Just hit 11k followers, so figured it’s high time I introduce myself again🕵️ I’m Mercure. That’s not my real name. I’m a Copywriter. I spent 5 years working in-house at one of the largest direct response companies in Europe, before moving on to focus on my own freelancing career. My account is anonymous and will likely stay that way. Because who I actually am doesn't really matter. What matters is the Big idea behind all of this. See, I share what I know about Copywriting, but probably not in a way you’ve seen before. Most people associate Copywriting will loud, catchy, headlines. And while that's a popular expression of Copy, I’m more interested in what’s underneath. The psychology, the philosophy, the linguistics. See, I have written a lot of Copy in regulated markets. Markets where you can't just show up shouting big claims. To still write winners, I had to find new ways of writing claim-less Copy. That's where I found storytelling, world building, and how to install ideas in your readers without ever saying them. I call this Quiet Persuasion. And I've written a book about it, which has already been qualified as a marketing classic by its readers. Now the Quiet approach isn’t for everyone. It usually takes more work. It requires more research, to know your audience better than they know themselves. If you can't outclaim your competition, you've got to out-think them. You have to be patient when the internet rewards immediate impact. But here’s what it gives you. You learn to see what most people overlook. You understand human psychology at a level that influences your whole life. It’s a master key that opens doors you didn’t know existed. And if you're curious about what Quiet Copy looks like... ...I built my entire funnel as an immersive detective investigation, where the goal is to find ME. I disappeared, and I've left behind me scattered pages of the manuscript of Quiet Persuasion, that might lead you to me. If you’re curious, start here: mercurecopy.com/case-file-25… See you around. Merc

Sometimes people are not shopping for the best option… They’re shopping for the end of shopping. The decision itself is what’s exhausting them. And whatever gets them out of it fastest is what they’ll pay for.

Nick is right, and this is one of the most important things in copywriting… But “putting yourself in their shoes” has layers to it, and too many people stop at the first one. The first layer is what they tell you they want. “I want to make more money,” “I want to lose weight,” “I want a better business.” That’s the surface, and it kind of works, but it sounds like everyone else, because everyone else is talking to the same want. The second layer is what they actually want but will not say. The guy who says he wants more money actually wants his wife to stop worrying. The woman who wants to lose weight wants to stop avoiding mirrors. This is where your words start to feel personal, because you’re describing something they feel inside but never heard someone else say. Then there’s the third layer, and almost nobody gets here… It’s the hidden belief running under the others. The one people don’t even know they have. In my book I call these schemas, deep patterns usually formed long before they ever heard of your product. The guy who keeps buying online courses is not looking for tactics. He’s trying to prove to himself that he’s not the failure his dad told him he’d be. He doesn’t know that’s what he’s doing, but it’s what’s driving every purchase. Demographics get you to layer one. Research and empathy get you to layer two. But when you write to layer three, the person reading doesn’t think you're a good marketer… He thinks you’ve been inside his head. And that’s when your product starts feeling like it was made just for him. This is not just a copywriting technique, by the way. It’s a people technique. A great leader uses this in corporate meetings. A great teacher uses this in the classroom. A stud uses this on a date. It works anywhere one person is trying to move another, which is basically everywhere.

If you describe someone’s problem more accurately than he could describe it himself, he’ll assume you have the answer. You don’t even have to mention it yet. Just give him an accurate diagnosis and he'll trust you have the cure.

So excited (and nervous!) to know what you think of it. 😀

People don’t put off the purchase itself, because the purchase is easy: one form, a few clicks, and it’s done. What they’re really putting off is the identity shift that comes with the purchase. Buying a gym membership takes one minute. But becoming someone who goes to the gym means changing how you see yourself, and that’s a different kind of decision… A decision that a lot of marketers ignore. They sell the product without addressing the fact that buying the product requires their buyer to see himself differently. So if you want to close the people who almost-buy, don’t just sell the product… Make the new identity feel natural to step into.

Gotta be careful with the buyer who talks the most… The one who’s commenting “definitely getting this,” DMing you for details, asking every question, etc. While BUYING and TALKING ABOUT BUYING are obviously very different, one can replace the other… Every time someone tells someone they’re going to buy, they get a small hit of the feeling they’d get from actually buying, and that small hit takes the pressure off. The enthusiasm they’re showing is NOT momentum toward the sale. It’s steam escaping from it.

Your biggest competitor is not the other guy in your space. It’s your buyer’s belief that he can figure it out on his own. That little voice kills more sales than any rival ever will.

A small flash of “wait, what?” is a great scroll-stopper, because our brain locks onto anything it can’t immediately make sense of. Too much confusion is obviously bad, but a tiny controlled dose of it buys you attention.

People pay more attention to things they have to work for. A freely accessible PDF never gets opened. A free PDF behind a comment, a signup, a short wait, or an email sequence is more likely to get read. The only thing that changes its perceived value is the effort it required to get it. And that’s exactly why some offers should not be too easy to buy. Things like an application, a qualifying question, a waitlist, etc, show that this wasn’t made for everyone, which makes the people who do want to get it treat it as more valuable. So don’t remove EVERY barrier… Remove the pointless ones, and leave the ones that make people feel like they earned the right to buy.

People will quit their job, leave their spouse, move cities, and start over in a weekend if it was their idea. Suggest the same thing to them and they’ll think you’re crazy. People don’t resist change. They resist being changed.

Every time someone buys, they pay more than money. They pay with the risk of looking stupid, the effort of learning something new, and the fear it won’t work. Lower any one of those and you’ll sell more than you would by dropping the price.