Do you sometimes feel like learning about copywriting is complicated?
I know that on this site, I’ve said things like, “as long as you follow a simple AIDA structure, you’ll do fine.” But then I’ve also written about a ton of other things; audience profiling, using hyperbole, language and a ton of other things.
There are a ton of elements to copywriting and it’s sometimes pretty difficult to know where to start.
Here’s a good place to start if you’re confused: Wish fulfilment.
Really, wish fulfilment is probably the best place to start when you’re trying to market anything, because that’s what makes people stay, read and buy.
What Is Wish Fulfilment and How Do I Use It In Copywriting?
Wish fulfilment is a self-explanatory term.
Everyone wants to have their dreams realised. There’s not a person on the planet who hasn’t in some capacity said, “I really wish I could have X.” It’s a universal human trait.
There are very few stronger motivators to buy or do than the promise of wish fulfilment. It’s why every kid wants to be a rock star. It’s why girls will buy celebrity-endorsed handbags or guys will queue for six hours every Monday night to get on the bench press.
Everyone has a set of dreams that come from various times in their life. You might have been unpopular at school or you might have spent five years in menial jobs working for bosses who you know you could do a better job than. Your boyfriend/girlfriend might have left you for some terrible other choice.
I bet you want to get all those people back, right? It’s ok. You don’t have to tell anyone.
The point is that wish fulfilment is a strong urge. People will pay a lot of money for the promise that those dreams they hide in the recesses of their mind will come true.
However, it’s not enough that you say, “do this and you’ll get whatever you want.” For the most part, people have the capacity to change their life without any $97 e-book, and if they wanted to look great, they’d have put down the plate of cookies long ago.
You need to factor something else in.
A Key To Understanding Wish Fulfilment
There’s one thing that I’ve not mentioned above about wish fulfilment.
Imagine writing a sales letter that said, “You’re going to have to go through hell and train your body and mind every single day to get what you want!”
That would make a terrible sales letter, wouldn’t it?
There’s a reason for that. A key part of wish fulfilment is that it has to be simple and easy. There’s a reason Aladdin and his magic lamp has spawned mythologies in multiple different cultures in multiple centuries.
We all want a magic lamp, a magic being to pop up and for our troubles to disappear. Or we want to realise our dreams in an instant.
Let’s face it; if you could wake up with a perfect physique tomorrow, a couple of million pounds in your bank account and a couple of attractive servants to do whatever you want, whenever you want it, you’d probably not turn any of that down.
Neither would anyone else.
So a massive key to wish fulfilment isn’t the wish itself. Instead, it’s the fact that it’s easy.
That’s why you never see “The slow and steady way to gain muscle” ads online.
It’s why you’re always in with a chance of “getting laid tonight!” on the dating ads.
This is great for copywriters, because once you pick up the skill of writing in wish fulfilment, you can then transpose it to any other product, service or whatever.
Providing you do one thing correctly.
How To Get Wish Fulfilment Marketing Completely Wrong
There’s no magic key here really.
Instead, it’s a case of long, slow and thorough research.
The one way to kill somebody’s wish fulfilment fantasy (and your conversions) is to get your target market wrong.
I’ll use two examples that I’ve talked about before:
- The sales page I saw about the girl who gets to date a ton of guys.
- The video sales letter with a muscular guy telling his target audience that if they’re not dedicated to the gym already they’re probably going to fail.
These are all cases of either targeting the wrong audience or getting the wish fulfilment wrong.
Most people who are buying fitness products aren’t ever going to dedicate themselves to the gym-rat lifestyle.
Most girls (especially ones seeking dating advice) are not going to want to date a ton of guys.
You need to research your target market fully. If you manage to tap into their dreams and ambitions then you will have their attention forever. By this, I mean not their “I want to be a lawyer and contribute to my 401k” dreams, but their “I really wish I could go back to school, walk up to the prettiest girl in my class and tell her all these witty one-liners I’ve spent ten years formulating so she’d be mine” fantasies.
If you pick the wrong dream and wish fulfilment fantasy, then you’re going to lose people.
That Sounds Obvious; Why Do People Get It Wrong?
The reason people get it wrong is because they think that dreams are universal. To come full circle on this article, the underlying mechanism of wish fulfilment is Universal. However, the wishes themselves; not at all.
A housewife doesn’t want the same as a 20 year old guy.
Not all housewives want the same thing either.
What you think as logical desires and wishes might be the polar opposite of what your target market wants.
Also, this extends to target markets where you’ve designed the product. For instance, you might create a great course for learning how to play golf. You might think that, having learned how to play golf, you identify with the target market fully.
Big Mistake.
Humans are pretty good at mentally evolving to fit their changing circumstances. You might think that you’re the same person who started learning something you’ve now mastered… you’d be wrong. Chances are when you started learning to play golf (or whatever) you had very different ideas about what being good at golf would be like. Don’t assume that what you think makes a good beginner course now actually makes a good beginner course.
Also with that – your sales and marketing has to focus on the truth above with wish fulfilment. I’ve made the mistake of putting in a sales letter how tough it was and how dedicated you need to be to succeed at something. Again, stupid mistake.
Final Thoughts
So wish fulfilment.
It’s a powerful tool in your copywriting arsenal. It might be the most powerful thing you can build into a sales letter, and at the least it’s a great place to start.
To do it correctly:
- Understand and harness the universal desire for wish fulfilment
- Research and understand the common wish fulfilment desires of your target audience
- Write those desires into your sales page
- Make it seem as easy as rubbing a lamp, swallowing a magic pill or learning a single secret
This framework will help you on its own. You can also add other linguistic and complex things to it, but those aren’t necessary, and are also the subject for another day.