recoup their $47 investment?
Illustrating how this might happen — describing various ways they can make money (even by giving away your product) — can change the focus for a buyer from skepticism to seeing the income earning opportunities offered by this package.
In this case, no “reason why” justification was offered, nor were these questions addressed. If they were, I would predict the overall results would be better than they are now.
Whether you use a “reassuringly expensive” price or a highly discounted price, you need to use convincing copy about the value of the product or service to add believability.