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Copywriting Secret of the Masters:

Which Sells Best, Stories or Stats?

by: John Forde

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Which Sells Best, Stories or Stats?

Do this: Write down the word ―baby.‖

Now, how does that word make you feel?

Try it with another baggage-friendly word like ―family‖ or ―war.‖ Or any other phrase that gets your inner emotional stew simmering.

Done? Good. No, dear reader, you haven’t stumbled into a 1970′s sensitivity

training group.

There will be no hugs here. And no massaging your chakras (I mean, really…

who does that in public?)

Rather, I’m just trying to warm you up for today’s issue. See, I’m reading

―Made to Stick.‖ (Okay — listening to it as an audio book, during the morning run. But in print or audio, I recommend you get a copy too.) And

this morning, the book gave me a shocker worth sharing.

So now that I’ve got you ―primed‖ to receive (I’ll explain what I mean in just a second), let’s begin…

Which Works Best, Stats or Stories?

Carnegie-Mellon, says the book, did a study. They invited participants in to

take a survey. The topic wasn’t important — something about tech products — but what mattered was the small payout. Each participant got paid with

five $1 bills.

They also got an unexpected letter and an empty envelope. The letter asked for donations for an international charity called ―Save the Children.‖ But

different groups got different letters.

One letter dripped with grim statistics. In one African country, it said, 3.2

million stand on the brink of starvation. In another, 2.4 million have no easy access to clean water. In a third, almost 4 million need emergency shelter.

Each problem was gigantic and serious.

The second letter had only a story. ―Rokia,‖ it said, ―is a 7-year-old girl from

Mali, Africa. She’s desperately poor and faces a threat of severe hunger or even starvation. Her life will be changed for the better as a result of your

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financial gift. With your support, and the support of other caring sponsors,

Save the Children will work with Rokia’s family and other members of the community to help feed her, provide her with education, as well as basic

medical care and hygiene education.‖

Which worked better?

Now, dear reader, I know your momma raised no dummies. You’re going to tell me that the Rokia letter cleaned up. And you’d be right.

On average, Rokia’s letter took in $2.38 in donations from the test group.

The stat-soaked letter took in only an average of $1.14. But that’s not the big surprise, is it? No, of course not. (What kind of storyteller do you think I

am, after all?)

See, the study didn’t stop there…

How Less Really Can Mean a Lot More

The researchers then called in a third group. You’ll get paid for taking this

survey, they said again.

Only this time, instead of giving the participants only one letter with their

cash — everybody got both the story AND the stats together.

Great, you might say.

Heart AND head. A real one-two punch. Wouldn’t that net you both the bleeding hearts and the brainiacs, all in one sweep?

As it turns out, no.

Not only did combining both approaches fail to gas up the giving engines… it doused the pitch-power of the story-only approach with ice water.

The combo group, on average, gave almost a dollar LESS than the story-only group alone.

Just $1.43.

Isn’t that amazing?

I thought so.

But even more amazing was the last part of the experiment. This time, just

to make sure of their conclusion, the researchers invited in a fourth group.

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This time everybody would only get the stronger Rokia letter. But

beforehand, they would complete an exercise.

Half the group would finish some simple math problems. The other half would answer a word challenge like the one I gave you at the start of this

issue: Give word, write down feelings.

What happened?

Incredibly, the group that got ―primed‖ with the emotional exercise gave an almost equal $2.34… but the analytically ―primed‖ group AGAIN gave less,

for an average of just $1.26.

These were unrelated calculations. But somehow just putting on a thinking cap was working like one of those tinfoil hats that crackpots wear to block

out alien mind-reading waves (I’ve got to get me one of those).

Nearest the researchers could figure is that, while analytical thinking can

shore up beliefs or activate a reader’s capacity for focus, it actually stymies action.

To get someone to act, they need to go beyond beliefs to the feelings they

HOLD about those beliefs. Feelings inspire action.

And I don’t just mean that in the ―touchy-feely let’s all hug a kitten and light a vanilla candle‖ kind of way. All persuasion works best when it focuses most

on core emotions, not cerebral abstractions. I know this charity, ―Save the Children,‖ pretty well by the way. My wife and I have a Danish friend who

works for them.

She’s a talented photographer.

Whenever there’s a crisis, her boss dips into the funds and puts our friend and her camera on a plane. Burned out post-war zones, post-tsunami and

typhoon disaster areas, dirt poor African villages — she’s been there, capturing a personal, eyewitness view.

Why?

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Because in the charities well-tested experience, those individual on-the-

scene images raise more money than a boatload of shocking statistics ever could.

I know that I’m going to try to work more of the ―story of one‖ effect into

my future promos. Maybe you should too.

JOHN FORDE’s copy has made untold millions for clients in the financial,

health, and travel industries. And he’s also personally trained dozens of

other now-successful writers and mentored many million-dollar controls.

John is also the proud recipient of the ―Ouzilly Award for Sterling Copy‖ and

the ―2008 AWAI Copywriter of the Year‖ award as well as a 2009 ―Most

Valuable Player‖ award from Agora Financial Publishing.

John is also a published author and a favorite speaker at AWAI’s FastTrack to

Success Copywriting Bootcamp. He currently divides his time between the

U.S. and Europe, with his wife and two young children.

John is also the founder and editor of the weekly industry e-letter,The

Copywriter’s Roundtable, considered by many to be one of the best in the

industry (http://www.copywritersroundtable.com).

Professional Writers’ Alliance EXCLUSIVE: John takes us behind the

scenes of a winning control in ―First to Final‖: The Evolution of a Successful

Sales Letter.

A lot of new writers think professional writers simply sit down at a typewriter

and pump out winning copy effortlessly, time after time. They wish that were

the case…

In reality, every writer has a first draft he or she most likely would rather

forget.

But, it's the process from that shaky first draft to the final product where so

many writing and selling lessons are learned. Which is why we'll be asking

top writers like John to share this experience with you – by taking you from

first to final draft – and telling you about everything in between.

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John Forde:A Master at Writing

More Controls More Often

"If you write copy … how many chances to sell your talents to the businesses you know and trust have you overlooked? Company websites … local sales

brochures … online ads and sales letters … print ads in local papers … even P.R. pieces or ezine editorial.

It might be the small gigs that get you started. It might be the big opportunities that let you smack the cover off the ball at your first at bat.

Either way, I’ve met plenty of people who had no grasp about what role copywriters play.

Masterson’s [Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting] offers the

most thorough and well-organized approach to the subject I’ve seen anywhere. There’s not a technique or secret in there that I haven’t found

helpful over the years. I owe a great deal of my own success to Mike

Masterson. And I tell him so regularly. As for the program, I’d recommend it to anybody – not just direct-mail copywriters, but anyone who’s trying to get

a grip on what makes marketing work."

— John Forde

JOHN FORDE has been writing winning controls for going on two decades now. He’s made untold millions for clients in the financial, health, and travel

industries. John also works as a copy coach, hosting intense seminars for

two or three hundred marketers and copywriters at a time.

John Forde also writes the successful and very useful eletter, The Copywriter’s Roundtable.