Renting a wood chipper can teach you a lot about marketing
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In 1966, direct response copywriting legend Eugene Schwartz wrote a book called Breakthrough Advertising. One of the best concepts from that book is the idea of defining an audience by their stage of awareness.
That's exactly what it sounds like - how aware your reader is of the problem you solve, your product, your product's value and so on.
Someone in a heightened stage of awareness doesn't need much persuading. They just need an offer, because they understand the problem you solve and the value you add. Supermarket ads with prices of various fruits and vegetables are a great example of this.
Someone in a lower stage of awareness needs more education. They may understand the problem, but not yet be sold on your specific product. Or they may understand the problem, but haven't decided on a solution yet (think: comparing buying a lawn mower against hiring a gardener).
Or, in the least-aware stage, they don't even realise they have a problem.
Understanding the stage your audience is in, and targeting your copywriting towards that stage, is one of the highest-impact things you can do when you're copywriting.
(Also, if you want to learn more about Breakthrough Advertising without actually reading it, check out my summary and review.)
Let's take a look at an example
Now that we've got the preamble out of the way, let's take a look at the example that got me thinking about this in the first place.
A few weeks ago, I rented a wood chipper for the weekend. I had a bunch of bark come loose from my firewood and I wanted to turn it into mulch for my flower beds. Went great.
Anyway, not long after I returned my chipper, I started getting these Facebook ads from the equipment rental company. Take a look:
Tools for the very aware
As you may be able to tell, this is an ad targeted at people in a very high stage of awareness. It's exactly what I was talking about before - just an offer. There's barely anything about the benefits of hiring tools or the benefits of these tools. Just a selection of tools, and a way to book now.
And this makes perfect sense. They know that I've recently rented from them. That means they can infer that I'm probably working on some kind of project. Lots of projects require more than one tool, so I may well have a need to rent something.
What's more, they know that I already understand the benefits of renting equipment, because I've just done it.
So there's no need to spend any time explaining what they do, why I should hire from them, and so forth. Rather, they just need to show me what they have to sell, and give me a pathway to buy.
Now let's fast forward a few weeks.
Solving problems for the less aware
A month or so later, the ads changed. Here's what pops up on my feed now:
As you can see, the ad's positioning has dramatically changed. It's a video of a guy trying to mix concrete by hand and having a hell of a bad time doing it. At the end of the video, he rents a concrete mixer from Hirepool.
(The 15-second video is pretty cute, by the way.)
They're now targeting people in a lower stage of awareness - people who have a problem, but haven’t realised that there’s a solution to it.
Rather than just give links to various tools, this ad is making you aware of the problem that leads you to hire a tool: the physical toil and general unpleasantness of doing back-breaking outdoor labour with a shovel and a wheelbarrow.
What’s more, it’s showing you that there’s a way out. You don’t have to live like this!
So they're not giving me a pathway to rent a specific tool. Instead, they're explaining the benefits of tool hire in general.
Clicking "learn more" does take me to a pathway to see prices and choose a tool, because clicking that link indicates that I am moving into a more heightened stage of awareness.
It makes perfect sense to show me these ads now that a few weeks have passed. I’m no longer in that space of having just hired a tool, so I’m not as primed as I was when I saw the first set of ads. I need a bit more persuading as to how valuable tools can be.
It's about how you pitch it
The important thing to note here is that the first ad probably wouldn't work for someone in the second ad's target audience, and vice versa. If you're super keen to rent a concrete mixer or a wood chipper today, you don't need to see a video explaining the benefits.
And if you hadn't thought to rent one of these things, a list of products and prices isn't going to do anything for you, because you haven't yet realised the problem these things can solve.
So when you're copywriting, make sure you think about your audience's stage of awareness. Making clear decisions about which stage you pitch to can have a huge impact on the direction of your copywriting - not to mention a similar-sized impact on your results.
Try it, and let me know how you go.
See you
Sam
PS: For an example of a company targeting the wrong stage of awareness, check out this Linkedin post I wrote about a fairly lackluster piece of direct mail I received from the NZ Herald.
PPS: If you're about to launch your own page, ad, email or whatever, you might want to get a second pair of eyes across it before you press go. Get a comprehensive review for $599. Find out more and book here.
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