One of the challenges facing any copywriter is to come up with the “Big Idea” or the angle that makes a product or service exciting, or at least compelling, to the prospect.  It’s what legendary copywriter John Carlton calls “The Hook”.

Now, as I was walking along to my “Latin Cardio” class today (I’ll tell you about it some other time!) I happened to be pondering this question and I thought to myself that a good writer should be able to make any product interesting.  As if in response to that piece of bravado, the next moment a van belonging to a document storage company went past.  So what’s so interesting about document storage?

Glad you asked!  Let’s think about it for a moment and aim to relate it to…money!  Could it be that if documents go astray or get stolen it could end up costing you money?  You bet.  And there’s probably other nasty consequences of documents getting in the wrong hands.  That’s not even to mention the potential problems some companies could get into with government agencies if records are not kept correctly.

Which brings me back to my original theme, how copywriting can make virtually any product exciting.  It all comes back to the two primal human emotions and drivers – fear and greed!  When you look hard enough, there’s going to be a link to one of those drivers for virtually any product.  Sure, there are other potential drivers but if you’re stuck look for one of those core motivators.

As an example, Ted Nicholas had a tremendously successful letter selling a book of…coporate forms!  The trick was, he focussed on the consequences of not having those forms taken care of and, yes, it all came down to money.

Somewhat tongue in cheek, I used to tell one of my friends that in every letter I always try to include making more money, looking better and having more and better sex! You get the picture, I hope!

On a slightly different note, Pete Godfrey is holding one of his one day “Cash On Demand” seminars in Sydney this Saturday March 8.  I’ll be there, so if you’re attending feel free to come up and say “Hi”.