Once you get a prospect’s attention with a strong, eyeball gripping headline (or email subject line), do you know what the second job of your sales copy is?
Greek business magnate Aristotelis Onasis once said (this is paraphrased) “The goal of business is to get your customers to see things your way.”
The great Robert Collier said it this way, “… your next problem is to put your idea across, to make him see it as you see it - in short, to visualize it so clearly that he can build it piece by piece in his own mind as a child builds a house of blocks, or puts together the pieces of a picture puzzle.”
After getting your prospect’s attention your job is to start the process of making them desire your product or service.
And what is one of the most effective ways to accomplish this task?
To use vivid word pictures that allow the reader to
see your product or service as YOU see it
Let me explain.
Your sale must be made in your prospect’s mind before they will take their credit cards out of their wallet or purse and go through all the trouble of filling out an order form.
Your word pictures must be strong enough to make her want your “thing” more than the money or the trouble or money it will cost her.
Here are some examples:
If selling fruit, how about describing it as sweet as “honey such as Cleopatra served to
If you are describing the way your prospect would struggle to create an online business on their own, how about saying that it would be “like painting a battleship with a toothbrush.”
If selling your marketing services, how about describing the problem of not advertising by saying, “The company with a good product that does not advertise is like a man who whispers himself in the desert.”
Do you see how effective this strategy can be to get your point across?
And these are shorter versions of word pictures. You can actually get into far more detail to capture your prospect’s senses.
Read these word pictures take from “The Robert Collier Letter Book.”
“About Ginger Ale:
The lore which enters its making is akin to the lore of the wine-makers of
“Silverware:
The cheerful hum of voices, the steaming kettle, the cup that cheers, and Silver plate with its satiny surface catching every light.”
“A Book:
If you are one of the live, wide-awake men who welcome the rush and tumult of great daring and big adventure, who believe that there is nothing better for tired brains or tired bodies than the healthy, blood-tingling, mind-quickening stimulation of a good story, then.”
Do you see how you can take your prospects on a mental journey through imaginative word pictures?
If you can get them to see your product or service the way YOU see it, you have a great shot at making the sale in their MINDS, which will then manifest into cash in the bank.
In closing let me leave you with one of the most famous word pictures of all time from the esteemed David Ogilvy.
“It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.”
Don’t make your marketing as silent and unobtrusive as a ship passing in the night. Use vivid word pictures to give your product or service LIFE.
-James D. Lee
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One Comment
Excellent advice James. Human beings are visual animals, even those people who claim they are most switched on by feelings or by words, are processing much of that information visually.
Studies have shown people recall news from the radio more readily than from the TV. That’s because they have to engage with the material more by creating pictures in their mind from the words they hear. On TV, it’s more superficial because the pictures are provided.
Online, this means the best web sites are those that use text to create the pictures they want people to see. In other words, use actual imagery online to create mood, but get those specific pictures you want people to remember written in words.
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