Your Imaginary Customer Is Why Your Sales Suck

If you know anything about me, then you know I want all marketing based in fact and truth. 

There are some speculative areas of marketing in which experience and ‘gut’ come into play. That said, I will take  one solid data-point over 1000 gut feelings any day.

When I see copy that is flaccid and infective, it is often copy that does not speak to an actual person.

While the copy may be well written (sometimes very well written) it fails the main point of copy which is:

TO SELL SOMETHING!!!

Bad copy speaks to an imaginary shopper about imagined woes, or whimsical desires cooked up in the fertile mind of a writer who is accustomed to penning fiction.

These writers have the ability to empathize with people.

These writers have the mental power to put themselves into another’s shoes (this is the gift of an artist).

But they fail because they put themselves into the wrong shoes. 

Or, worse yet, into

all shoes…

It is marketing folly (and the hubris of the beginner’s mind) to sell to everyone.

The very old marketing maxim says:

“They Who Market To Everyone Market To No One”

What Is The Solution?

What I am proposing is connection and chemistry. This is akin to how friendships form.

While you may meet thousands of potential friends in a lifetime, you will only have ‘true chemistry’ with a very select few.  These handfuls become friends, the rest become acquaintances.

Your product has the same potential ‘chemistry’. 

It will resonate with some, but many it will not. The key is to be sure you are actually speaking to that select few to which your product has ‘true chemistry’.

Now, don’t start fretting over finding enough customers to have chemistry with…in a world of over 7 billion people, that select few can still be substantial chunk.

The question becomes, how do we speak to that select few?

This is a great question (glad I brought it up).

The correct answer to this question is perhaps THE key difference between marketing that connects, persuades, and converts – or marketing that wastes ad spend and keeps your listings sunk on page 2000 of search results.

The Secret To Great Amazon Sales Copy That Converts

Great copy is a seduction.

Great copy it is an attraction.

But like any seduction or attraction, the words must draw on deep-seated emotional needs, wants and desires. If copy does not do this, then it is the equivalent of cheesy pick-up lines — they don’t work because they don’t resonate with a real person who has real desires, real hopes, and real dreams. 

This is why…

Copy that connects:

1. Gets attention
2. Piques interest
3. Stirs desire to the point of action

Copy like this is based on fact, not fantasy.

That’s why…

Copy that connects like this must be research driven.

Copy that connects must use the actual words of real customers, in the simple, plain language that they use every day.

These words are culled from great market research.

Bad copy fails to do this.

For example, copy that connects often pokes at the fears of the customer and then gently point them towards a solution.

The wise copywriter then pulls those fears, word-for-word right out of research and puts them before the shopper’s eyes like a mirror. Letting the shopper feel the emotional horror for a brief and sobering minute, then gently replacing the horror with the gentle call of hope.

When this happens, it’s like the moment of embrace when you feel a lover melt in your arms.

At that moment, the shopper has connected emotionally with your product and there is no turning back.

This is the goal of great copy. And it is not easy, which is why most writers short cut the efforts and fall short on results.

A note to beginning and intermediate copywriters looking to be great: 

Štop conjuring an ideal customer in your mind. It is a fools’ errand (and it is a fast way to waste hard earned money in the marketplace).