Writing Words That Sell – Preparing Your Prospects To Buy

Did you know that there’s something you can do in the first FIVE lines of your sales copy to prepare your customers to make a buying decision? It’s called “future pacing,” and within a few moments you’ll know how to use this powerful strategy to explode your sales conversions…
Let’s begin with an example: say that you’re selling a financial product for teaching your customers how to manage, invest and spend their money wisely. Within the first five lines of your copy you’ll tell the prospect that they are going to need to take action in order to get a promised benefit.
For example:
“Are you feeling crushed by pressing financial worries and longing for an easy solution to regain control of your money? If so, you’ll be thrilled to take advantage of this rare opportunity to turn things around starting RIGHT NOW! You’re just moments away from uncovering four simple principles which the wealthiest people in North America have used to break free from poverty and to achieve soaring financial success…”
Okay, let’s take a look at the first sentence. This qualifies the prospect by asking them a pain inducing question. Remember, people don’t buy products. They buy solutions to problems which are causing them some kind of physical or emotional pain. The thing to remember is that when someone is in pain (in this case from financial worries) they cannot walk around in that kind of pain 24-7.
Therefore, they have defense mechanisms which they use to numb or bury the pain. So your copy needs to stir up this pain, or it won’t be real enough to invoke the desire for a solution. This is the first step to future pacing.
The second step is dealt with in the second sentence of our example. Here we make a foreshadowing of an action which must be taken RIGHT NOW to their prospect out of their pain.
The final sentence completes the job by giving the prospect a rock solid reference as to why this product will provide them the promised benefit. Notice that this sentence also tells them that they are “just moments away” from knowing the solution. Again, this builds urgency and assures them that they aren’t going to waste their time reading your sales page only to find that the answer they were expecting was not there.
In addition to a few psychological devices which we do not have time to cover, this brief examples sets the pace for the rest of the sales letter and prepares the customer for the upcoming call to action. It also promises a benefit for them to keep reading and to take the required action which will come later.
Now, go back to the top of this article and see how I also used this to get you to read this far….