Lesson Info
10. Not a Disappointing Series Finale
Lessons
Class Introduction
08:13 2How to Move Your Audience to Buy
03:56 35 Storytelling Guidelines
20:38 410 Stories That Get People to Practically Throw Cash Money at You
21:44 5Understanding Your Client’s Motivation
03:49 6Turning Customers into Fascinating Protagonists
05:20 7How to Write a Logline
03:18 8Turning Customer “Pain Points” into a Compelling Crisis
05:15Lesson Info
Not a Disappointing Series Finale
How to create an ending that results in cheers and sales. We definitely don't want to lose them when we get to the end, right? Sometimes we we're like, ah, stakes, yes, twists, turns, and then you get to the end and it's like womp, because we have a hard time asking for the sale sometimes, or there's no fun way to say that, or that's what we believe. Exciting finale, just like we said, paint the dreamy world. That's basically your whole act three of your copy. It's the third part, it's the ending. As long as the dreamy world is looking real dreamy, then it's gonna be exciting. You also wanna demonstrate just a bit about why you are the one, right? You can put a little bit in there to say, why are you the one that's creating this dreamy world for them? This doesn't mean you have to list out every single impressive credential that you have. We don't want to bore them or lose them, but you can actually, we have another class that I taught here, it's a bio class. You can pull some of the i...
nformation from that and plop it right there, makes it real easy, I have templates in there as well. And then you wanna make your final proposal. This is really where you're just asking for that sale. For why you're the one, like I said, just keep it concise. Another thing you can do is point out an objection that they might have. If you already anticipate, you already know your clients are gonna complain about something, or say I really want this, but, you can already address that objection. FYI, depending on the piece of copy that you're creating, if you have an FAQ section where you're allowing people to drop down and get more information, all your frequently asked questions should be objections. Don't put frequently asked questions that are these silly little details that are minute and no one cares about. Use objections. All of your FAQs should be actual objections or questions you get from clients, and then address them. That makes your FAQ so powerful, and particularly on long pieces of copy, if you have a sales page, that's really powerful to go there. Then you can also include something personal and unique about yourself. I always like to include a fun fact, even if it's just one, like I'm obsessed with coffee, or peanut butter, or many, many other things. You could just have something silly there that's fun and unique. Whatever, it doesn't even have to be that unique. I think a lot of people like coffee, and I use that one all the time, but it's true! Alright, and then in the final proposal. Okay, if you remember nothing else, please only make one ask. When you have a piece of copy, don't ask people to do 12 things, and I know this is really hard to do, because sometimes we don't even register that there are all those things. Example, don't say buy this, then ask them to share, tweet, follow, right? Sign up for your news letter, no, no, no. One, one thing. You have to pick one call to action. That call to action doesn't always have to be a sale. Sometimes we're writing a piece of copy because we wanna grow our email list. Maybe we wanna grow our social media, whatever it is, but just say to do one thing, otherwise they will do nothing, so we need to pick one. Then make all of the next steps clear. This sounds so silly, but so many people miss it. Make it super clear as to what happens for that person. For some of us it's really easy, it could just be you hit the buy button, and then you're gonna get an email in five seconds. That's fine, right? But I'd rather you say that, than to leave nothing, and they have no next step. How many times have you bought something particular online and you were like, did it go through? What happened? And then you're emailing them, and then they're out of the office, you never know. Just make it clear, and it doesn't have to be a long thing of this will happen, and then this, and then the tides will turn, and then we'll go here. You don't need all that. Just have a next step so they understand. Then, also, pepper in some personality. Most people use things like buy now, sign up here, do this, right? Instead, use something fun. I used this on a class before where I said, are you ready to etch our names in the sand together? Sign up here, right? It was still a little fun precursor, so it has a little personality. It's still very clear that they need to sign up for something, but instead of being like, sign up, buy, do now, you know, enter. Instead there's a fun little precursor to that that gives them some personality. Alright, and if I waited until I felt like writing, I'd never write anything at all. I love this quote. I use this quote all the time. I think a lot of us feel this way, it's like, I don't feel like writing, so I'm gonna put that off until tomorrow, right? I blocked time in my calendar, but I don't feel like it right now. The secret is this author feels this way, but I also do to. I'm a freaking professional writer and I don't feel like writing. Of course I'd rather go snuggle my dog and do that, but, you know, it's just that when you get into it, that's where all the magic happens. It's very rare that you're like, oh yeah, I'm feelin' this writing today. Just so you know, none of us really feel like writing. It's usually just something you sit down to do, and then things start to float for you, so don't wait for that to happen. And with that said, we're gonna wrap up today, and if you wanna come check me out, or follow me elsewhere, I'm on Intstagram mostly, Melissa.cassera, or Facebook to so much, but you can come check me out there, and then also on Twitter at casseracomm, and then my website is just my name, melissacassera.com. I write for brands, they're big brands, so I'm trying to think about how I would do all these kinda tricks, and I think what I was thinking is trying to put myself in the personality of the brand, but I would love to know what kind of tips you have to make it feel more personable coming from a brand instead of an actual person. Yeah, so the best thing to do, this may not be possible, because you're working for somebody else, but you can present it to them. The best thing to do, whenever you're a bigger brand, and I've done this with all of my global brand clients, is we appoint a spokesperson. That could be you, but it could also be someone else who's more visible in the company. It's often the creative director, marketing director, or the CEO, or somebody like that. If it's possible to do that, appoint someone as a spokesperson, and then all of the stories and everything that you write, you can work with them like a journalist, right? And then you can talk to them, interview them, and then craft those things into stories. That's the best way, I'll give you an example of a brand. They are not my client, but a brand that does that really well is J.Crew. They'll always have someone from the brand who is communicating, whether it's fashion advice, or just a story about a holiday, or whatever it is, and it's tied into the brand, but there is a person that it's coming from, even though we know it's a social media director or marketing director doing it. And then when I've worked with brands we've done the same thing. I used to work in automotive, and we always had the marketing director, or the PR director, would be our spokesperson, and then everything would come from them. All of the articles, all of the blogs, all of the interviews, would be this one person. It makes your job a lot easier, and then people love it too, because then they get to know this person and it humanizes the brand. If that's possible, do that. Otherwise, what I think you might need to do, and there is a company that does this, though I can't recall their name, but they actually create a little fictional character, and then they use them as the spokesperson, and it was a funny, cartoony kind of thing, and it really worked for their brand. You could do something like that, to be clever, or perhaps just internally, you could create your own character, so at least when you're writing stories, it kinda feels like it's coming from a personal space, even though it's coming from the brand. I think, on matter what, it has to come from a character. My suggestion would be see if it's possible to do a spokesperson in your company, and then if that is not possible, then you can just operate from the mindset of here's the character, there's a person, could be you, that's writing this, and it humanizes the tone of the story. That make sense? Awesome. You had talked about not every story is right for every audience. What do you think about telling different stories to different audiences, like what might be afforded through segmentation in email lists, or cookie behavior on websites take you to different landing pages? You can absolutely do that. Email marketing is great, we actually have another course on that in CreativeLive, and it's great because of the segmentation capabilities. I love segmentation, because you can have different conversations with different audiences, so exactly like you said, I think that's an excellent way to go, and it works really well for larger brands who perhaps have more budget, more staff, to be able to do this. If you're a solo-preneur, it's probably gonna be a lot of work to have six different audiences and write six different stories in a consistent basis. Don't do that, just don't do it. But if you're a larger brand, you have a team, let's say, right? There are multiple people that can help with this or feeding content, then absolutely, you can expand, and that's very common for larger brands to have multiple ideal clients. They don't have one. For solo-preneurs or small business owners, we often have just one overarching ideal client. We sometimes get other people slip in and that's fine, or maybe they wish they were that person, so they come in, 'cause it's an ideology, but for a larger brand, absolutely. You might have six or seven client avatars, customer avatars, right? And then you can have those different lists, and have different stories. Just make sure you're not doing all that work yourself.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Brooke
I thought this course was pretty great. Melissa packed a lot of value into a short class. I took notes and brainstormed on a lot of the exercises and strategies she recommends while watching (pausing as needed) and finished the class with a document full of good ideas and first-draft copy. It is a short class, so if you're looking for something that really gets into the nitty gritty of how to write, this probably won't be enough for you. But if you're just a bit stuck on how to tell your story in a compelling way, or need to inject some excitement into your copy, I'd recommend it.
Simone
This was a great course for giving starting points and methods to make your copy more engaging. It doesn't tell you what to write or is not overly specific, but then what course could cover that for everyone. It does set you up with ways to write and include storytelling techniques that will help make customers read your copy, and hopefully, take the action you want.
Mariya Haberberger
This was super helpful!