What makes someone want to know more about something? What makes them want to take a peek around the corner?
Curiosity. A lot of things can make us curious. Interesting pictures, words, sounds, smells, a car accident, and so on. But what about curiosity as it pertains to advertising?
If you tell me in so many words that you can make my life better…or take away a pain that I have, you just made me curious. I want to know MORE. “Tell me more! Gimme gimme gimme!”
Once you’ve aroused my curiosity, then feed me great information that I can use. Something REAL. Don’t string me along with things or words that don’t matter. You’ve got my attention, my curiosity is up, so give me the good stuff. Sometimes it’s not that easy though. You may have a complicated selling point or benefit to make. Or you may have to explain WHY what you say is true.
Tell me a story. Weave your information into a story that helps me understand why I should buy what you’re offering me. But don’t let my curiosity die before you get to the end of your ad or sales message. Don’t fill it with fluff just because you think your message should be longer. Your ad should be only as long as it needs to be.
If you’re writing a sales letter, and it turns out to be two pages long…you should probably go back and take out all the crap that doesn’t matter, and whittle it down to one page. How about a 60-second radio ad? Start writing from your heart. You’ll probably end up with a 2-minute ad. There will be parts that start to kill curiosity – take them out!
Don’t let my curiosity die! Don’t fill your sales message with fluff just because you think it should be longer. Make sure every word is taking me deeper into your story…or providing valuable information that I actually care about.
If you don’t honestly believe your writing or your sales message will be shared or motivate someone to take action, keep working on it…or find someone who can help you. The MESSAGE is what matters, it’s what stirs people into action. And triggering curiosity with the words you use in your advertising message is what will make people stop and consider you and what you sell.
Hear, hear!
I like the point about the 60-second radio ad. I belong to BNI, a networking group, where at every meeting each member speaks for 60 seconds about our business and the kind of referrals we’re looking for. At a training day, we were encouraged to speak about just the essentials of what we do, and some of us were able to cover that in about 15 seconds. Less is more!
Thanks David. Less is more if there’s absolutely nothing else you could say to help persuade. A BNI 60-second commercial is something I’m familiar with. If you can weave in a story about how you helped a customer in a specific way…it helps sell your message. But if it’s the same old blah blah blah every week, everyone tunes out and thinks about what they’re having for dinner that night. You have to keep your BNI members engaged with something they don’t expect to come out of your mouth.