10:59am
Saint Paul
“I hate Wizards.”
And with that, six of us –– my wife’s two cousins, their spouses, and my wife and I –– enter The Wizard’s Tower.
Have you ever been in an Escape Room before?
You get “locked in” a room and have to solve puzzles, sequentially, to get out.
Hopefully (for the business) we escape before the hour is up.
Possibly (or impossibly) without any hints from the overlords running the front desk.
Last Friday was my wife’s and my second escape room, and she had picked a Harry Potter-ish themed room.
A theme which one of the cousins, new to escape rooms, wasn’t thrilled about –– and Larry Plumber (as I call him) isn’t really my cuppa tea either.
But it’s all good.
We walk in. Door gets locked. And immediately those of us who have any idea of what is going on start to touch EVERYTHING.
Because in an escape room, you never know what’s a clue or why.
Meanwhile, Mr. I-Hate-Wizards is baffled. It’s his first time and he just watches us run around, poking and prodding. (By the end he got the hang of it.)
After a bit, I make my way to a desk.
There are four color wheels mounted on it. The wheels each have magnets in strategic locations on the back –– I know they’re there because I can feel them.
So I line up the magnets with the only place a sensor could be on that desk.
Nothing.
After a good while, our first hint from the front desk is displayed on a screen. Something about using the brooms to get an item out from a cabinet.
We do it wrong and just pry open the cabinet.
Get a few items out.
Then we realize the correct way to free a key and unlock the cabinet doors, with more clues inside.
We solve one puzzle, then another, with hints coming from the front desk more frequently than we’d like.
(Because if they provide hints, it means we’re slow.)
Eventually, we get some magic potions that turn colors when we mix them.
Which match the color wheels.
Which line up, unlocking another cabinet.
Which reveals more clues for the next puzzles.
And eventually, we escape!
59 minutes, 17 seconds.
But here’s the thing:
I had already solved the color wheels puzzle.
And a telescope puzzle too, which required buttons to be pressed. For that one, I just tried EVERY possible combination.
And in both cases?
Nothing happened.
The puzzle wasn’t “solved” until it was meant to be solved, in sequence.
There was no skipping forward in the puzzles, otherwise information would be incomplete, or possibly we’d escape far too quickly for it to be a fun challenge.
And that’s a model for your sales process.
In a sales letter (or email or landing page or video), there are specific steps to take to maximize both the experience for your audience, and maximize your sales.
AIDA is a well known formula: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.
And behind AIDA are brain chemicals that your copy should be triggering.
Cortisol. Dopamine. Adrenalin. Oxytocin. Endorphins.
You can’t skip steps or mix them up, or the buyer’s brain doesn’t respond to your sales process the way you’d like.
There’s no persuasion possible if someone immediately skips to the conclusion. And then they leave, unsatisfied.
Of course, there are other copywriting formulas beyond AIDA.
And new ideas and formulas can always be tested.
But humanity hasn’t changed much since God buried the dinosaur bones to fool scientists some 400 years ago.
So stick with what works to unlock the puzzle of sales copywriting.
Love you,
Jeffrey G Thomas
Direct Response Copywriter
PS. Some people love to write and make time for it. Some hate it, and see it as a necessity. Others just skip writing all together.
But no matter how you feel about writing, if you’re in biz there’s no better way to reach your prospects than a well-written word.
More than 20 businesses have increased sales with my copy.
And I’ve given you plenty of clues and a few hints on doing the same.
But if you’re still unable to solve the sales copy puzzle, reply now.
I can help you escape.