My Prediction: PAIN
Let’s talk about the dark side of copywriting in this article.
I’m going to because nobody else does… and to be honest, nobody actually really talks about copywriting like I do anyway.
So let’s talk about the dark side of copywriting.
And I’m not talking about, “Oh my god you’re totally evil because you manipulate people and scam people into buying stuff” because let’s face it, if you think like that… you’re on the wrong site.
But copywriting isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.
In fact, let’s do a little story time, because I can demonstrate how there’s a rough side to copywriting.
The Job I Couldn’t Handle…
Somebody once hired me to work on a campaign for their new non-profit organisation.
That organisation was devoted to loneliness and grief, and helping people overcome mental issues, giving them a support network and the like.
In short, an absolutely noble goal and I’d say a crucial one. We live in unhappy, lonely times.
And as part of the research and for the email campaign, I worked on getting people into the funnel and wrote material encouraging them to take part in various forums and signing up for events.
It was basic stuff, in terms of the technical side. Write some direct response emails, build the funnels out, etc.
But you know, of all the jobs I’ve taken on across all the industries and all the countries, this is the one that really messed with my mind.
Sure, I’ve worked on the doom and gloom financial stuff, and the prepping for the end of the world stuff is grim… and we should all be preppers in a sense.
But the loneliness campaign… Jesus.
There was high engagement on the research. I’d ask a question and get dozens of answers. When I wrote the email sequence, people signed up in droves and they responded to the emails at massive engagement rates.
And it was terrible to witness really.
So many people were sad and lonely. Estranged fathers. Elderly women who’d outlived their kids. People who’d lost their families in car crashes. Drunks and addicts who’d burned all their bridges. The mentally ill people who don’t feel they ever stood a chance.
All of them were there waiting for a glimmer of hope and they found it in an autoresponder.
It was the toughest job I’ve done, to be honest.
But I learned a lot about writing quality copy from that task for one reason.
Problems Hurt…
I worked with another client a while back. They had a few chiropractic clinics and were moving into creating medical creams and other supplies for their customers, as well as B2B.
And they had me working on direct marketing for them for these products.
So I wrote the sales letters using my super copywriting wizardry skills.
And the main guy rang me up and said, “You can’t use this.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it will scare the customers to death.”
And that’s a real worry you might have to deal with if you’re a good copywriter and work with clients. Clients get scared when you use your dark persuasive powers because honestly, it can look pretty scary.
But here’s why I scared people to death in those sales letters, and it’s why he kept hiring me.
Here’s what I told him, basically:
“Your customers should be scared. How scary is spending the last twenty years of your life with out of control arthritis?”
And really, if you’re selling good products and doing your job right, that’s the conundrum that you are facing as a copywriter.
The same doctor hired me again. Florida had a law change as regards claiming for car accidents. The same thing again. I went heavy on the fear factor, because the whole point of the campaign was to get the reader to book an appointment before the deadline passed.
The Offer… Heaven Or Hell
I can’t remember the exact details, but the law changed so that you only had a limited time to claim medical treatment on your health insurance for a car accident. The details are fuzzy because I don’t really understand the American healthcare system so well.
Naturally though, you could say, “You have six months to claim of you miss out on insured free treatment cover.”
And that’s what a novice copywriter would do.
But they aren’t an apprentice of the Dark Side.
Here’s a paraphrased version of what worked incredibly well:
Here is your choice: You get checked now and get on the road to recovery… or you deal with a lifetime of pain. You can’t carry your own groceries. In twenty years’ time when your grandkids want to play, you have to say no due to the crippling, chronic pain you’re in.
No matter how small you might think that little injury is now, no matter how much of an inconvenience it might be to tell your boss you need to rearrange that meeting because you’ll be in late on Thursday… NOTHING you do will be more important to ensure you stay out of a wheelchair than picking up that phone right now and calling us.
And that’s the darkside of copywriting folks.
If you want to make those readers act, you should bring the reality of their life without the solution to the forefront and make the product the lifesaving answer to their problems.