Irresistible content that connects doesn’t have to be long.
Every Nigerian knows the hypnotic powers of a well-made pot of vegetable soup. Add some fried fish slices, mushrooms, shrimp…with some spicy kick and you will be getting marriage offers from suitors from the left and right. If you are married, count yourself lucky; your husband will brag to his friends that he’s going home early on days you promise to make this dish.
That is the power of Nigerian vegetable soup, y’all. And what does this have to do with copywriting and creating delicious content, you ask me? A lot!
A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to share my mother’s cooking with my colleagues at work. “What a great way to share Nigeria with the people I work with,” I thought.
I got home and asked my mom to cook me vegetable soup because I’d love to take it to work. In true Nigerian fashion, she responded: “I can cook it for you but ahn ahn, can’t you cook it yourself?” I told her I wanted them to experience her cooking. If I cooked it then it wouldn’t really be my mom’s cooking. Excited about the plan and (maybe impressed by the compliment), we sealed the deal.
I got to work and lots of people tried my out-of-the-world dish. I left out an important thing though.
What I didn’t tell them was that it wasn’t your broccoli on carrots, slow-cooked-for-days type of vegetable soup. It was your typical Nigerian vegetable fish soup.
Was the potluck a success? Yes it was, but it could have been better. And I will tell you why.
5 copywriting lessons, as taught by my mother’s vegetable soup
1) Ask them what they want. Really
Knowing what your audience wants is important if you want to make money from what you do.
Even if my food would make the prince of Zamunda fall in love with me, it didn’t resonate with my colleagues because they were unfamiliar with it.
The same principle applies to your offers. Don’t slap your offers on your audience out of nowhere. Introduce it to them, conduct surveys, get to know what they think about the solutions you offer. Because if they don’t think they need your help, they will not pay for it.
2) If you don’t know how your audience likes to consume information, you will leave your audience hungry.
Although they loved eating vegetables, eating a microwaveable dish probably wasn’t the best offer at that time. Throughout the night, I saw them gravitate towards finger foods with minimal prep time.
Your audience will let you know whether they want you to drip feed your courses or release the modules at once. Don’t make the mistake of releasing 10 videos without giving them instructions on where to start from and how to get to module 10.
Do you provide coaching services? A summary or recording of your sessions might help your clients feel better about spending those hourly sessions with you.
3) Know the features of your product or service and know how it will benefit your audience.
Ah, this alone can push your selling efforts into the gold lane.
If you can articulate what your product does and how it will help the buyer move from frustration to abundance, you have sold your product. Don’t be like me; I put a lot of effort into psyching myself up, thinking they were going to love my product.
Well, that didn’t happen. Because for you to really convert an audience member into a customer, you need to see things from their perspective and articulate the benefits for them.
4) What your audience perceives as really epic, valuable, content might be as simple as two paragraphs.
What your audience perceives as really epic, valuable, and relevant might be simple as two paragraphs. This is so epic I had to write it twice.
You really don’t have to go through great effort to create “valuable” content. Have you ever wondered why some bloggers blog about seemingly mundane things yet they are more received than others who focus on dropping truth bombs? It’s because they’ve discovered their “IT” factor; what audience members LOVE and WANT.
You don’t get to judge how valuable your content or offer is––your ideal clients will do that.
5) Ask them if they love your program or hate it
I missed this step because I was too quick to throw my food in the trash. Therefore I missed the opportunity to learn how to make Nigerian vegetable soup more appealing to night shift workers who happen to be White Americans.
In most cases, you don’t have to re-do your entire product. Based on the feedback you receive, you might just need to focus on making certain portions better and niching down a bit more.
There you have it, guys. Here are 5 lessons on how to make your offer more appealing…as taught by my mother’s vegetable soup. I doubt I’ll be making another one soon, though.
Thoughts? Questions? Let me know in the comments below!