Page 155 - 100 Great Copywriting Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

71 CREATE CURIOSITY

It’s been said that curiosity is one of the big psychological
triggers or motivators. And it stands to reason. We are curious. It’s
in our genes. All higher primates start exploring their world as
soon as they can. We puzzle over things. We love figuring things
out. Almost as soon as they learn to talk, human children start
asking, “Why?”

Which is excellent news for us copywriters. We can use our readers’
natural curiosity to draw them into our copy. Because, wouldn’t you
know it, the answer to all their questions can be had for the price of
the product we’re promoting.

The idea

From Personal Computer World, an IT magazine
The readers of—and subscribers to—Personal Computer World
(PCW) are well educated, mostly male, and mainly IT professionals.
I was commissioned to write a direct mail letter that would be
run as a test against the existing letter (the control). Like a lot of
copywriters, I find the opening the hardest to settle on. Not because
I can’t get started, but because I can’t decide which among several
appeals will pay off with the best results. (Well, if I could, I’d be
psychic and probably not writing copy for a living.)

I decided, finally, that male pride in being a technical expert, coupled
with good old-fashioned fear of falling behind the pace, would
form the bedrock of the letter. But how to start? Here’s what I
eventually wrote:

146 • 100 GREAT COPYWRITING IDEAS