Tag Archives: copywriting for dummies

Sexy Ways to Seduce Your Audience

Slip into something comfortable. Preferably something velour. Lay back on this leopard skin couch. Relax. Notice the subtle aroma of incense wafting about you.

How was your day? I prepared a nice candlelit dinner. Can you hear the booming baritone of the incomparable Barry White? It’s drifting into the room at dulcet volumes. The lights are dim and your eyes adjust. Go ahead. Grab one of the chocolate caramels on the coffee table in front of you. Feel it dance upon your taste buds.

If you aren’t feeling a slight hint of surreal sensuality, I haven’t done my job correctly. Everyone knows sex sells. But are we losing our understanding of that concept?

That depends on your definition of ‘sexy’.

Today, big brands like GoDaddy (woof) use blatant sexual imagery to sell. But sex sells itself. If that’s your strategy for seducing your audience, you better start over. Consider this: researchers at Iowa State University found that “viewers of programs with sexually explicit or violent content were less likely to remember commercials immediately after watching and even 24 hours later.”

As a writer, you should already have a grasp for why this is. Favoring your primary message is the best way to keep your reader on task. You want the reader to be turned on by your product. To accomplish this, seducing your audience takes place in undertones. It requires subtlety. Here are a few ways to get it done.

Consider alliteration an alluring aloe. Overusing alliteration translates to cheesy copy. Used sparingly, alliteration creates enticing, compelling moments of copy that add a layer of sexiness to your content.

Play with your diction. Everyone has words they consider emotional triggers. Want to sex up your copy? Use loaded words. A word like ‘succulent’ can evoke a strong response. Go ahead. Say it out loud. Succulent. Rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

Massage some tight words. I’m consistently saying that strong copy is highly understandable. You wouldn’t speak in Shakespearian dialogue to a modern audience, for instance. But a colorful word every now and again can add some flair to your copy, even if it’s a bit more high-brow. Provide substantial context clues. And have a clear understanding of your audience before you head down this path.

Take us to another world. There’s no better way to seduce your audience than to get sensual. Use sensual stimuli to take your readers out of their desk chairs and transport them to another world. You can accomplish this by describing how things smell, taste, feel, sound and look.

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7 Writing Techniques to Engage Your Audience More Directly

Are you communicating with your audience or just talking at them?

This is an important question that marketers should ask themselves daily. You know you and your business aren’t the center of the universe. But you have to tell yourself that every day if you want to communicate effectively.

Direct communication is necessary, even if your audience consist of yellow sexless freaks.

As in life, taking someone else’s perspective is difficult. But it’s absolutely critical for your marketing. Gathering information on your audience is the first step. The second is to gain the insights you need to take action. Put yourself outside of your comfort zone. Below, you’ll find 7 writing techniques to help you engage your audience more directly.

1. Write the first draft of your copy from the buyer’s perspective. This is a great exercise from which the remaining tips on this list should follow naturally. Pretend you’re the buyer for a second. It’ll help take you out of your own shoes and write from a less self-centered perspective. Now, write your copy from that perspective. You can deconstruct and reconstruct that copy to make sense for your purposes, but you’ll gain the benefit of the other perspective.

2. It doesn’t get more direct than ‘you.’ Amateur marketers love to start sentences with ‘we.’ But if you want to sell something, it isn’t about you. It’s about the potential buyer. Direct address using ‘you’ feels more conversational. Subconsciously, readers understand that the copy answers the question, “What’s in it for me?”

3. Frame the challenge. Empathy is a simple tactic to connect with your audience right off the bat. Direct address requires you to immediately step inside the shoes of your reader. What irks them? What issue are they grappling with on a regular basis? Frame the challenge and follow with the solution.

4. Focus on benefits and differentiators. You have the solution. What’s in it for the reader? They probably don’t care about the nitty-gritty technical details. They just want to know what they get in exchange for their money and time. It’s likely you have competition, too. How are you different? Make your differentiators clear and concise.

5. Use relatable examples and anecdotes to empathize. Everyone loves a good story. Using relatable examples helps readers more clearly envision how you could help them out. You may do this quickly to introduce a bit of copy. Or, like shopping cart software provider 3dcart, you may want to build case studies as marketing collateral.

6. Honesty truly is the best policy. Compelling copy surprises the reader. In business, honesty can be hard to come by. That’s why it makes a great technique for direct address. Say something honest and surprising. Then, tie it to your message. For instance, I’m not wearing any pants.

7. Speak their language. Without getting buzzword-happy, it helps to speak the language of your audience. For example, if you’re selling a complex tech product to a non-technical audience, stay away from industry nuances. Whatever the language, make sure you’re speaking like a human.

Copywriting Is Dead

Have you ever assembled a piece of furniture? Reading the directions is like taking a blow to the head from a drunken frat boy.

Reminds me of the old days of marketing. No one talked like a human. Companies loved the sound of their own voices. Business is catching up with the world of social media, and it turns out people would rather hear from real human beings.

Copywriting is dead — at least in the traditional sense of the practice. What I hope this blog will impart on its readership is that you can all finally drop the act. Throw formality out the window and start speaking to your target audience in a voice they can relate to. And don’t be afraid to end a sentence or two with a preposition.

You’re asking, “Who the hell is this guy?” I’m just a man, like any other. I’m also a freelance writer. I’ve ghostwritten a business book, created web copy for entire websites and dabbled in writing mediums you’ve never even heard of.

I write good, and I’m here to help you write gooder. So let’s get this thing started.