The best way to talk about your offer to get people excited

Kirsten Back Author

If you want to stop people zoning out when you start talking about your business, then take a look at this technique...

How do you choose what to watch on Netflix?

Someone recommends something they’ve recently watched and liked.

Or…

You go into Netflix, NEON or whatever platform you are searching and do the following:

• You check out the image and title for a first impression
• You click on the movie and read the synopsis
• And if you’re really thorough, you check Rotten Tomatoes for the review scores

That’s a pretty simple process and a process that you can use to talk about your offer in a way that pulls people in and gets them excited.

Step #1 – Grab attention

When you open your movie platform, the first thing you see, are an image and the title.

Image and title tell you what genre the movie is, who the lead actor is and give you a short clue about the theme of the movie.

Let’s play this through:

What have we got?

We have Liam Neeson holding a gun – that gives you a clue that it’s going to be some sort of action movie (and if you know Liam Neeson, then you have an understanding of his “brand” and either move on from there if you are in the mood for a romance or comedy etc.), and the title makes you curious because a thief is not what you usually associate with honesty.

The image and title are a “pattern interrupt”. They interrupt your scrolling and make you stop and look.

And that’s exactly what you want to do with your posts, ads, podcasts, pitches when you put them out before your audience.

You want to grab attention with something your audience is already looking for. As a coach, course creator, consultant or service provider you can grab your audience’s attention with something that is related to the problem that your audience is trying to solve.

Depending on where you are meeting your audience (online), this comes with an image – ads, posts or maybe a landing page. This image is chosen with deliberate intent and has a connection to what you want to draw attention to.

The next elements are your head- and taglines.

If your brand is not so well known, your headline should be outcome-related. It should be related to the outcome your audience desperately wants once they get rid of their problem.

And lastly, add a tagline that deals with an obstacle or objection that your clients are trying to overcome.

Step #2 – Hook them with their problem & make them curious

Now that the image and headline have got your attention, you want to hook your audience in and make them curious to find out more.

When you click on the image, you get to the synopsis of the movie:

These two sentences decide whether you’re going to watch the movie or not. In your case – what you say next makes your audience take the next step or walk away from you.

That’s a lot of pressure on a couple of sentences. Here’s another one from the Handmaid’s Tale:

These sentences work because they draw you into a story (and our brains are genetically pre-programmed to love stories) and they give you just enough information to hook you in to find out more.

These sentences set the scene and paint the scenario the hero finds her/himself in. They describe a specific situation the hero must deal with in order to achieve one single goal.

Not one, or two or even five – just one pressing goal that defines the hero’s future.

One goal that really matters to the hero.

One goal that will cost them more than they can afford to lose should they not succeed.

For you, that means that you need to understand your audience’s most pressing problem. What’s their scenario, what “pickle” do they find themselves in? What’s their problem that they need to solve?

Think about what’s at stake if they don’t manage to solve their problem. Their problem needs to be relevant and there needs to be an innate urgency that drives them to solve the problem now.

In the first movie – Liam Neeson needs to clear his name now or face a harsh sentence. The handmaid needs to find her daughter now or never see her again.

What problem does your client need to solve now?

Once you have identified that one problem and you have your audience’s attention, you need to tell your audience how you are going to solve their problem.

Step #3 – Tell your audience how you solve their problem

Your audience wants to see that you know how to fix their problem and that you know what you’re doing.

For that, you need a plan. You need a structured offer that takes your clients step-by-step through the solution of their problem.

A structured offer or plan saves your clients time and money, and it significantly reduces their risk of failure.

At this point, you give your audience a brief overview of the different steps of your plan. There’s research that proves that 3 or 4 steps work best.

What are those steps that allow you to help you to solve your clients’ problem?

Be very specific and clear on the outcome of each step and how they lead to solving the overall problem.

And if you’re doing this right, then you have created an audience that wants to hear what you have to say because what you have to say to them is relevant to them!

They will want to know more and continue the conversation, read your full sales page or subscribe to your lead magnet – and that can lead to them asking how they can work with you…

Now it’s your turn…

Do you know what your clients’ most pressing problem is? What’s at stake, how to talk about your plan and how you are helping your clients to solve their problems?

If you find it hard to define the problem that your clients want to be solved most and how to talk about it, then fill in the contact form below and send me a message.

I’d love to help you create the messages that stop your audience in their tracks and create the desire to work with you!

Categories: Copywriting, businessfoundations, Copywritingskills, Attention, Sales, messaging foundations