Feelings and Emotions

There is so much to it.... here is where I got the ideas and inspirations... FICTION

Read fiction that is relevant to your product and you will see how the writer creates emotions through the written word...

I became interested in writing fiction because my ex husband was a novel writer and I learned how to write fiction from the standpoint of someone who writes a book to be sold at a book store.

Imagine your customer comes to the store and looks at the name of your book... (that's your headline in web copywriting)...

Then he gets curious... picks up the book off the shelf... flips through the first few pages.....

keep him interested... throughout your whole book until the very last page....

When writing my sales copy I strive to grab the reader from the headline and NOT let him go...

Momentum. Get the reader saying "yes" to things that everybody says "yes" about. "You want a good product." Yes. "You want a good price." Yes, of course. "You want a solid guarantee." Well, obviously, yes. "You're excited about this product." Why, yes... yes, I am.

Now you have excitement. You know you have excitement, even if it's only a little. Enhance it. Talk about excitement, and about exciting things. Tell a story about a time you were excited. Circle around the emotion over and over again, to cement it in the reader's mind.

Anton Lavey is a master of this technique, and uses it to great effect in The Satanic Bible. A lot of copywriters just use it to get people directly into desiring the product, but it works well for all kinds of things.

ActiveTrader
Thanks, as you say fiction captivates all of us, so learning from that is a brilliant idea.
CDarklock
Pacing and leading, got it, and telling stories about the specific states is also a good idea.

Thanks a lot, and i look forward to further comments.
Nathan

This is a broad subject that can be treated from
different levels. There is the level of word choice,
life situation (story) and writing mechanics (poetry,
sentence length, cadence etc).

You have to understand the value of word choice
with regard to the emotional punch of words. For
example, 'hard' is more emotional than 'difficult'.

You can tell an emotional story-- a story about
a man and his son is more emotional than a
story about a man and his car--at least it
should be.

Then as a for the mechanics of the writing,
short sentence show quick action, while
long sentences slow down the pace. You
can use punctuation to also pace the
reading--here a study of poetry helps.

Writing is not the same as having a conversation
with someone but you can develop the
conversation by raising questions and then
answering them.

Then there's the old rule of 'showing' instead
of 'telling'. Following this rule will lift your
writing out of the doldrums.

You should write for all 5 senses--sight, smell,
touch, taste, hearing. But also in writing there
is the "sixth sense" of self-awareness that the
writer tries to connect with.

In essence you have to paint an emotional picture
and use the avenues of the senses to evoke emotion.
The movie producer has pictures, sound, dialogue and
special effects. The copywriter only has words.

-Ray Edwards

Hi Nathan

A key component is to have EMPATHY with the potential customer. It's different from sympathy (which is feeling sorry for them), empathy is to really feel what they're feeling, and experience what they're experiencing... WITH them.

I call it Shoewalking.

It's about stepping into their shoes, and being able to... imagine yourself in their shoes, and in their skin, feeling what they're feeling, seeing what they're seeing.. both in their life (for empathy), and at each point in your sales copy.

Truly know and understand them.

Only when you have this, can you then begin to LEAD them.

As someone with a background in hypnosis, you may already understand the concept of "pacing and leading".

In real life (and in sales copy), demonstrating empathy IS pacing. You're demonstrating that you truly understand them, and how they feel... you care.

And it's not about using glib phrases like, "I understand", or "I care".

You need to demonstrate that you understand, or care. Perhaps by relating your own feelings and experiences (making sure they're similar to what the potential customer may be feeling).

THAT is demonstrating empathy. When you do that, you're PACING their reality.

Then, and only then, do you have the authority and ability to LEAD them.

What you're essentially saying (in very, very simplified form) is...

"I know how you feel about X, you feel Y and Z... I had that too... but how would you like to have A? What would it be like to do B? To never have to C again? How would you feel if D?"

The first part is the pacing, the second is the leading.

As I said, the key is to DEMONSTRATE empathy. So, for example, if your selling a product which cures back pain, relate to your reader... perhaps by recounting your story about your back pain... the problems you had... and then the solution.

Plus, it's about capturing and leading their imagination. When you know where they are, you can lead them to where you want them to go.

"You see, I know that as someone with a background in hypnotism, you have all that knowledge and powerful stuff you've learned, but you'd just LOVE to be able to use that in your sales copy... you'd love to be able to APPLY IT to almost "hypnotize" your readers into buying from you. What would it be like, for you, right now, if you were able to watch that kind of stuff being written, right before your very eyes... so you could see PRECISELY how it was done?

That's EXACTLY what you'll get to see in Video #7 of my copywriting video series. All those questions will just melt away as you see me applying all the hypnotic techniques you've learned, to write captivating copy that truly leaves the reader in a deep state of buying desire. When you have this, and TRULY get it, just watch what it will do to your sales!

See what I did there? I paced you, paced you, paced you... then led you. And maybe... just maybe... you were able to, i don't know, get just a little bit excited about Video #7.

(Which as a video, is very real, by the way.)

What can often be more compelling is not selling a BENEFIT based proposition with
the promise of INSTANT RICHES, but a PAIN based pitch highlighting the problems,
issues and frustrations the reader has, that they might wish to avoid, or move away from.

Afterall, people act quicker to get away from pain, and move slower to a benefit.

Again, The majority of buying decisions are based on EMOTION (not logic and reason)

and one of the Strongest emotions is PAIN or FEAR. (Fear of loss is very powerful)

On one online social network I have over 400 testimonials the majority of which was
generated via a pain based approach. I say that not to impress or for the ego trip, but to re-affirm it can be very powerful, and that not everyone motivated by the MONEY.

One other thing is, life partners, colleagues etc usually use the "SHOW ME THE MONEY" line several weeks or months into the new project, afterall thats how it was "sold" to them in the first place.

Remember, EMOTIONS drive the TRANSACTION, but it's LOGIC and REASON that are used for the JUSTIFICATION in making the decision, and people are far too often reminded of that at a later date.

Hope that helps.

Regards


Fraser

Nathan, I know you're a student of Igor Ledochowski, like me, and have gone through his conversational hypnosis self-study program. Much of what he teaches in that can be directly applied, I think.

One caveat, though.

Like activetrader said above, good fiction writers are *great* at creating emotion in their readers. Next time you read a good book, one that grabs you and holds your attention and makes you feel, notice *how* they show and don't tell. I used to be a moderator on a writing board and so used to pal around with real live published authors. Their advice, in part, for that is ... don't use adverbs. Adverbs are *telling,* not showing.

Think about it: which is more compelling and interesting? "The man ran quickly," or "The man ran like the devil was at his back, and considering Hal was a minor demon, that wasn't too far from the truth."

Okay, so I cheated a little bit by throwing in a fantasy element. Still, I think you get the idea.

Joshua

In my experience, people are more likely to want something that's missing from their lives entirely rather than want more of something they already have.

The trick then is to paint a picture of what's missing and what they have to do to get it (in this case, but your product or service).