5 Blunders Copywriters Make When Tapping Into Prospects’ Fears
Dear Business Builder,
Things are sure popping around here …
We’re busier than a gaggle of one-armed paper hangers:
- My agency, Response Ink is in the heat of a web-based sales campaign for a client that’s blowing the doors off of anything we’ve ever done before. So far my landing pages and e-mails have hauled in nearly $8 million in just five weeks, thrashing my previous online record of $5 million in five weeks.
- Needless to say, the client – whose sales are up 60% since retaining us less than a year ago – is ecstatic.
- Our EasyWriters Marketing Club is keeping me plenty busy, too. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve interviewed not one, but two celebrated entrepreneurs and copywriters for our members: Ted Nicholas and Joe Sugarman. Plus, we’re preparing a webinar with Ogilvy-Mather Direct’s legendary chairman, Drayton Bird.
- I’m also slaving away on my first-ever bookstore book for a major international publisher – and my editor is teaching me a LOT. Like, what I don’t know about writing bookstore books could fill a gazillion bookstore books.
- Plus, I have two three-inch binders on my desk – more than 35 pounds of plastique we modestly call Clayton Makepeace’s Ultimate Copywriting Course (more than 1,000 pages and counting!) that Tony Flores and I are polishing to perfection.
- And in the middle of all this, we just packed up and moved into new offices that double our square footage – so we’ll have plenty of room for new copywriters, designers and marketing folk and to accept one new client in 2008.
The move was an amazing thing to behold. The Redhead found the building, closed the deal, got the demolition and remodeling done, had our T1 and cable lines and all our furniture and computers moved and had us back in business at the new location – all in just 30 days.
So how does one little person get so many folks – including otherwise sluggish construction guys … electricians … painters … plumbers … carpet guys … ceiling guys … movers and even me … moving so fast?
Ask anybody – our vendors … our employees … our friends and family … our kids: Everyone loves The Redhead. Especially me.
But there’s something about her that also says, “Mess with The Redhead, and you’ll find yourself yearning for the sweet relief of death.”
The Astonishing Power of Fear
Have you ever been tempted to squeeze an irresistibly cute bottom? Tell the judge where he can stick that speeding ticket? Claim a tax deduction you don’t really deserve? Drink and drive?
So why didn’t you?
What’s that you say? You don’t do those things because you’re a moral person?
Well, while your application for sainthood is being processed, consider the rest of us – imperfect folks who are sorely tempted to do all of those things and still don’t – simply because we fear the consequences.
In a word, “jail.”
It’s a rational fear. Fact is, here in America – “the land of the free” – one out of every 98 adults is behind bars. More than 2.3 million of the 225 million adults in the U.S. woke up this morning in a federal or state prison or a local jail. Almost as many people who live in Chicago live behind bars today.
That leaves about 222.7 million of us grownups outside the prison walls – including former prisoners, folks on the lam, folks who probably should be on the lam (presidential candidates, Congress, most bureaucrats, whole-life insurance reps, every lawyer but mine, etc.), and of course, the rest of us.
And to one degree or another, every one of us has tempered our behavior – or even refused to do something we probably should have done – because we fear winding up in the pokie.
But fear does more than keeping us from doing things we want to do. It also compels us to do things that we would never do voluntarily.
Slightly more than 145 million of us labor all year for the privilege of handing over the lion’s share of our income to politicians and bureaucrats – in federal and state income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, automobile licensing taxes, excise taxes, taxes imbedded in the price of every product we buy, the inflation tax and other government taxes and fees.
Because if we didn’t, we could lose everything we own – or maybe wind up in jail.
Fear.
Next week, as we pay our bills, we’ll spend billions on all kinds of insurance to protect ourselves and our families from something that will probably never happen.
Fear.
In the upcoming elections, millions of Americans will vote for Democrats because they fear global warming.
Millions more will vote for Republicans because they fear Democrats.
I’ll be voting Libertarian because I’m terrified of both parties.
Fear.
What are your prospects afraid of?
Read most books about copywriting, and you’ll read a ton of stuff about how to appeal to your prospects’ desires by fully dimensionalizing your product’s benefits.
Now benefits are in the business of fulfilling desires – like the desire for greater wealth, better health, more fulfilling and more enduring relationships, the respect or even the envy of peers, and much more.
But every benefit is just one side of a coin; the other side is a fear.
Because while prospects desire all these things, they also fear NOT having them in their lives. They fear poverty and dependence … illness and pain … being abandoned and left alone, and being thought little of.
And so sales copy that promises to deliver a much-desired benefit and alleviate a nagging fear can be twice as effective as copy that focuses on benefits alone.
But activating your prospects’ fear in promotional copy can be a tricky proposition – and so I thought it might be a good idea to give you a few guidelines I use …
Five Blunders Copywriters Make
When Using Fear in Sales Copy
1. Attempting to give prospects a fear they don’t already have: The last thing your prospects need at the end of an emotionally exhausting day is to pick up a magazine, open a direct mail package or land on a web page in which you introduce them to a new problem or a new fear.
Regaling them with a new problem or a new situation they should fear is a sure way to get your sales message ignored – or worse; leave prospects vowing to never read anything else you ever send them again.
Moral: If you’re going to invoke fear in your sales copy, make sure it’s a fear that’s already waking your prospects at 2:30 AM in a cold sweat.
2. Playing on prospects’ fears of distant events: We all know that retirement is heading for us like a runaway freight train – but very few of us get serious about saving for retirement until it’s too late.
We all know that smoking can kill us – someday in the distant future – and yet millions of us still smoke.
And of course, we all know that Double Whoppers and Double Quarter-Pounders with Cheese will eventually clog our arteries and doom us to a heart attack or stroke – and yet McDonalds and Burger King sell billions of dollars worth of this toxic (but mouth-watering) food every year.
So why doesn’t the fear of a poverty-stricken retirement or lung cancer or a heart attack or stroke motivate us to change our behavior?
Simple: The pleasure we get from spending our money … or chowing down on a thick, greasy burger … or savoring an after-dinner smoke … is immediate. The price we pay won’t be exacted for years or even decades.
Put simply the distance of the negative event in time neutralizes its power to change our behavior.
Physical distance is also a factor when considering fear as a motivator in sales copy. Last week, when I was talking with Joe Sugarman about ads he wrote for his Midex burglar alarm system, I asked him why he began his copy reminding prospects of rising crime statistics and the likelihood that they would become victims of crime.
Joe’s answer was spot-on: “They know all that,” Joe said. “But it’s not until their next-neighbor has an intruder in his house that the fear becomes strong enough to move them to action. And when that happens, if I’ve done my job well, they’ll remember my ads and buy a burglar alarm from me.”
In other words, someone near you was a victim of a violent crime in his or her home yesterday. If it was your next-door neighbor, you’re many times more likely to be buy a burglar alarm today than if the victim was a mile or ten miles away.
Moral: If you’re going to use fear in your copy, make sure it’s an imminent fear. Something that is likely to happen in the very near future – or better yet, at virtually any moment.
3. Using fear that paralyzes: Right now, the investing world is a very interesting place. The value of the U.S. dollar has been cratering – and foreign currencies have been soaring in value – for 5 ½ long years.
The U.S. housing bust and mortgage meltdown have virtually paralyzed the credit markets. Corporations and consumers alike are finding it much more difficult to get loans and even credit cards.
If this situation is allowed to continue, this holiday season will be one of the most disappointing on record. Manufacturers and retailers are going to lose their shirts. Their stock is going to plunge. Heck: The entire U.S. stock market could crash and the U.S. economy could easily slip into a prolonged recession.
And so the Fed is cranking up the printing presses – unleashing a tidal wave of unbacked, phoney-baloney dollars worldwide. And since each new dollar the Fed creates devalues every other dollar in circulation, it’s a good bet that the profits investors have seen in other currencies so far are about to pale compared to what’s going to happen in the months ahead.
But even though the U.S. stock market reminds me of a balloon in a roomful of razorblades right now, I’m deliberately avoiding sales arguments that could freeze my prospects like so many deer in the headlights of an oncoming tractor-trailer.
Because although I want my prospect concerned that his money is losing his value … and although I definitely want him to want the huge profits being earned in the foreign currency markets … I do not want him frozen into inaction by the fear that the entire U.S. economy could come unglued at virtually any moment.
Moral: Using a fear that paralyzes prospects won’t do you any good and it sure won’t help your prospects.
4. Invoking a fear that isn’t actionable: If you’re looking for something to be afraid of these days, you sure don’t have to look very far!
Cable TV is replete with programs telling us how the world could end at virtually any moment.
Either global warming is going to melt the ice caps, flood our coastal cities, create worldwide famine by altering the weather and give us all a nasty sunburn …
… Or a mega-earthquake in Yellowstone or a giant comet or meteor is going to plunge us into a new ice age.
Last night, I saw a show that basically said “Don’t worry – it’ll probably all end on December 1, 2012, anyway.” That’s when the Earth and the sun will align with the giant black hole at the center of the galaxy – and according to The Discovery Channel, this alignment could cause the Earth to suddenly shift on its axis, snuffing us all out.
So does any of this make you feel like buying anything?
Well, if you’re selling a spaceship and a map to the nearest inhabitable planet – and if you’ll let me pay you over 30 years or so – maybe. Otherwise, invoking my fear won’t do you one bit of good.
Moral: Pushing your prospects’ panic buttons is pointless unless you can show how your product eliminates the cause of his fear. Quickly. Cheaply. Permanently.
5. Emphasizing fear over the solution: The other day, I critiqued a fear-based first draft by a top-notch writer. As expected, the sales copy sang and soared. It was attention-getting, lively and absolutely convinced me that the caca is about to hit the air conditioner.
But it didn’t make me want to buy the product.
See, the promotion is about politics – how the bozos and bozettes now running for president are going to royally screw us all – and how to survive and thrive, the prospect needs the advice a particular guru is offering them.
But the writer is so passionate about this particular subject, the copy focused almost entirely on the fear our prospects should be feeling as they watch the candidates preen, spin and lie their keesters off on the six-o’clock news.
While each threat to our prospect’s wealth, health and liberty was presented in exquisite detail over many pages of inspired, impassioned prose, the many ways in which our client’s product neutralizes those threats were presented quickly and without passion.
Moral: It’s not, ultimately about fear. It’s about the solution to that fear – the benefits – that you’re offering.
A little fear goes a long way. It’s a powerful attention-getter. Used correctly, it can add dimension to your product’s benefits and motivate prospects to order now.
But nobody buys just because they’re afraid. They buy because you’ve proven that your product will bring tremendous practical benefits to their lives – and by doing so, will free them from the fears that torment them now.
Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,
Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE
Looking for resources related to this article? Try some of these.
Looking for more of Clayton’s articles? Check these out.
Looking for past issues of The Total Package? Click here for our archives.
 |
Want to share or reprint this article? Feel free. Just give us full attribution and a link to our Home Page when you do. |
Attribution Statement: This article was first published in The Total Package. To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to The Total Package and claim four FREE money making e-books go to www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.
Related posts
5 Comments »
Join the Discussion!
Let us know what you think. Or ask us anything. Or offer your own sage advice.
The only rule: RESPECT THIS HOUSE! Postings that contain abusive language and/or personal attacks will be cheerfully VAPORIZED. One cross word and – POOF! – your well-thought-out post will be gone in a puff of smoke.
– Clayton
Comment by Adams — October 8, 2007 @ 12:41 pm
As you sometimes do, you\\\’ve written about a topic I was WORKING ON at the time. Amazing.
I almost \\\’created\\\’ a fear that didn\\\’t exist, but now see how to \\\’loop it back in\\\’ from an existing fear. Easily done, and far more \\\’actionable\\\’ as well. Thanks Clayton.
Comment by Peter A. Schaible — October 8, 2007 @ 1:05 pm
There are fears and then there are FEARS THAT SCARE THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF YOU.
I think it is perfectly acceptable to ratchet up the anxiety with some general references to the fears we might assume the prospect has somewhere deep in his psyche.
In a recent sales letter I wrote for an industry-specific newsletter, I casually mentioned saving the company from big losses during the coming recession.
I also dropped in a line about making yourself indispensable to your company.
Will there be big losses? Will there be a recession? No one knows for sure, but those thoughts sure do make a lot of prospects nervous, even if they have not been consciously thinking about it…
– Peter A. Schaible
Comment by Robert Puth — October 8, 2007 @ 2:31 pm
Like always you hit all the buttons. Here my summary of your 5 Blunders
Roberto
1. The last thing your prospects need at the end of the day is a new additional fear
If you’re going to invoke fear in your sales copy, make sure it’s a fear that’s already waking your prospects at 2:30 AM in a cold sweat.
2. Fear did not work if it is far away – even if it is a deadly Bedrohung
If you’re going to use fear in your copy, make sure it’s an imminent fear. Something that is likely to happen in the very near future – or better yet, at virtually any moment.
3. Do NOT use fear that paralyzes:
Using a fear that paralyzes prospects won’t do you any good and it sure won’t help your prospects
4. Don\’t mention a fear for which you did not have a solution
Pushing your prospects’ panic buttons is pointless unless you can show how your product eliminates the cause of his fear. Quickly. Cheaply. Permanently.
5. Push the Fear buttons but then concentrate on the solution
It’s not, ultimately about fear. It’s about the solution to that fear – the benefits – that you’re offering
Comment by Meredith Mooney — October 9, 2007 @ 7:20 am
Great stuff, Clayton. Can always count on you to deliver content I can apply right away.
Comment by Steve — October 10, 2007 @ 2:07 am
You learn something new everyday -
I never thought it was a bad thing to squeeze a womans\’s irresistibly cute bottom - of course you do get the occassional slap - but if you manage to stay \”Darling it WAS a compliment!\” - usually it\’s ok.
But from now on I think I\’ll ask first…