“I thank you in advance for the great round of applause I'm about to get.” – Ellas “Bo Diddley” McDaniels, Born Dec. 30, 1928.
Today I want to talk to you about two ways that this idea of “confidence in advance” will work to your advantage personally, and two ways that it will benefit your audience of potential future buyers.
First, let’s talk about how this can help YOU – the writer, the person making the content or offer.
Primarily, if you CANNOT get excited in advance – if you DO NOT think your audience WILL applaud you when you’re done with your deal, or confident in how AMPED they should be to hear about it… Well, you gotta work on that.
If it’s not worthy of applause – even in advance of you sharing it – what are you sharing it for? What are you doing if not generating a quality of output as such that you should expect people to welcome it, based on what you’ve given before?
And look, sometimes as a copy wonk, you don’t have the capacity or authority to change the offer. You’re just crafting words for someone else to say. But that’s the job. Find that praiseworthy angle. Find the material that is worth the anticipation and accolades.
Secondarily, when you do have a good, solid offer or piece of info to share, you NEED to display that eagerness and excitement. Such enthusiasm is contagious. It gets people excited to consume what you have for them and if it’s good, that is JUSTIFIED.
Not enough people understand the importance of showing amplified and exaggerated emotion when portraying material online. Watch an infomercial. Heck, watch any daytime TV ad for dish soap or laundry detergent. (Do they even have that anymore?)
You’re not being “fake” – you’re being larger than life. Because real life isn’t big enough. Think as though you are performing as an actor in an ancient amphitheater and the people in the nosebleed seats need you to reach them from where you are.
Bigness. Loudness. Not phony, but take what is real and crank it up as high as you can without becoming a clown. Think about what your AUTHENTIC reaction would be if it was as big as possible.
COMMENCE PHASE TWO…
Primarily, when it comes to your readers, the reason they are looking around for things to get interested in – is because in the first place, most stuff is boring. Lame. Stupid. Nothing new. Nothing worth the effort to be enthusiastic about in the slightest.
The reason you want to get them hyped in advance is to create that frame of “MAYBE” for them – MAYBE this will be different. Perhaps this will be finally worth the attention they’re trying to squirrel out of me…
And it’s important that it IS actually worth it. Because everyone is yelling and going nuts for their attention. But almost no one is delivering a payoff like you are. So you have to promise it. You have to deliver.
Secondarily, if you can dictate a good outcome, if you tell people that they WILL like what is coming – you can create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You can bypass criticism and skepticism if you can reduce the resistance before those walls would normally come up.
This can help when you are a recognized authority in your world – people will be willing to accept your claim about how they should feel.
If you don’t have that, you need to accomplish that rapport through empathy.
Tell them that you’ve been where they are. Tell them that you have been let down, disappointed, and you’ve grown jaded and bitter… BEFORE this recent revelation you’ve got to share with them.
Put all of this together.
You EXPECT their applause BEFORE you drop your jewels. And once you drop them, that applause will have been JUSTIFIED.
Who else can promise that? Who knows? All you have to worry about is you.