Why Your Copy Misses the Mark (How and Why You Should Fix It Fast)

(Kevin Malik / pexels)

Most businesses fail because they don’t know how to sell. Period. They drown in a sea of competition because their marketing doesn’t connect.

If your copy doesn’t grab your audience by the throat and demand attention within 0.2 seconds, you might as well burn your ad budget.

Here’s the harsh reality: People aren’t sitting around waiting to hear about your product. They’re bombarded with thousands of sales messages every day and they’re sick of being sold to.

If your marketing sounds like every other “me-too” business begging for scraps, you’ll be ignored. So, how do you break through?

You tap into the raw, emotional drivers that make people buy. Forget logic. People don’t make decisions based on facts—they make them based on feelings and then scramble to justify them later.

Being timid doesn’t sell. Bold, direct, emotionally charged language does. Make your audience feel like their survival depends on your product.

That’s why emotionally intelligent language in your direct mail copywriting—mailers, emails, texts—breaks through the conversion barrier with your customers.

Emotional intelligence is recognizing, understanding, and managing your and others’ emotions. You can persuade them to buy by identifying, understanding, and managing your target audience’s emotions.

​Let’s dive into how to tap into that before your business flatlines.

Your customers begin at a place they don’t want to be—a negative situation or just lacking something positive. They intend to move to a place they DO want to be.

Each customer is their own hero, and they’re on a quest. They progress through their life’s story, trying to get from a lesser place to a greater place—rags to riches, defeat to triumph.

This narrative involves change. Your customer begins with a desire to either get more of something or avoid something. Ideally, their journey takes them towards more of what they want or away from what they don’t.

Your mission: Help your audience recognize why other solutions will fail or have failed, and you’re the only answer to their prayers.

​Next, you must convince your audience to pull the trigger and take action. But how?

Compel your audience to buy by tapping into their emotions towards their negative situation or ‘lack of.’ Fear makes wallets open faster than any other emotion—fear of missing out, being left behind, or failure. Your copy needs to tap into this primal urgency.

​Additional emotional drivers include:

The simple truth is every decision, from buying a pack of gum to a Ferrari, is driven by emotion. Pride, fear, greed, guilt. These emotions make wallets fly open.

Your job is simple: Speak directly to those emotions. Make your prospect feel understood, like you know their struggles better than they do. Then, and only then, offer your solution as their lifeline.

​Here’s how you do it:

You’d be lying to yourself if you said you weren’t self-interested. Everybody is. Your readers want what’s best for them. The sooner they can get it, the better.

The best way to grab your reader’s attention is to go ahead and get to the point—how your product or service directly benefits them. Don’t drone on and on about your bells and whistles. Get to the good stuff fast before your audience gets bored and looks elsewhere.

​Highlight your reader’s problems, needs, and desires first, not your product or service itself. Explain to them how it moves them more towards good or away from bad on their journey.

Make your audience feel like you’re a personal friend, letting them in on a little secret. You have the thing they need to go from disgrace to glory.

You should research every part of your target audience, including how they sound. Talk on their level, not too lofty. Don’t put a bunch of slang terms in your copy, or you’ll come off as a guy in a midlife crisis instead of “one of them.”

Write as if you’re talking to just one person. Keep your tone conversational, friendly, and engaging.

​Write simply and directly so that everyone understands you. Avoid jargon and overly fancy language.

Nobody wants the entree they can get off the menu any time. They want that Chef’s Special that won’t be there the next time they visit. (Never mind that it’s usually more expensive but poorer in quality and quantity.)

Without urgency, your prospects will wander off and waste money elsewhere. If they don’t feel like their future hangs on acting now, they’ll put it off forever—and you’ll lose them.

​Give your audience plenty of reasons to act NOW. Your product or service will only be at this low price for a specific time. Your stock is dwindling, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. Your coupon expires soon. This offer comes off the table at midnight. You get the idea.

Persuasive and effective direct marketing strategies involve more than pretty words and images. Your copy isn’t just words. It’s your weapon in the fight for survival.

Weak copy kills. Strong, emotionally charged copy transforms skeptics into buyers and prospects into loyal customers.

This is the key to unlocking consistent sales, no matter what you’re selling: Speak to the heart first, and the mind will follow.

​Don’t wait. The longer your copy misses the mark, the more customers—and dollars—you lose. Start fixing it today.