by Steve Plummer
Curiosity May Have Killed the Cat but It’s Also an Often Overlooked Key to Sales Success… How to Write Bullets Which Teases Your Prospects and Leads them to the Sale
Here’s a secret to selling, which is often overlooked, but if you master it, it could pay handsome dividends.
No, it’s not about inventing a better mousetrap.
Of course you have to have a good product or service but as you know this isn’t enough.
Nor is it enough to be able to convey the features and benefits of your product. It takes more, especially considering the increasingly savvy and even cynical outlook present in some markets.
So what do you need to do?
Tease your way to the sale… make them curious… get them hot for what you got.
Always remember, people buy based on emotion not logic. So it follows you should be doing everything to infuse your copy with emotion, doesn’t it?
Here’s how: fascinate them!
And the way to do this is by writing “killer” bullets. No, not ordinary or boring bullets… but carefully constructed, well thought-out bullets.
Quick marketing history lesson: back in the 70s a gun copywriter by the name of Mel Martin helped propel Boardroom Books to a $100 million a year company. Mel’s particular genius was what he termed “fascinations”, better known today as bullets.
So powerful were Mel’s “fascinations” some ads were almost entirely made up of bullets.
Here are Some of Mel’s classics…
- What never… ever to eat on an airplane
- Where to hide valuables in a hotel room
- How to buy a house with no down payment
- Sexual side effects – good and bad – of everyday medicines
- The smartest time to file a tax return if you want to avoid an audit
- Two famous cold remedies that can make you sicker if taken together
See… don’t you just want the “answers” to each of these? Don’t they get you thinking?
GOOD NEWS: there is a formula Mel used to become so good and help Boardroom sell so many books.
What he did was combine two aspects of direct response marketing (get their attention and build desire through curiosity) and add a third ingredient… instant gratification.
To sum up, here’s the formula: specific benefit of product + instant gratification it gives your prospect + intense curiosity.
Go back and re-read Mel’s fascinations above and look for the formula.
Note the success or failure of bullets is really determined by how specific you are about the benefit AND the emotional words you use.
To help, here’s a rundown of 5 main bullet types:
The “How to” bullet
Always remember, humans are curious beings and we all want to know “how to” do things we can’t; probably why there is something like 7,000 book titles which begin with How to…
Eg
- How to lose 5 kilos in 7 days without sweating it out in the gym or starving yourself on rabbit food!
- How to find the best insurance policy to protect you and your family
The Warning Bullet
Great for grabbing attention and pushing the fear button! Can be a very powerful way of getting an important point noticed and getting people to take action. I like to put the word warning in capitals for added impact.
Eg
- WARNING: What you must never eat if you want to lose weight!
- WARNING: Errors almost 97% of dieters make and what you can do to avoid them NOW
The Why Bullet
A very powerful way to get them curious… After all we all want to know why something is the way it is!
Eg:
- Why you should ignore the advice given by 99% of diet “gurus” and follow this all-natural method for losing weight and keeping it off
- Why renovating and upselling is up to 9 times more profitable than building and renting
The Secret Bullet
Everyone loves a secret… We’ve been brought up on them (remember the “Chinese Whispers” game for example?). What we love even more is finding out the contents of the secret and getting something new we didn’t know about! Holding secrets is also good for positioning you as the expert because it gives you “power” and makes others want what you have. Eg:
- The SECRET to negotiating deals real estate agents never reveal… You’ll be kicking yourself when you see how they do it!
- 5 Secret Strategies Revealed for adding value to your home with minimal upfront costs
The Right/Wrong Bullet
Good credibility builder again because it clears up common misconceptions. Eg:
- All diets must be supplemented by exercise, right? WRONG! Now you can lose weight without sweating it out in the gym all day!
- All bullets are basically the same, right? WRONG! Discover the proven formula for writing bullets which virtually guarantees increased conversions
Strongly recommend you practise writing bullets because when done well they really can make a huge difference to your success. Start with Mel Martin’s formula and then apply to the bullet types listed above.
Last thing… cosmetics rules. Here are the rules I generally follow because they have proven to be most successful:
- No full stops at end of bullets (full stop signifies an end… you want them to keep reading)
- Use bold, underlines, BLOCK CAPITALS, italics, different fonts to make it interesting (but don’t overdo it!)
- The little black dot is usually most effective but by all means test other types of bullets
- Begin each new bullet with a capital letter
Good luck and happy bulleting!
Steve Plummer
Copywriter and Marketing Strategist
Steve Plummer is one of Australia’s highest paid and in-demand copywriters and is the personal copywriter for Australia’s “Millionaire Maker” Mal Emery. Steve’s marketing and writing savvy have resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra sales for many happy clients. Follow Steve’s blog at StevePlummerOnline.com
Can’t wait to explore your site, Steve! And those power ‘bullets’ sound truly effective. Sell solution, sell magic.
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