Author: Bob McClain, Web Copywriting Expert

Okay, in Part One of this series, we established who we are trying to sell to by answering a series of in depth questions. If you haven’t read Part One yet, I suggest you start there. In Part Two, we talked about the power of “Story” and three tools to utilize it in your website copy. Part Three explained the “iron-clad” guarantee.

Now we’re going to look at some of the subtler psychological tricks available to web copywriters.

Circles make the world go ‘round…

Okay, maybe this one doesn’t really fall under web copywriting but in my book, it does. How many websites do you visit that have ads on them? Quite a few. And what shape are those ads invariably? Square of rectangle.

So I ask you. Do those ads stand out or do they all just seem to run together? Exactly. It just looks like one big blob of advertisement and is very easy to ignore.

So how do you solve this “blob” mentality? Put your ad in a circle! No, you won’t be able to put as much copy in your ad but if you have a solid sales proposition, you shouldn’t need to. Don’t write the copy around the circle. Write is square like the other ads. But a circle will stand out and at least get people to read your ad. And isn’t that what we want?

It’s the means to an end…

If you’re selling a high priced or luxury item, you need to play a much more subtle game than simple features/benefits. No one buys a luxury item because it’s sensible.

However, you still have to show them what the true benefit of your luxury item is. Let’s say you’re selling Cadillacs. We know Cadillacs are big and roomy. We know they are powerful. We know they’re flashy. But none of that is going to sell Cadillacs.

What’s the real benefit of driving a Cadillac? It shows you’ve arrived. You’re successful. And other people will want to do business with you because in their mind, if you can afford a Cadillac, you must be very successful. And they want a piece of that success.

We all just want to belong…

Humans are pack animals. We want to be “in with the in crowd”. And there lies another opportunity for web copywriters.

To do this, you need to associate your product with a certain socio-economic group and, of course, risk alienating another group. For instance, a popular approach with some financial companies has been to claim that their product or service will help you “finally put one over on the ‘fat cats’ on Wall Street”. In other words, play on the resentment many blue-collar and middle-class feel towards the rich and powerful.

Another way is to play on the “youth culture”. The biggest fear of young people is to be “not cool”. Or worse yet, to be like their parents. Young people are mortified by this and therein lies another opportunity. The Gap built a clothing empire on the idea that young people didn’t want to dress like their parents. They wanted their own clothes.

There are other ways big companies have played the “associative” card. There is the “aspiration” mentality. What group do your customers or clients aspire to? Do you remember this commercial?

“Choosy moms choose Jif!” (In other words, if you care about your family the way good mothers do, you’ll choose Jif.) That one worked for a long time. And it still does.

In Chapter Five, we’ll get even more subliminal. Have you heard of a “persuasion device?” How about “hypnotic commands?” Or “involvement devices?”

If you read the next installment, you’ll learn all about them!