When it comes to online copywriting, it's not the words you use that count. It's the reaction to those words in the mind of the reader, as he reads them on the screen…
And it's your ability to anticipate and plan out those reactions that spells the difference between being able to get your web site visitors to opt-in or buy your product in sufficient numbers to make your business a success.
It's like a dialogue between two people, divorced in time and space. You are feeding your reader images, ideas, and emotions across the continuum, in a carefully planned sequence... and he is feeding you back reactions.
You plan for certain reactions, and do your best to make them come about. You hope your reader will understand and agree with the assertions you put forward, and that he will share in the emotions you are suggesting he feel.
Included among these reactions are demands, questions, and anticipations, which must be answered, or your copy will fail...
When you've successfully aroused your prospect's interest, his reaction may be to demand more information, more image, and more desire from your copy, as if to say... hmmm, tell me more? Where you have inflamed his desire, he will demand proof.
And even when you demonstrate proof, he is likely to demand to know how those results are to be achieved, so he can judge for himself whether or not the product will work for HIM.
CREATIVE SCHIZOPHRENIA... So your challenge is to play a dual role. You must be copywriter and prospect at the same time. You must walk in his shoes, sense his reactions, feel what he feels at each point in the copy... so you can switch direction at the precise moment his demands arise, and answer them.
This fracturing of your mind is one of the most difficult s****s to master in copywriting. And naturally it demands a great deal of research into the product,
and the market you're working with. This sensitivity is one of the key distinctions between writing "good enough" copy... and writing grand slam home run copy that pulls in obscene returns.
Those anticipation points are crucial. If you miss them, you lose the interest of your reader.
Let's examine one of these demands in more detail. At some point in your copy, your prospect generally will ask this question. “How does your product do all these good things you say it does?” First you must anticipate where this question will arise, and then answer it.
"REASON WHY"
Notice this a very specific kind of proof. It's not a testimonial or an authoritative endorsement. Your prospect is asking for an explanation of the "reason why" something works, which may or may not be included in the aforementioned. It is an explanation of the mechanism behind the magic.
I have seen ads that included every conceivable proof element under the sun fail, because they left this simple device out. They failed to demonstrate the 'reason why' the product delivered the promised results.
Of course John E. Kennedy and Claude C. Hopkins are well known for popularizing the importance of this idea at the turn of the last century, and today many direct response ads make use of it to some degree. But how much 'reason why' is enough, how much is too much, and where in the copy does it belong?
WHEN TO USE LOGIC AND REASONING IN YOUR COPY
The answer to these questions comes from your market. Are you writing to those who already understand the reasons
why your product can do what you claim? Do they accept those reasons as valid? If so, there is not much point in wasting the reader’s attention with a lot of 'reason why' copy. For example, if you are writing a car ad today,
and the car you are writing about has ABS brakes, all you need do is name this mechanism. Millions of dollars of advertising, perhaps hundreds of millions that has gone before you, has distilled the logic and workings
of this technology down to a three letter acronym that just about everyone with a license to drive understands. You simply name the feature, tie it to a benefit, and then move on.