What's your thoughts on this sentence...

Was that written by a man?


The story it brings to mind is probalby not what you intended....


I immediately thought of an anxious, dependent woman married to a shallow, overbearing man. If she bought my diet book, she would become svelte and self confident - then she could dump that loser and find a man who would value her mind and humor, her kindness and accomplishments.


(My mind has a mind of its own)

Hahaha

Yes, it was written by a man.

So I'm thinking I should keep then, it must be good!

To which the only sensible response would be: "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."

I don't know any women that would marry a bloke who thinks like that.

You gotta get inside the head of your reader, and this doesn't.

I dunno... maybe something like... "Still not sure if this is for you? Well, you better learn to love sweatpants..."*

*from someone who wears sweatpants, exclusively.

If I said those words to my wife, she would probably just laugh... stand me in front of a mirror... and say "look at yourself you fat turd. Where do you think you're going to go?"


Either that, or she wouldn't say anything. And then I'd be really scared, because I fall asleep first at night.

Alternative is to power up the pain points ...


"I'm leaving you, Hippo Features..." imagine if your husband, boyfriend, or significant other said those words to you while poking your fat ass with a stick as the guys from the bar laughed and jeered. All because you put on a few extra pounds and split your pants every time you bend over! For years I was scared my husband would say those terrible words to me ...

Tired of avoiding yourself in the mirror?

You can't help but notice that recently you've outgrown your wardrobe, you're feeling depressed, you don't want to go out with your family or friends, and yet all you do is snack all the time.

The mirror has literally become your enemy!

Every time you see it across the room, you give it the stare of death and avoid it at all costs.

Your bad eating habits and lack of exercise have robbed more than just your happiness.

Are you tired of feeling like you're not attractive?

Are you weighing yourself daily...

...wishing the pounds you've put on didn't haunt you like they do?

Today that stops!

After I share with you 5 tips on how you can easily implement healthy and effective habits, you will suddenly feel happier.

You will know that not only are you taking a step towards change, but it doesn't have to be a difficult road to get the result you want.

Within the next 2 weeks, I guarantee you will lose up to 5 lbs or more.

Continue to build your story leading the benefits to your offer, etc...

Just throwing some ideas out for you. Have fun with it.

Hmmm...ethically....NOPE! LOL....

Do not go there.

How about:

Do you want to lose those pesky last few pounds?

Fun. Playful. Light. Feel good. Resonates with healthy, high energy folks who'd nod in agreement, would laugh and would drop some dough to lose the fat.

A lot less pain points, more pleasure points, because greater profits are had in doing things from a higher energetic plane, the moral, ethical plane. You're coming from love and harmony versus fear and divided-ness and illusion, so you'll make more coin, render genuine service, plus you'll sleep better at night.

Ryan

You haven't studied your market.

In my opinion, you're starting your idea too late in the process.

An ultimatum like the one in your opening doesn't drive women to lose weight.

Overweight women have a lot more fears before things ever get to the point you're leading with...

Realizing there's a loss of sexual intimacy would rate higher. Worried their husband doesn't think they're attractive anymore. The days when their husband would pick them up and sweep them off their feet are gone.

Now they just sit on opposite ends of the couch. Husband on his cell phone...wife staring at T.V. realizing the magic is gone and it's probably all because her weight gain has made her ugly.

You're trying to be a genius with your opening instead of understanding your market.

I'd suggest you do some research on your market...and if this is your story from a personal experience, I'd suggest you need to do some more soul searching into the reason/s you decided to lose weight.

I think several suggestions - including the OP's text - are simply too serious and too negative.


You don't tell someone how bad they feel - they know that. You don't attract followers/buyers by telling them of dire consequences if they don't lose weight.


Paint a word picture of how much more fun life can be - how wonderful they will feel without those extra pounds. Make readers believe that with just a few weeks of focus on diet, etc - life will be great.



In the beer commercials and male products ads - there are always beautiful women. The inference is 'do this/drink this/use this' and women like these will be available to you.


They don't advertise that way often for women - that's dumb. Tell the women if they lose that extra 30 lbs they can dump the recliner doofus who puts them down and feature images of 'stud muffins'.....


sorry - just having some fun with it. Brainstorm - open your mind - let ideas flow and then work with those ideas....

But - what a beautiful dog she is!

Looks like kinda a dama scene from telenovela
but I would use It as it is a good psychological term. But try to put there less drama please

I get it. The structure of the copy...it reads like a copywriter wrote it. But the appeal is all wrong. "I'm leaving you" will only flip the right switch in a very few women. And the rest of the story, although technically well written, makes the woman a weak victim. In 1950, this may have worked better.

A better approach. but make it juicier..more emotional..

"Do you want to lose those persistent pesky last few pounds that seem to hang on for deal life, no matter what you try to get rid of them? Maybe nobody notices, but you do. Maybe those last few extra pounds don't matter...but you're not so sure."

Remember. The prospect can never be responsible for their problem, and they have to be praised for already doing what they should be doing. That way, they feel complimented, and will identify with the headline.

And "the last few pounds" is what every overweight woman thinks. They are almost there.....just a few more pounds lost, and they will be gorgeous again.


I absolutely cannot write like a woman thinks. It's a huge blind spot for me. But I gave it my best guess.

Why? First off, where is your traffic source? Where are you going to find these frightened wives? How do you get them to your promotion?

Do you have any experience in this area? I think not.

Are you educable? If so, then use Google. Search for Bud Weckesser ads, you'll find dicusssions HERE at WF about Bud's ads, and also good stuff at Lawence Bernstein's archives too.
Why Bud?

He sold millions of dollars of books on weight loss. His ads are the best in the business. And a couple are included in all time great ads books too.

Search for the ATLANTA HOUSEWIFE ALMOST ARRESTED AD, or the BOYFRIEND WANTED ad.

I'll bet right now, if you continue to pursue the path you have chosen, it will be a huge failure, but feel free to prove me wrong.

Most of the warriors have been kind in their responses, I'm a little less kind, this idea sucks big time. Try another way. Or if you are UNeducable, then proceed.

GordonJ

Best way to find out is to AB test it

I think you need to look inside yourself and understand what you really want. If you want to lose weight, you need to start it only for your own health, and not because of the fear that you can leave your husband. I also had a similar situation ... I said: something does not suit, I will not hold. I lost weight, because I was inspired by Gillian Mikes .

just a suggestion on the change in theme if possible :a woman scared she may no longer be able to fit-in in her beautiful old dress she always loved.

Wow... with all this great advice over the last few weeks I made a modification. What's your thoughts on this for an opening paragraph:

I was scared all the time.

Afraid my husband wouldn't find me attractive anymore!


Thanks in advance for your opinions.

Wow, so much bad advice in these comments...

Some solid nuggets too though.

Pointers:

1. With divorce laws so heavily slanted in women's favor today, few men would leave and get divorce-raped over a few pounds, not to mention other aspects such as the kids etc. Even fewer women would worry about their husband being that daft.
2. Why restrict yourself to married women, when so many are already divorced (see first bullet)
3. Fat people are in denial they are so fat, so the "few pounds" thing is good
4. Typically it is the woman who goes off sex because she's fat, rather than the man not wanting sex because she's fat. Her feeling undesirable is a key factor.
5. She would notice other men losing interest long before her husband would lose sexual or romantic interest

I could go on, for example it is usually photos, videos or health issues that make people decide to take action on their weight, but as others have mentioned, you're not really putting yourself in her shoes.

For example what are you actually trying to do with this intro, other than be a fancy wordsmith?

The only thing your intro' should be doing is getting them to read your advert, so how is any of this setting them up for that?


APC

Sounds like you are reviving the thread to say the same thing you started with....or very close to it.


And, as many have said, it's not a good approach. But have at it. You can overanalyze and over-explain and use psycho-babble and generalities but the main problem is this:


You need to approach this from the internal perspective of the woman - how she feels about herself and how SHE thinks the world sees her. You keep going back to assigning 'fear' of what someone else (husband) will do and that's unlikely to work well.


As I said above - sounds as if it's written a man talking about a women...and quite a few of the responses sound much the same.

Have you interviewed women about the subject?

Here's the interesting thing
when you do...

They will use language that no marketer/copywriter
would ever come up with on their own.

And that is good...

becasuse the women reading it know
it's real, not made up from the head of someone trying to sell something.

A client came to me for help
because his newspaper advertorial response was getting low.

That same ad had worked for a year
without any changes.

It was a story of a local women on what she had to go through leading up to
finally pulling the trigger and getting help.

Instead of taking another angle what my client proposed
I got him to use a even more powerfull client story than
he had used.

Taught him how to interview to draw out the raw gut emotion
in a very safe environment.

The story was about a former fitness instructer who
went on to become obese.

As you can imagine the shame she felt
and the deepths of despair she had to overcome.

She was in a motor accident which limited her mobility.

On another occasion I interviewd a woman copywriter
about her weight challenge.

The excercise was not for me writing an ad for a weight loss product,
it was an excercise in knowing how
to interview people for market research.

Digging for gold.

The raw emotion.

Not manufactured words.

Finding the hooks.

Being the detective.

Getting a copywriter to do interviews seems unheard of these days.

Caleb Odowd, one of the late Gary Halbet's students
who got his seal of approval,
was made to go speak with 80 year old men
about sexual dysfunction.

Hard to imagine a 20 something year old guy talking about
grandad's sex life!

Well, you gotta do what you gotta do to dig up eye candy to your reader.

Reader's know when you are trying to make stuff up.

If you fool some, they are the bottom feeders
of the market
and will end being nightmare customers.

So, go interview customers or possible customers about
the subject.

Find out what turns them off by existing ads.

That is just as important as to why they buy.

You get to find out what never to do.

Keep going until
the sanitized version is gone and the raw emotion
from the gut reveals itself.

That's where your breakthroughs come.

Best,
Ewen