No one has time to read your copy.
By: Oladepo O. Ephraim
Tags: Jesus, Advertising, Marketing, Copywriting, Customer Service

Let us take a little twist- it is the festive season anyway.

Ever heard of how Jesus talked to thousands of people for days and the people continued till the end?

We don’t have the same attention span as those people. But the same rule of communication applies- we can learn the basics of marketing from Jesus.

Let me show you why those people paid attention:

First, the people had an expectation. They knew what they wanted to hear. Jesus also knew it- so he could creatively address their concerns. Does that mean he went off to tell them what they wanted to hear? No! Oftentimes, the people had a wrong idea of the matter. Jesus would communicate the ‘truth’ without out-rightly telling the people they were wrong. His words would always target their motivations, their ideas, and their fears. His first few words would always give the audience a reason to listen.

Now let’s relate that to the contemporary world.

Your marketing campaign can never succeed without understanding your audiences’ interests. They are the ones dropping the cash or swapping their debit cards. So their opinions would always matter. Whether or not their ideas are far from reality, your goal is to convince them and not making them see how they have failed to see reality. But don’t get this twisted. I am never saying you should not make your audience see the “problem”-that is very critical to closing sales. I am saying that other than lamenting about the problem, you should be focused on introducing the solution and how it would benefit them.

Like I mentioned about Jesus, you can liken his first few words to your headline- and perhaps your introductory paragraph. I am not writing this to justify whether your copy should be kept short or long. But I can tell you assuredly that if your headline fails to get attention, the bulk of the copy would follow suit.

All through the teaching sessions of Jesus, he was never the only person doing the talking. He would always give time to the audience to ask questions and express their opinions. The questions could eventually lead to a new discussion. The more the people asked questions, the more he was able to communicate his ideas.

Never make the mistake of continuing on a marketing campaign without integrating feedbacks from your audience. Emphasizing what I said earlier: they are the ones making the purchase and their opinion matters a lot. If they think a change is necessary, you should acknowledge it. They might be wrong, but at least, intentionally make them see your perspective.

The conversations of Jesus never ended without a call to action. It does not matter how long or short the conversation lasted, he would always leave the audience with a “do this”. That was why he often used words like ‘repent’, and ‘believe’.

Trust me, your audience needs to be told what to do. Even they don’t want to dedicate their time to read your entire copy only to be left with the “what next” feeling. Your call to action should be definite- it should answer the what, why, and how. Besides, there is no rule saying your call to action must be at the end of the copy. You can have it anywhere- it can occur multiple times especially for a very long copy. You can even make your call to action the headline.