The Stories Made Me Do It: How to Make People Feel Things and Do Things
I picked a fight with ChatGPT.
And not for any of the reasons you’re thinking.
I didn’t pick a fight because it thinks it can write. Nor did I pick a fight because it occasionally tells porkies. I picked a fight just because I felt like it.
It all started with a news story that gave me the rage. There are a lot of those about at the moment, so much so that I’m considering throwing away my Android and getting an old Nokia. But on this particular day, I succumbed, and by the time I got to the end of the news story, I needed to take my rage out on someone.
So, I baited ChatGPT into having an argument with me.
I realise this doesn’t make me sound great (or particularly sane), and it probably means I need to visit co-working spaces more often. But my point is, I read something that made me have a feeling. And that feeling was so strong that it made me do a thing.
That’s what good copy does. It makes you feel a thing, which then makes you want to do a thing.
Now, in my case, it made me do a pointless thing that was probably nowhere near the BBC journalist’s original intention.
The good news is, there’s a really simple way to direct your reader’s focus to the thing you actually do want them to do.
Yes, yes, you know by now. Use a story.
Like this:
Decide who your ideal client is.
Create a protagonist they will identify with, someone they recognise as being like them.
Put that protagonist in a situation where they have a problem - the problem you solve.
Build tension, make it matter, get your reader asking, What on earth are they going to do?
Enter you.
Your protagonist finds you and uses your solution to save the day.
Using this outline should make your ideal clients go:
This sounds like me
I also have that problem
I wonder what they’ll do
Oh, look, everything turned out great for them
I want the same outcome
They’ll feel excited, hopeful, inspired, perhaps. And who are they going to call?
You, of course.
You could also put a twist on this and use fear instead of hope. (Personally, I prefer to evoke the more positive emotions, like I talk about in this blog, but you do you.) In this scenario, the protagonist ignores your solution and ends up catching on fire or dropping their car keys down a drain. Your readers don’t want to end up like that, so they’ll take action to avoid it.
Once again, the obvious course of action is to call you.
Whatever you decide to do, be intentional about what you want your readers to do, make them feel something, and show them that you are the next logical step.
That’s all for now.
TTFN x
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