It was only after I had read a few personal development books that I understood that when stripped down to the basics, the process of thinking is really just about asking yourself questions and then making a decision based on the answer your brain turfs back out.

“Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.” E. E. Cummings

To illustrate this, lets use an everyday experience of crossing the road where there are several possible questions to ask and answer before you get to the other side…

“Shall I walk down to the crossing or try to cross here?” If you decide to walk down to the crossing, then: ” Shall I press the button on the crossing and or run across when there’s a gap? Shall I wave thanks to the car that stopped or not bother to take my hand out my pocket?”

You are probably not aware of all this internal questioning and turmoiling because the answers seem to pop up out of nowhere. And this is how it is for your reader when you ask them a question. What this means for you is that they are more likely to believe an idea seemingly conjured up by their own brain over a concept presented from the outside.

And this is the important thing – a question generates an answer, not an argument.

Consider these two headlines…

What if there was a way you could convert 25% of your website visitors into customers,
how much money would you make?

OR

Your website can convert 25% of your visitors into customers and make you a lot
of money.

The second statement makes a claim that a reader may not believe and they can disagree with, but the question in the first headline introduces a possibility for the brain to draw its own conclusions and fire up the imagination. The questioning approach leads your reader towards their own vision of possibility to fit in with their particular circumstances. The chances of a delivered fact marrying one hundred percent with the readers own experience is negligible and so positively invites disagreement.

When you are writing direct response copy, there is no escaping getting intimate with the product, the producer and most definitely the customer. But the right questions can bring focus and organisation to the process.

If you answer just these five simple questions then you can write web copy for almost any product…

1. What is the problem?

Here you are identifying the pain, problem or predicament for your target audience. Your audience may not even realise they have a problem and your role as the copywriter is to ensure they recognise this.

2. Why Hasn’t The Problem Been Solved?

This question forces you to delve into the history of your reader’s predicament to identify supposed solutions which have already been tried and failed.

3. What Is Possible?

This is introducing the possibility thinking for your reader – setting the stage for what life could be like when the problem, pain or predicament is sorted. This is where you paint a picture of the way life will be from now on.

4. What Is Different Now?

Why will your remedy work while others have failed? What is different about your product or service? This is the Unique Selling Point (USP) for your product and your competative advantage.

5. What Should You Do Now?

Tell your reader what they have to do next – Sign Up, Telephone, Register, Buy Now – this is the call to action.

When you’ve dispatched these five questions you have the game plan for your copy. But you only have the touchdown when you answer this…

How Do I Inject Emotion Into My Copy?

Best wishes to you

Sian Murphy
———————
100% Results Writer

sian@sianmurphycopywriter.com
01634 251079
0800 0086464
07515 951354

How often have you decided to launch a project and by the time you’ve got everything you think you need in place and ‘just so,’ the unproductive days have turned into months. In seeking perfection are we really nursing our fear of failure?

And why does everything have to be perfect?

Last January Mark and I were driving our son Elliot and his chum John to the airport to start their backpacking trip to New Zealand. Mark and I stared at the road ahead feigning nonchalance as they chatted through the contents of their backpacks…

A pair of slippers – each

2 face flannels

Hair straighteners

15 T shirts

2 pairs of jeans (please note it was the height of the New Zealand summer)

2 dress shirts – for evening dining (we had to ask)

Elliot had also packed – a collage. Yes that’s right – disparate paper and material cuttings gummed onto a piece of card to produce a wall hanging without any practical backpacking use which I can behold.

They were, let me remind you, backpacking, and yet those items usually considered crucial to comfort and survival such as sleeping bags, pillows, towels, rain gear and shorts for instance, hadn’t made it onto the list. And that was the real crux of it. The List.

If you make lists, how old were you when you decided that productivity demanded a list?

Had our teenagers made a list? Absolutely not, but did that really matter. Just the act of compiling the list takes time and then you need to gather the items on your list, probably with a special trip to the shops. Several trips if your list keeps growing in fits and starts. With a list you generally end up with EVERYTHING you can imagine ever needing. Which takes hours of planning and loads of cash.

The alternative is Elliot and John’s trecking plan – get a bag and put stuff in it. I am witness to this taking around 5 minutes, and that included finding the bag. Anything vital which got left out was picked up as they traveled. But Elliot and John had everything necessary to execute the plan. The objective was trecking in New Zealand and the three vital ingredients were a visa, passport and flights. Job done. The remaining incidentals fell into place along the way.

If Elliot and John had made a list – highly unlikely for two 18 year olds – it would have included costly items which appeared critical when considered from the comfort of the couch. The reality was they picked up a couple of sleeping bags and a pair of shorts each and improvisation filled in the gaps.

Some of you may think I’m missing the point and may be asking- what about the thrill of the planning? If the goal is to spend your time planning for a venture, then fine. But if the goal is to achieve a tangible outcome then the planning must be conscious and proportionate. By conscious I mean that you understand when you are using the planning stage to avoid the actual implementation which is when you might finally discover that your dreams are not going to come true after all. But the boys did plan. They planned to go backpacking in New Zealand. They worked out that to make this happen they needed 3 things which they collected and then they got on the plane.

I am not for one moment suggesting that you don’t use lists to plan your day, your project, your year or even your life. A well thought out list can keep you on track and make sure you don’t avoid those horrid jobs you really don’t fancy. Just be ready to call a halt when you have lists about lists and The List is now King.

This week I learned a valuable lesson from Alan Forrest Smith about just getting a job done. Alan likes to keep his team on its toes and so he set an exercise to get a massive task delivered in a jiffy. Literally no time for nit-picking over miniscule details. What did I learn? A simple equation..

The time needed to do the job is equal to…the period of time you first thought of – divided by three – plus 1 full day to neglect it completely – followed by less time than you ever thought possible to tweek it into perfection.

Here’s to your productivity.

Sian

Sian Murphy

—————–

100% Results Writer

sian@sianmurphycopywriter
www.sianmurphycopywriter.com