Copywriting – Pain and Pleasure

Copywriting - Pain and Pleasure

September 11^th 2012 Sally Ormond content generation, copywriting tips, marketing tips

Copywriters, in a strange way, are a lot like doctors.

We use our skills to find someone’s pain point (a challenge they are wanting to overcome) and to help them overcome it by offering them the panacea they’ve been looking for (the product or service that will resolve their issue). Diagnosing their pain and removing it is all it takes to make a sale.

Regardless of whether you’re writing for a B2B or B2C market, every consumer has a problem they are looking to solve. After all, if they didn’t they would be on your website or reading your brochure looking for a cure.

Pain as a motivator

Pain is a motivator. If you touch a hot iron, you’ll be quickly motivated to move your hand.

It’s the same in sales. For consumers, it’s things that will make their lives easier, make them or save them money etc. For businesses it’s trying to run productively, increasing security etc. All of these needs are caused by stressors that cause them pain and it’s the job of the copywriter to ease their pain.

Balancing act

It’s very easy to be over zealous in your copy and put too much focus on these pain points. Doing so could cause depression resulting in your reader finding a dark corner to hide in.

But if you get the balance right, they’ll snap your hand off because they know you’re the ‘special one’ they’ve been looking for; you’re the one that’s going to make everything OK.

A great way to start is with a headline like…

Have you ever wished that…

This gentle lead in and shows empathy (that you understand the problem - or pain point), highlighting you as a company that cares and that wants to help.

Once you’ve planted that seed you can get into the real meat of your copy, you can continue with…

Well, now you can with our …..

In just a few lines you’ve shown you understand their issues by highlighting the problem they have and that you can make their problem vanish.

That’s pretty powerful stuff.

Tags: content generation, copywriting tips, marketing tips

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