Persuasive Copywriting: 80/20 Summary
- Amazon: Link
- Score: 8/10
- Skill Category: Copywriting
- Mental Models: Curiosity Instinct, Desire, Ego, Emotions, Language Instinct, Narrative Instinct, Vividness Bias
Mental Models from the book:
'Persuasive Copywriting' can be summarised into 7 mental models:
1. Curiosity Instinct
- Reveal a secret (or a lie) in headlines.
2. Desire
- Make a promise that is: (1) Commanding (2) Specific (3) Desirable. For example: Earn your annual salary by working 4 hours a week.
3. Ego
- Both flattery (and greed) are one of the most powerful motivators. Use them at the start of your copy.
4. Emotions
- Emotions cause buying vs information (that causes analysis). You want your reader to act.
- We make a snap emotional decision to buy a product. We then look for information to rationalize our decisions.
- Find your reader's pain point and you've found your way into their emotions.
5. Language Instinct
- The do/don't of adjectives and adverbs:
- Don't tell how great something is, let the reader decide.
- Information, not emphasis.
- Evoke the emotional response you are looking for. Do not describe your emotions. Readers do not care how the writer is feeling.
- Don't say it was night: show the reader it was night by saying "the moon reflected in the lake".
6. Narrative Instinct
- 'You aren't selling the product you are selling the experience of ownership'.
7. Vividness Bias
- If your product stimulates the senses, then describe how.
Mental Model Mind Maps
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