Breakthrough Advertising: All You Need To Know To Write Copy That Converts
The 5 Stages of Customer Awareness Distilled
Imagine you have to write a copy to launch a new product. Do you write the same copy for all the leads? Absolutely not!
If you want to write copy that turns your leads into buyers, you have to study who your target audience is, the needs, and what problems are facing.
To be effective your copy has to give a solution to a problem that your prospect has. And only by understanding at which stage of the buyer’s journey your customer is, you can write copy that fits with his needs and solve his problems.
Eugene Schwartz in his masterpiece “Breakthrough Advertising” written in 1966, identified 5 stages of Customer Awareness. If you want to know more about the Direct Response world explained by a master, this book is for you.
Probably some concepts in the digital age might be considered a little bit outdated because he talked about Advertising in the 60s, but others are still valuable now.
Today the way to do Ads has changed and that’s true, but the basics of Advertising are the same.
Unfortunately, this book is a little bit expensive even second-hand. But if you want, you can find a reprint of this book with the original text plus an afterword from Brian Kurtz and a selection of swipe files from Schwartz, saving some bucks too. Click the link and grab a copy.
Now, let’s delve into the topic of this post.
Here the Schwartz’s 5 stages of customer awareness distilled:
•Completely Unaware
•Problem Aware
•Solution Aware
•Product Aware
•Most Aware
Completely Unaware
People ignore a problem and therefore they don’t think about solutions about your product nor about your product as a solution.
It’s the kind of cold reader that finds you on social media commenting or liking your ad or post.
The copy you can write at this stage is “educational content” because people need to realize to have a problem and reading content like that helps them to figure out that and the exact kind of problem they have.
Problem Aware
People understand they have a problem but they ignore a possible solution and start researching to find out more about the problem.
Your copy has to help the reader to gather information about the problem. The more accurate the information is, the more it leads your reader through the solution-aware stage.
Solution Aware
They become aware of the solution to their problem but they don’t know yet that your product is the perfect solution. So they start researching different solutions.
Here you have to write copy that stands out so readers know about your product.
Testimonials and social proof are perfect at this stage to show your readers real stories of how your product has already solved the same problem.
Product Aware
They are aware of the product and start looking at it as a solution to the problem. So they start searching for the product, comparing different options.
What kind of copy do you need at this stage? The most compelling. You have to emphasize why your product is the best choice to solve the problem, highlighting the benefits for your reader of using your product with different kinds of content, tutorials, blog post, guides, etc.
Most Aware
In the last stage, people are aware of the problem, of the solution, and see your product as the right solution to their problem.
You’ve got it! They trust you.
The copy at this stage has to encourage your reader to click the buy button and say yes. To help his decision you can give him a free trial, a free ebook guide, a coupon, or things like that but only valuable content.
Finally, they buy your product. So you have turned simple readers into buyers. And they recommend your product to other people.
To wrap up…
To write converting copy you have to put yourself in the customer’s shoes and for each stage of the customer’s journey, you have to write a copy based on the stage of awareness your prospect is.
Otherwise, your reader will be confused and your copy will end up in the waste bin or in the spam folder. And confused people never buy.
“Copy is not written. If anyone tells you “you write copy”, sneer at them. Copy is not written. Copy is assembled. You do not write copy, you assemble it. You are working with a series of building blocks, you are putting the building blocks together, and then you are putting them in certain structures, you are building a little city of desire for your person to come and live in.”
Note: This article was originally published on Medium.
Important: 👉 This article contains a link to a product but it’s not an affiliate link, so if you click the link and buy the product, I don’t earn any commission.