Matching Story To Product For Emotional Traction... Here's How!
"Remember your first time driving all by yourself ? This is better."
The picture of a silver Jaguar convertible with top down and white leather interior is just above that line of copy. The pink and orange sunset behind the car are amazing and the cobblestones the car sits on are just plain beautiful.
The view is from twenty feet above, shot down and at an angle from ahead of the car, looking back at it and along the drivers side of the car. (It's an amaaaaazing photograph.)
The words are evocative and the car is stunning...
So what's going on? What's being sold? And what strategy is being used?
Marketing, Advertising and selling are all a combination of art and science, but the art draws on more science than people realize...
The question is directed to anyone who wants to read the page, but it was written for men in their forties and fifties. Men who aren't likely to remember the exact circumstances of their first time driving by themselves. Why men forty or fifty years old? That's the target buyer for Jaguar sports convertibles.
The point is this...
Since you can't remember exactly what happened... the first time you got to drive by yourself, project that exciting moment of freedom, power and possibility onto...
an imaginary first drive in this beautiful car - in this beautiful setting - enter the fantasy.
They aren't selling utilitarian transportation. This isn't about just getting from point A to point B. So what else is it about?
It's about addressing far deeper desires...
There's not a single word wasted on describing features of the car...
The copy is all about addressing the person those forty and fifty year old men want to be, and the person they already know they are...
So the advertisement uses a story; well, it actually suggests a story. It offers the first two sentences of the story along with the visual stimulus to set off internal narratives.
The idea is to get the person these forty and fifty year old men (ie target audience) want to be, to begin interacting with the person these men know they are.
Either convince the practical man each of them knows he is to loosen up and... imagine how much better their experience could be... with a Jaguar, or else... let them feel bad that they can't let go and feel these things.
Now the copy writing tools in this advertisement are...
The story is about the buyer's deep desires and the object is to bring those desires into play. That's the emotional objective. The product is about the solution...
but the product, by itself, may not really touch on the buyer's deep desires.
In this case, the buyer's deeper desires are status, personal value, coolness, and power. The product is about transportation. The goal is to tap the deep desires and sell the solution - which is to say, the product.
So by being honest and looking for a story that overlaps with the realities and details of the product, the copywriter has tapped into emotions so that
...practical and rational decision-making is shifted to the background. The idea is make the decision with emotions not with rationality and practicality.
This strategy can work just as well for most any product, but it is almost mandatory for luxury products. Think for a moment how it might work for a more mundane product... Let's say a GPS unit.
Instead of selling the features and practical advantages of a GPS, how about selling what you can do with a GPS.
Maybe you show a woman running in the mountains with a GPS in her hand... guiding her way. It's a gorgeous mountain vista and the copy says something like...
Again we are devising and matching a story to a product in order to shift the buyer towards emotional experience. That's the game...
Tap into those deeper desires of who the buyer wants to be and get them to consider the product in terms of who they know they are emotionally rather than rationally or practically.
If that makes the buyer feel slightly envious or uncomfortable, that's okay. In fact, that's good. Then the next step of the sale is to address those feelings of discomfort. But that's a subject for another report.
So here's how to go about combining story and product to gain emotional traction.
In order to match the story to the product, identify who the buying audience is and then address their deeper desires. Pick the emotions that audience most desires.
...select the story to tap into whichever desires you have choosen.
That's the method of matching story to product in order
to sell with emotions.
Yet there's one more subtlety you shouldn't overlook. As you select a story make certain that you are addressing the legitimate emotional overlap zone between,
...emotions the product can be associated with and emotions the target audience deeply desire.
If this overlap is not selected carefully, there will seem to be a hypie overblown character to the copy.
In other words, if your product is an electric razor and your target audience is men between eighteen and fifty years of age, the story may be about their desire for women, yet if you go after that too directly you'll look obvious and heavy handed - like so many razor advertisements do.
There is, however,
...a legitimate overlap between the target audience's interest in women and the product. Men do groom themselves to attract women, but if the women fall all over themselves because the man uses a particular razor, it just isn't believable.
So many razor companies have overplayed this overlap, that razor commercials now are almost intentionally bad, like a form of black comedy. As a copywriter, I suggest you don't go there.
The overlap guides your choice of story and the way you shape the story.
That overlap, between the target audience's desires and the product's features allows a lot of leeway. This is where you can be creative. But if you also want to add your own voice into the mix, which you should want to do, then the overlap is a bit more restricted.
You want the story to allow you to return to talking, with your own voice,about your knowledge of the product.
If you allow the story
...to go far out of your own personal orbit of experience and then try to introduce your personal voice and opinions into the copy, you can sound unbelievable. That's the worst thing possible.
You want your opinions to be valuable, and they should be, so take care in how you use story so that your voice and opinions are still easily accessible and believable. This is where creativity comes in.
For example, in the GPS story, the woman running in the mountains with the story line...
It's easy to move directly from that story presentation into a personal opinion about how useful the product is. You can easily tell a personal story about how you or someone you know has used a GPS in their business and how much it helped them.
You can play with the emotional freedom the GPS offers.
In fact, an acquaintance of mine writes children's books and frequently goes to elementary schools to read his newest stories. He uses a GPS to help find schools that are way off the beaten path. By using his GPS, he's been able to add a lot more school readings to his schedule. He's pretty excited about that. With a GPS, Making his path just got simpler.
So let me close this report
...by again saying that matching a story to a product opens the door to selling with emotions - that changes everything.
Instead of selling the practical advantages of the product and the reasons why the product is significant by appealing to the client's mind;
you shift the entire decision-making process, if you do this correctly, to the reader's memories and emotions of who he or she wants to become.
Use the real overlap between the the target audience's desires and the product's features to guide how you shape your story.
But keep in mind... you want to comfortably and believably be able to introduce your own voice and opinions into the copy.
After all, the difference between traditional advertising and internet marketing is the opportunity that IM offers you -
...to use your voice to build a genuine personal relationship with your audience.
The picture of a silver Jaguar convertible with top down and white leather interior is just above that line of copy. The pink and orange sunset behind the car are amazing and the cobblestones the car sits on are just plain beautiful.
The view is from twenty feet above, shot down and at an angle from ahead of the car, looking back at it and along the drivers side of the car. (It's an amaaaaazing photograph.)
The words are evocative and the car is stunning...
So what's going on? What's being sold? And what strategy is being used?
Marketing, Advertising and selling are all a combination of art and science, but the art draws on more science than people realize...
"Remember your first time driving all by yourself?"
The question is directed to anyone who wants to read the page, but it was written for men in their forties and fifties. Men who aren't likely to remember the exact circumstances of their first time driving by themselves. Why men forty or fifty years old? That's the target buyer for Jaguar sports convertibles.
The point is this...
Since you can't remember exactly what happened... the first time you got to drive by yourself, project that exciting moment of freedom, power and possibility onto...
an imaginary first drive in this beautiful car - in this beautiful setting - enter the fantasy.
They aren't selling utilitarian transportation. This isn't about just getting from point A to point B. So what else is it about?
It's about addressing far deeper desires...
There's not a single word wasted on describing features of the car...
The copy is all about addressing the person those forty and fifty year old men want to be, and the person they already know they are...
So the advertisement uses a story; well, it actually suggests a story. It offers the first two sentences of the story along with the visual stimulus to set off internal narratives.
The idea is to get the person these forty and fifty year old men (ie target audience) want to be, to begin interacting with the person these men know they are.
Either convince the practical man each of them knows he is to loosen up and... imagine how much better their experience could be... with a Jaguar, or else... let them feel bad that they can't let go and feel these things.
Now the copy writing tools in this advertisement are...
story and product.
The story is about the buyer's deep desires and the object is to bring those desires into play. That's the emotional objective. The product is about the solution...
but the product, by itself, may not really touch on the buyer's deep desires.
In this case, the buyer's deeper desires are status, personal value, coolness, and power. The product is about transportation. The goal is to tap the deep desires and sell the solution - which is to say, the product.
So by being honest and looking for a story that overlaps with the realities and details of the product, the copywriter has tapped into emotions so that
...practical and rational decision-making is shifted to the background. The idea is make the decision with emotions not with rationality and practicality.
This strategy can work just as well for most any product, but it is almost mandatory for luxury products. Think for a moment how it might work for a more mundane product... Let's say a GPS unit.
Instead of selling the features and practical advantages of a GPS, how about selling what you can do with a GPS.
Maybe you show a woman running in the mountains with a GPS in her hand... guiding her way. It's a gorgeous mountain vista and the copy says something like...
"Making your own path... just got simpler."
Again we are devising and matching a story to a product in order to shift the buyer towards emotional experience. That's the game...
Tap into those deeper desires of who the buyer wants to be and get them to consider the product in terms of who they know they are emotionally rather than rationally or practically.
If that makes the buyer feel slightly envious or uncomfortable, that's okay. In fact, that's good. Then the next step of the sale is to address those feelings of discomfort. But that's a subject for another report.
So here's how to go about combining story and product to gain emotional traction.
In order to match the story to the product, identify who the buying audience is and then address their deeper desires. Pick the emotions that audience most desires.
...select the story to tap into whichever desires you have choosen.
That's the method of matching story to product in order
to sell with emotions.
Yet there's one more subtlety you shouldn't overlook. As you select a story make certain that you are addressing the legitimate emotional overlap zone between,
...emotions the product can be associated with and emotions the target audience deeply desire.
If this overlap is not selected carefully, there will seem to be a hypie overblown character to the copy.
In other words, if your product is an electric razor and your target audience is men between eighteen and fifty years of age, the story may be about their desire for women, yet if you go after that too directly you'll look obvious and heavy handed - like so many razor advertisements do.
There is, however,
...a legitimate overlap between the target audience's interest in women and the product. Men do groom themselves to attract women, but if the women fall all over themselves because the man uses a particular razor, it just isn't believable.
So many razor companies have overplayed this overlap, that razor commercials now are almost intentionally bad, like a form of black comedy. As a copywriter, I suggest you don't go there.
The overlap guides your choice of story and the way you shape the story.
That overlap, between the target audience's desires and the product's features allows a lot of leeway. This is where you can be creative. But if you also want to add your own voice into the mix, which you should want to do, then the overlap is a bit more restricted.
You want the story to allow you to return to talking, with your own voice,about your knowledge of the product.
If you allow the story
...to go far out of your own personal orbit of experience and then try to introduce your personal voice and opinions into the copy, you can sound unbelievable. That's the worst thing possible.
You want your opinions to be valuable, and they should be, so take care in how you use story so that your voice and opinions are still easily accessible and believable. This is where creativity comes in.
For example, in the GPS story, the woman running in the mountains with the story line...
"Making your own path... just got simpler."
It's easy to move directly from that story presentation into a personal opinion about how useful the product is. You can easily tell a personal story about how you or someone you know has used a GPS in their business and how much it helped them.
You can play with the emotional freedom the GPS offers.
In fact, an acquaintance of mine writes children's books and frequently goes to elementary schools to read his newest stories. He uses a GPS to help find schools that are way off the beaten path. By using his GPS, he's been able to add a lot more school readings to his schedule. He's pretty excited about that. With a GPS, Making his path just got simpler.
So let me close this report
...by again saying that matching a story to a product opens the door to selling with emotions - that changes everything.
Instead of selling the practical advantages of the product and the reasons why the product is significant by appealing to the client's mind;
you shift the entire decision-making process, if you do this correctly, to the reader's memories and emotions of who he or she wants to become.
Use the real overlap between the the target audience's desires and the product's features to guide how you shape your story.
But keep in mind... you want to comfortably and believably be able to introduce your own voice and opinions into the copy.
After all, the difference between traditional advertising and internet marketing is the opportunity that IM offers you -
...to use your voice to build a genuine personal relationship with your audience.
This man is living his dream. Are you...?
www.copywriter-ac.com
Direct Response Copywriting