Marketing is hard.
Writing copy is hard.
Especially when you try and use “The Big Idea”.
You know, that one staggering hook that will blow people away.
The one where you talk about “The new breakthrough that will revolutionize [insert market here] forever!”
First, you have to come up with that idea.
Then you have to dig up all kinds of proof.
Then you’ve got to cross your fingers and see it actually works.
One of the best companies at using this is Agora.
And yet…
I talked to someone pretty high up in the company. He said 6/10 of their campaigns fail.
6/10 Big Ideas get signed off by smart, experienced marketers…
Are written by professional copywriters…
And then flop.
Ummmm, fuck that!
Now I’m not saying don’t use big ideas. They work. I still use them on launches and sales pages.
But there’s another option.
One that takes way less brainpower.
You don’t need to be clever.
And they are pretty hard to screw up.
It’s the small idea.
Here’s what I mean:
Imagine you’re a mom with a 3-year-old who has ADHD.
Kid won’t sit still. So you start Googling for help.
You see all kinds of articles.
Some are big ideas: “The Breakthrough in Child Psychology that gets the most out-of-control child to behave like a choir boy!”
Okay, that’s actually not bad.
But here’s the thing.
You could also have an article:
“How a stressed-out mom got her young child with ADHD to finally sit still”
That mom is reading that fo’ sho’.
Because she’s going, “holy crap that’s me and that’s exactly what I want.”
Now here’s the issue.
The “big idea” attracts more people. Because the ADHD thing only targets that one problem.
So you’ll also want different stories that target different people.
You’ll want several small ideas to match the power of a big idea.
For example, maybe a big part of your market is parents who’s kids have sensory processing disorder. For them, you may want something like:
From 5 meltdowns a day to 1 per week: How this mom learned to handle her son’s SPD…”
So instead of searching for THE ONE HOOK TO RULE THEM ALL…
You can chill out. Create several success stories. Then drive traffic through SEO, FB ads, emailing your list, etc.
These stories are so much easier to create.
All you do is call up your customers. Ask them questions. Copy and paste their replies onto a page. Put it into story form so it’s engaging. Cut out the fat. And boom, you’re done. (I’ve got a zillion articles on my site on how to do this.)
Then repeat with a different customers who overcame different challenges.
Repeat a few more times and call it quits.
The cool thing is, these can last for a longer time.
Because that “Child development breakthrough” may not seem so exciting in 3 years. When your competitor has a newer, sexier breakthrough.
But a good success story can last forever.
They’re also harder to screw up.
Because showing how a person went from A to B is always going to be interesting to someone who is at A and wants to get to B.
Oh, and if you wanna get real frisky…
Do the big idea stuff, then share the success stories later on.
So after people buy into your big idea, they then get to see how it worked for someone in their exact situation.
For example, have case studies throughout your VSL or sales page.
Send them out in emails to people who didn’t buy the first time around.
Or do some FB retargeting.
Marketing doesn’t have to be hard.