Hey there,Tim here.
We're finishing the third week of creativity month, and I know it's sparked my own creative juices. This week, I'd like to share a question I got via email from a Copyblogger reader. The question was:
"What do I say to people who don't like my writing?"
It's a tough subject, but one that's critically important to your success. Let's hash it out together.
1. Are You a Courageous Content Creator?
What does it take to be a leader in your industry?
Courage.
You need the courage to alienate the wrong people in order to resonate with the right people. You need to stick to your convictions when people tell you you're wrong simply because your knowledge doesn't mesh with their opinions.
I don't know about you, but I want people to like me. I'm the guy who brushes past the hundreds of positive comments and focuses on the negative one. Then I think about that one negative comment for hours, and I used to let it ruin my day. I'm betting you can relate.
What a revelation it is to discover that your success doesn't depend on making everyone happy. Your success depends on making the right people happy.
- who do you want to serve?
- what matters to them?
- how to they prefer to be communicated with?
When you answer those questions for yourself, then you know exactly who you're speaking to. And just as importantly, you also know who you're not trying to please.
In order to please everyone, you'd have to be generic. And generic is the exact opposite of the type of content that works. Serve your audience, and don't worry about what anyone else thinks.
2. Supercharge Your Benefits with Contrast Storytelling
Your copy has to convey the benefits of buying, period. But have you thought about how to best frame those benefits?
The Framing Effect is a psychological response in which people react to a particular choice in different ways depending on how it's presented.
For example, we tend to want to avoid pain more than we want to gain a benefit, so heading straight into benefits with your copy can hurt your conversion rate.
Telling a story that creates contrast between the pain of loss and those benefits, however, is a frame that works wonders. That's because you're explicitly reminding your prospect about what they want to avoid before you talk about what they gain.
3 How to Love Rejection (No, Really)
Zero sign-ups.
A dissolved joint venture.
No response from a guest blog post pitch.
When you're hyper-creative, a lot of your ideas will be rejected.
Rejection can be the reason why many of you quit. Even worse, the fear of rejection can be what keeps you from ever getting started. I get it. Remember when I told you that I have a tendency to focus on the negative comments? Well, I also have a tendency to focus on the rejection letters I receive.
It's a painful process, but luckily, you have support in your corner to help you push through the fear.
The secret, is to turn rejection into resolve.
When you love the truth of the present, new ideas to act on arise in your mind. When you see the potential you can realize, regardless of any past or future rejections, the pain of rejection fades.
And you can get back to work.
4. Get Brian Clark's New Free Report
I read a draft of the report this week and let me tell you, I think it's Brian's best work yet. To be the first to receive this free report on the future of digital marketing and the content creators who will make it happen, click here.
5. How Good is GPT-3 Really?
The robots are coming to take your job! Or are they?
By now, I'm sure you've heard of the amazing artificial technology software called GPT-3. The A.I. can write creatively, it can send pitch emails, it can write music, and it can even tweet.
A friend of mine did an experiment with GPT-3 on Twitter to see what it was really capable of. He fed the algorithm the first few lines of Moby Dick and let it rip.
The results are astounding.
Closing Thoughts:
I've been doing a lot of research this week around pricing.
Pricing is such an important aspect of business building, but it's a topic full of ambiguity and vague advice. I've been on a mission to understand why some people can charge thousands of dollars for a product while others can barely charge $20.
Then I remembered a great piece of advice I was given by a former sales manager. He told me that "price is just a signal."
The price tag is a subtle signal to your prospects telling them how valuable your product must be. In many cases, increasing your pricing is simply a matter of positioning or finding a more inviting value proposition.
The trick is to stop asking yourself "how much should I charge" and to start asking yourself "how much value will this add to my customers lives?"
Will your product add $20 of value? Will it add $10,000 of value? A million?
In the same way you need to be a courageous content creator, you also need to be a courageous business person. That means potentially alienating a few people who don't fit your preferred pricing model.
It could be that your price is exactly where it should be. But odds are your work is worth more than you're giving yourself credit for.
Talk to you next week.
Tim Stoddart
Copyblogger Media
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