I was just going through some of my notes that I kept from the Agora Copy Camp and I noticed the chapter I wrote on leads.
I kind of just skipped over it because I thought for sure that I had already covered it in my daily newsletter, but when I went to look through my emails it was nowhere to be found.
So let’s jump into it now.
The lead and headline are the most important parts of your promo.
It’s what drives most of the conversions of any offer. That’s why it’s super important to practice this part the most.
If you’re a business (or a freelancer working for one) and you’ve got an offer that’s already kinda dying because it’s been running for a while … just changing the lead can revive the conversions.
Meaning you don’t have to write a completely new sales letter from scratch.
Which is pretty cool, and just goes to show how important the lead actually is.
But as with all things … The most important things are usually also the hardest to get right.
Especially because you can’t just “follow X steps” to create one.
But to make it a little bit easier to understand we can break them down a little bit.
First you need to know that there are only six types of leads.
They are:
1. Prediction (X is going to happen in Y time and you need to take action now)
2. Problem – Solution (If you’re dealing with X then Y can help you)
3. Secret / System (The secret X that solves Y)
4. Invitation (Join X happening on Y)
5. Story (Listen to what happened to X)
6. Offer (Save X on Y)
The easiest to write are “offer” leads.
(“Buy 2 Get 3,” “Everything 50% OFF,” etc.)
Those can work well on warm traffic, high awareness prospects or whenever you’re running Free + Shipping deals (Grab your free gardening book now!).
Since they’re the easiest, that’s what most beginners start with, and why they’re the most common in popular marketing.
A big step-up from there are emotional stories.
That’s where you share a story of a person that makes solving a problem as relatable as possible.
But whichever type you choose the lead needs to do at least one of these 3 things:
- Empathize with the prospects.
- Tap into their frustrations.
- Validate their beliefs.
It doesn’t need to do all three … but the more you hit the better it will perform.
Those are what lets you speak ‘directly’ to a prospect and have them feel like you understand them.
In essence: the job of a lead is to tell people what they want to hear.
That’s not always easy … because it takes some ‘mind-reading’ to do it.
Mind-reading = research.
A good source of what’s working for the general public (which covers pretty much ALL prospects – even in the B2B world) are tabloids & pop magazines.
Just watch Elon Musk post memes on Twitter.
Memes, tabloids, pop magazines … They’re an awesome source of topics, ideas, and you can use them to build templates for sales copy.
Even if you personally don’t read that just know that the average consumer is a 40-50 year-old working-class woman.
And guess what they like?
Gossip and soap operas.
And they’re not alone.
People are programmed to respond to that stuff.
It’s how Russia manipulates US right-wing voters…
Or how the US democratic party enrages their base over everything Trump does.
It’s why we all want love, good relationships, and beauty…
Why we want more money, success, and fame in our lives.
You can’t get around that when you’re doing marketing.
If you want people to like your ads and want to pay attention then you need to approach them with a topic they want to listen to – and present it in an interesting way.
