Posted by: Daniel Levis
October 22, 2008
Issue #529

The BIG Question …

Dear Web Business-Builder,

People often ask me:

 “Is there a method for getting inside the heads of a target market? You talk about the importance of understanding a target market’s desires, fears, frustrations, beliefs, and so forth … but how do I do that?”

This is a great question …

EVERYONE marketing online should be asking it. So I’ll give you my answer today …

Some marketers seem to be psychic. They just seem know what people want. I’m not one of them.  And in my experience, most entrepreneurs are not.

Most of the business people I’ve worked with, even IF they’ve been working with a particular market for years, generally DO NOT have a good handle on what’s going on inside people’s heads when those people are online trying to solve their problems.

One of the biggest mistakes a freelance copywriter can possibly make is to take what a client says about their target market at face value. I say this from personal experience.

Your clients are either too close to their own businesses to be objective, or they just don’t understand the online dynamic.

There is a lot of guess marketing going on. And guessing probably isn’t going to give you the stellar results you’re looking for.

See here’s the deal. To sell effectively online, it’s essential you demonstrate extraordinary empathy for the people you’re selling to. He who demonstrates the most empathy wins.

And having an accurate read on your target market’s desires, fears, frustrations, and beliefs is the foundation on which that empathy is built.

I think it was Claude C. Hopkins who said,

“Creative genius in advertising
is the result of taking pains” …

I believe that’s where genuine empathy comes from as well.

In fact, when you have that empathy, you don’t have to be a word wizard like Carlton or Makepeace to knock your promotion out of the park. What you say is easily as important as how you say it.

And when you have a systematic research process, a discipline you go through — which almost nobody does — you can’t help but develop genuine empathy for your market. It literally forces you to become intimate.  

While your competitors are busily aping one another and guessing about what to test next, you’re quietly zeroing in on the real hidden hot buttons that will allow you to quietly eat their lunch. When you’re pushing them, it’ll set you apart, because as your target market reads your copy, they’ll have the feeling you know them, that you understand them, and that you’ve walked in their shoes.

I’ll give you a high level overview of my discipline.

The first thing I try to do is clear my mind of any pre-existing theories, opinions, and conjecture about what makes the market tick. I want to approach my research with a mind that’s as open as possible. And just let the market tell me what it’s thinking.

It’s not enough to talk to a few qualified prospects. You need an aggregate snapshot.

Lurk and Learn …

A lot of my research takes place on blogs and forums. These are great sources of insight, particularly if they are highly trafficked, and contain ads for competing products.

If the site owner is displaying ads, it means you can test your copy in the same place where you research. And if other marketers are advertising repeatedly, you can be reasonably sure you’re researching fertile buyers.

I look for relevant threads and posts with lots of comments, and I read everything.

I’m looking for three things:

1. Pain points. Someone expressing a frustration about the kind of product I’ve been called upon to sell or a problem that product solves.
2. Aspirational statements. When someone says, in effect, “damn, if only I had this or that capability then I could do, be, or have, _________.”
3. And questions. Somebody simply asking a question that’s relevant to the product or service category I’m dealing with.

I record these comments in a spreadsheet with three tabs entitled goals, problems, and questions. I actually copy and paste the comments into the appropriate sheet so I can capture the language and phraseology of the target market.

I enter the comments horizontally across each sheet. And as I’m entering, I’m categorizing. This person said this. That person said that. But they’re both kind of saying the same thing. So I’m putting headings at the top, and copying similar comments vertically down the sheet under the headings. This allows me to quantify how prevalent a particular problem, aspiration, or question really is. Is it representative?

If there are numerous entries under a particular heading, then that tells me that more than a few people share the same view. What I’m trying to do is develop a composite profile of my target buyer.  But I’m not done yet …

When I’ve got a significant number of entries, I then go back over each sheet and highlight what I call “quality sentiment.” What’s quality sentiment?

That’s where an entry contains passion. It’s where somebody is using emotionally charged language to express themselves. Or somebody is demonstrating an obviously intense interest in the subject matter.

By the time I’m done “taking pains,” listing, categorizing, and quantifying, I literally begin to feel the emotions of the people I’ve been studying, because I’ve immersed myself in their thoughts so deeply.

Not only that, I can begin building a complete profile on my composite buyer. I can begin to imagine what this kind of person would think in other situations that I may wish to explore in my copy.

Apply this same discipline when
analyzing or building a list …

Often, when you come to one of my squeeze pages, you’ll see a single question survey that says something to the effect of “what’s your biggest question, goal, or problem about x?” When the data comes in, I run it through the same process I just described.

It’s almost magical. This simple act of immersion begins to give you an exceptional level of empathy for the market — a level that so few of your competitors are going to possess. And the really cool thing about this approach is that you’re actually getting into the heads of the people you’re going to be communicating with and trying to persuade.

You’re actually pulling data from the same sets of eyeballs that will be consuming your copy.

I mean think about this. If you’re doing your research on blogs and forums, many times you can advertise directly to the very people you’re researching. If you’re pulling the data off your opt-in forms, you’re doing it in real time. People are giving you information at the exact moment they’re interacting with your webpage. This is powerful stuff!

What I find is that if you can figure out what people’s biggest goals, problems and questions are, you’re also going to have a pretty good idea about lots of other things.

You’re going to know what objections they’re likely to have. You’re going to know what alternatives they’re considering to solve the problem you’re hoping to help them with.

You’re going to have a picture of their lifestyle and how your particular solution will impact that lifestyle. You’re going to know who they trust, who they’re suspicious of, and who they despise.

And somewhere in your research, a set of dominant beliefs and emotions about the problem they’re trying to solve will begin to emerge.

Do you think that kind of insight might be helpful to you when you sit down to write your copy? You can outsource the research, but you won’t have the same kind of gritty, organic handle on your buyer. I can tell you there’s nothing like it when it comes to organizing your promotion.

You can create a skeletal outline that addresses the market’s concerns by order of importance, and you can put meat on those bones far more easily than you otherwise could.

And because you’ve taken the time to quantify and qualify the data, chances are you’re going to be much more in tune with the market’s dominant desires, beliefs and emotions than even the most intuitive copywriter who takes a less rigorous approach to research.

In my experience, one of the fastest ways to increase the response of any webpage or promotion is to harmonize the lead benefits as closely as possible with what the market is telling you.

If your composite buyer is telling you she believes losing 15 to 20 pounds a month is believable … then put that specific claim in your headline, even if you can do better.

If your composite buyer is saying she’s fed up with diets that leave her hungry and unfulfilled, tell her that other women are slimming without cravings or suffering, assuming that’s true. Put it right in the headline.

There are literally dozens of combinations of claims and promises you could make, but only one right one that will maximize your sales.

What you or your client think
doesn’t amount to a row of beans …

Listen to the market. Let it guide you. And then test what it tells you.

From the goals, problems, and questions you’ve listed, categorized and prioritized … from the dominant emotions and beliefs you’ve been able to infer from that data … you are in a position to assemble several test panels. Pit them against each other and validate your research.

Yes, it is work!

Is it worth it?

If basking in the glow of bigger online winners, more often, is appealing to you … then the answer is YES!

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis
Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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11 Comments »

1. Comment by dan — October 22, 2008 @ 1:16 pm

   Thanks Dan for the sound advice.Any good books you could recommend on the above subject will be most welcomed.
   Dan writes.

2. Comment by Brandon Z — October 22, 2008 @ 1:37 pm

   PERFECT!

   Thank you for such an insightful post! This has been one of my biggest struggles, and I can’t wait to put this to use RIGHT NOW!

3. Comment by Sarah clachar — October 22, 2008 @ 1:49 pm

   Daniel,

   Great article.  I like to use forums, reviews, blog postings to get a sense of my prospect but you provide a way to organize it and three qualities to look for.  This will really help me immensely with my copywriting.
   Not to mention that I’m always looking for ways to make all that huge amount of research data more manageable when it gets down to the writing period.

   Thank you,

   Sarah Clachar
   health copywriter
   http://www.healthwriterclachar.com

4. Comment by Brad "Water Boy" — October 22, 2008 @ 2:00 pm

   Daniel,
   As I was reading your post, I was thinking…"Why didn’t I think of that?" That makes complete sense to work off of other peoples’ concerns and issues based upon their postings for a particular niche and use it in a beneficial way.  It’s as if you are going into people’s minds and seeing their desires without even asking.  Eeree.
   Thanks!
   Brad

5. Comment by Mikhail — October 22, 2008 @ 2:11 pm

   Thanks a lot Daniel for very usefull article!

   So easy and powerfull tool wich it is possible to use right now!

   Best Regards,
   Mikhail Trishin
   Russia
   http://www.napyc.com

6. Comment by Chris Lake — October 22, 2008 @ 2:58 pm

   Good stuff Daniel! I have a couple of projects that will lend themselves perfectly to the blog/forum research methods you described. Another benefit I don’t think you mentioned is the competitor research that comes out on forums: customers who brag or rag on the solutions they already tried. That can help you avoid pitfalls in your copy (and help improve the product, if you produce it yourself or have input to the developers).

   I was just telling a business partner last night, "give people what they really want, not what you think they want"… so basic but so easily forgotten (I know I’ve been guilty!).

   Cheers,

   Chris Lake

7. Comment by Loren Woirhaye — October 22, 2008 @ 4:51 pm

   I agree empathy is darned important these days.   Is it possible to sell arrogant people by empathizing with their arrogance?  Just wondering.

8. Comment by Jeremy — October 22, 2008 @ 5:04 pm

   WOW.  Powerful post.  I can’t wait to get started.  I’m adding a question field (goal, problem, etc.) into my sign up page asap.  Blogs, Forums, here I come.

   Thanks.

9. Comment by Jeremy Reeves — October 22, 2008 @ 5:42 pm

   I love the way you organize what the people you’re looking at are thinking.

   I’m going to start doing it exactly like that I think - it seems like it’d make it a lot easier.

   Now time for some forum-hunting!

   Jeremy Reeves
   http://www.controlbeatingcopy.com

10. Comment by Louis Burns — October 22, 2008 @ 8:18 pm

    Another thing you can do along these lines is to model their buying strategy. How do they make a buying decision? How do they know when they’re ready to buy? What do they need to be certain about before they buy? That’s when you’re really inside their head.

11. Comment by Bo — October 23, 2008 @ 7:16 am

    I always do a survey and ask three questions to get problems, dreams and goals:

    1) What is your biggest problem (concerning x or in life in general) right now?

    2) What are your second and third biggest problems?
    3) If you could have the ideal, perfect life what would an average day in that life look and feel like?

    This way you get in a clear way their goals, dreams and problems. If you ask "what are your goals" and "what are your dreams", they might answer something they think the ought to strive for, but actually does not drive them internally. I try to unearth the strong internal drives that will truly motivate them to purchase my solutions without thinking twice about it.