This Secret Persuasion Tool NEEDS To Be In Your Copywriting Bag O’ Tricks
Today saw me complete my first sales letter (aside from about us pages) for the niche site challenge. This article is going to be about one of the little things I throw in to the leads/intro section of some of my sales pages.
If you want to write sales letters that convert better than any industry standard, you’ll want to include this technique in your lead ins.
Before I tell you what it is and how to use it, I want to quickly talk about a copywriting bag of tricks. This is genuine advice, but I’m mostly going to talk about it because I just like the name “copywriting bag of tricks” which I thought of two minutes ago.
Your Copywriting Bag Of Tricks
There are things that are standard in every sales letter – there is the structure, which is AIDA or Headline/Lead/Features/CtA. That rarely changes.
Then there’s the language rules; don’t use logical language when you can use emotion. Don’t talk about features when you want benefits. Don’t use negatives or passive language.
Then there’s the fact that you’re selling from point A through to point Z.
All in all, these features – especially for the not-quite-beginners who have the fundamentals down – can mean your copy is stifling.
What you need is a bag of tricks. A copywriting bag of tricks is a collection of the little things that aren’t necessary but add character and fun to your copy; both for you and the reader. They’re things that show the reader that both they and you are on the same page.
Here’s my first entry into the copywriting bag of tricks:
The Hyperbolic Benefit
I was reading someone else’s sales letter today. It’s a good practice to get into, because it’s easy to write stifled copy if you just go into autopilot, and reading other sales copy helps you discover new stuff to try.
Anyway, I was reading this copy, and said writer put a benefit in the lead section of the letter. I won’t give away his niche product, but imagine it was like this:
“If you’re reading this, then you want to be X.”
X was a perfectly reasonable thing. If you were selling soap, it might be, “If you’re reading this, then chances are you want to feel clean.” But it got me thinking.
Why couldn’t we say something like, “If you’re reading this, look at your hands. You probably can’t see anything, but your hands are filthy – covered in germs. Do you want to be cleaner than a surgery room?”
We can use hyperbolic benefits to bring a product to life.
Aren’t Hyperbolic Benefits Lying?
We’ve all got a friend who apparently has a penis the size of an elephant’s. We all remember that guy from our class who had a “model girlfriend” in Canada or something. (I even had that… and I live about as far from Canada as it’s possible to live.)
We’ve all tasted some new food or drink and said, “That’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
We’ve all hyperbolised our achievements and downgraded our failures.
Are these things lying? They’re loose interpretations of the truth. Moreover, they’re funny and there’s a reasonable expectation that the guy in your locker room who says “I’ve got a twenty-inch dick” is probably not being entirely honest.
Hyperbole is a natural language feature, and there’s no problem with using it in sales letters, (In my obviously learned and ethical opinion.)
Why Use A Hyperbolic Benefit
The purpose of a lead in is to get a person’s interest. You aren’t trying to sell an actual feature in the lead in. You’re trying to get people who’ve read your headline to get to the section where you sell them something. Hyperbolic benefits are perfect for this.
Essentially, if you’re writing good copy, then you have a list of the features/benefits. Usually, you work forward from Headline>Lead-in>Benefits>Call to Action. There’s no reason that you have to do this though.
Instead, try taking a benefit, say, “This will make you smell nicer” for soap and then work backwards, using a hyperbolic benefit to create your lead in, then your headline, then your call to action.
Real Benefit: The organic ingredients of the soap give a spicy and yet fresh odour which stays there for twenty-four hours.
Benefit as feature: This soap smells amazing and lasts all day. People will notice the strong scent.
Hyperbolic Lead in: This soap smells so amazing that people will literally come up to you and start chatting to you so they can work out why you smell so good.
Headline: “Does this soap contain pheromones?”
Call-to-action: Prepare to be surrounded by people who love the new you NOW
It’s a hackneyed example, but it’s fun. What’s more, people will immediately know it’s fun. Nobody is going to click a headline about pheromones, read a lead-in like that and expect soap to actually transform you into a pillar of social excellence.
However, it’s enough to build a sales letter around. In fact, when writing this stupid example I realised that not only could you build a marketing campaign around hyperbolic benefits, but in fact, one very famous company already has:
Lynx, or Axe to my readers across the pond, are a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Nobody expects to wear their deodorant and become a sex god; it’s tongue in cheek. Sure, it’s lying in a way, but it’s more a wink to the customer base that says, “Yeah… if only this product could make me a sex god.”
That’s something you can add to spice up your sales letters.
Final Thoughts
When I’ve written about certain things before, they’ve been mandatory: You can’t sell anything if you don’t list reasons why a person should buy it. You can’t keep a reader on your site if you don’t instil trust in them.
Hyperbolic Benefits are entirely optional. It’s something that you can write on a post-it note and shove in a drawer until you’re stuck on a sales letter about something boring.
It’s also something that you’ll enjoy playing around with, and something that your readers will enjoy reading, so it’s worth having a play around with.
Finally, it’s something you can use and test out when you’re comparing your own sales letters against each other.