How to Write Ads That Everyone Will Listen To

Brandon Welch 0:00
What you’re doing is you’re picking the demographics that everybody does in ads, and you’re saying, But who is it? Specifically? No, what’s what’s her name, what’s his name? And then you’re writing it to him as if you’re having that conversation on the phone at the coffee shop. Yep, you’re right, right here, talking to your face. Yes, if I can’t read this ad to you and it sound like I’m talking to you, then I probably messed up somewhere along the way.

Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast. Today is Maven Monday. I’m your host, Brandon Welch, and I am joined by the captain of efficiency. Caleb Agee, almost rhymed. He was almost there. It felt like it wanted to though 30 more seconds on the script, we would have had it, but he is the captain of efficiency, and that is what today’s episode is all about. Writing efficient ads, ads that cut through the noise, because this is the place where we help you eliminate waste in advertising, grow your business and achieve the big dream. And the big dream is all about getting more customers. That’s right, that can be path to big dream, yeah, and get more customers has everything to do with writing better ads, writing better ads, and that’s what we’re gonna do, yeah? So go here with me. You’re sitting in your favorite coffee shop. Mine’s on Friday morning, Republic Road in Springfield. You know where I’m talking about, right? Nobody goes there to that place anymore. It’s too busy. It’s too busy. Yeah, you got your favorite hot cup of coffee. And without trying you here, if I can’t get all 87 I’m not interested. Your ears perk up instantly, right? Yes, you can’t help it. Conversation isn’t for me. It’s not for you, but he might as well be talking the back of my head. Yes, you know I’m saying. And then you hear and what’s the price per acre? Okay, so that makes it a bit less than 800

Caleb Agee 1:42
offer him 790 I swear I heard a conversation almost exactly like this at the coffee shop one time.

Um, my brain instantly started filling in. Who’s he talking to? Yes, what’s he talking about? What’s 790 right? You could probably figure it out, right? I’ve all been there. I was eavesdropping. Yes, you didn’t intend to. You’re not a nosy person. No, Caleb’s a pretty private person. I have to know this about Caleb, and he’s a respectful person and a gentleman at that. But we can’t help but hear conversations that are one sided, even if they’re not meant for us. Yeah, and we’re going to use that technology, that innate function of our brain, known as the eavesdropper effect, to write better ads. What does that have to do with advertising? If, if we write our ads in a way that is a one sided conversation with somebody, somebody, a person, not a general ad audience, but a person. The rest of the people will lean in and can’t help but listen, and that is the effect we’re going to talk about today. Yeah, it’s the eavesdropper effect. So the problem is, when you write an ad for everyone, it speaks to no one. When you write an ad for everyone, it speaks to no one. But when you speak to someone, you speak to everybody. It’s crazy how that works. There are exactly zero college professors, at least marketing. Ones I’ve met that will teach you this. They’ll try to teach and nothing that you call it professors. It’s just common sense says, Write the ad that doesn’t leave any leave anybody out. Oh, it’s big, expensive advertising. And actually, what you want to do is leave everybody out, because everybody wants to be in. And they’ll hear that secretly through this language. Dr Lauren Emberson in Psychology Today, talked about this

Brandon Welch 3:26
some years back, we published this in our book as part of the research I did on the book, because I knew it was a thing, because I had this experience in coffee shops, yes, and I had this experience when I would write ads in a certain way that, frankly, I did accidentally at first, but I was like, that’s what makes it work. I’m writing to a specific person, and I went to study it, and I found out, gosh, psychology people way smarter than me

wrote about this, and she said,

overhearing a half conversation has a really profound effect on the cognition of the people around you, and it’s not because they’re eavesdropping or The bad people. Their cognitive mechanism basically means that they’re forced to listen. We have these little loopholes in our brain, and as soon our brain is looking to conserve energy at all costs, that’s an innate wiring for us from nature, right? Yeah. And when soon as we see something that we understand, we can put it to bed, and we no longer have to give calories and energy that we could use running from danger right towards that thing, yep. And it’s like, I see it and I understand the end of it done. I don’t need to think about it anymore. This is why over cliched jokes or books or movies aren’t interesting to us. We need to have mystery. We need to wonder what’s happening next. And when you get dropped in the middle of a conversation, man, my wife is so good at doing this, Who you talking to? Who is that? Who you talking to, right, right? And because she wants to know, nobody wants to be left out. And that is what that is, a phenomenon you’re going to wire into your ads, and we’re going to teach you how to do that today. Yeah. So we’re going to dig into a couple of examples, because it sounds abstract. It sounds a little bit confusing at this point, but bear with us. We’re going to read you a couple.

Of ads, and we’re going to show you both sides of this coin. Yes, most ads write not to offend.

Brandon Welch 5:05
They don’t write to persuade, right? Yep, what else is like that universally ignorable stuff? Oh, motel

Caleb Agee 5:12
art, right? You know, just the basic swoops of color across or it’s really soft. Yes, pale colors. Yes, yes. Elevator music. You know, it’s just sitting there being ignorable. Yes, and we do not want our ads to be ignorable. No, show us an ignorable ad. All right, here’s an ignorable ad.

Brandon Welch 5:36
We changed the name. This is a real ad

Caleb Agee 5:38
of the guilty party here trying to keep your cool. It’s time to experience the a plus difference at a plus heating and cooling. We’re committed to delivering the best customer service and proven products. Plus we go above and beyond. Our certified technicians receive additional training. We are a factory authorized carrier, deal dealer. Excuse me, we are a factory authorized carrier dealer, and we offer longer warranties on top of the line, products all backed by our exclusive A plus perks, annual maintenance program. When your system fails to stay cool, schedule your service today and start enjoying a plus air.

Brandon Welch 6:17
Gosh, I’m just so glad they’re a factory authorized dealer, and they go, they go above and beyond. They give theirs, they give their technicians additional, additional training, guys. This is every ad that you’ve heard, right? This is every ad that we ignore, yep, offending no one, but also interesting to no one, yes, and demanding no attention. Okay, this, this, this ad writer, frankly, was probably, uh, overworked, underpaid and not given proper information to write a good ad, yep, the

Caleb Agee 6:52
natural bent when you sit down to write an ad, yes or review an ad is going to be toward, did I miss anybody? Or miss anything. You have to stop that in your brain, it is happening, and you will say, Oh, but I really wanted to sell this thing, or I really want to make sure that these people are included. And guess what?

Brandon Welch 7:12
Guess what’s going to happen? They’re going to run this ad, or they are running this ad, and it’s not going to get the response they want, and three or four months is going to go by, they’re spending good money on TV. It’s got good graphics, got good visuals, like probably look professional. And the owner went, ah, gosh, that’s everything about my company. Cool. That’s what everybody needs to know, right? And then they’re going to determine, oh, our business isn’t growing. It must be the TV station’s fault. And they’re going to fire the TV station. What they should have done is fire the ad writer, or better yet, give the ad writer some time and some good information and this podcast episode to write an ad that is like this. Now I don’t know this company. No, I don’t know anything more than what I read about in this ad, but I’m gonna take the exact same information that was probably given to the ad writer, and instead of writing a general ad, we’re going to put in signals, or, sorry, take out all the signals that we’re talking to everybody. What are those? Yeah,

Caleb Agee 8:09
so some of these signals that we noticed in this bad ad, they did service stuffing. They say residential and commercial HVAC, you know, saying so we’re talking about they want both. They want both. They want to talk to both the residents,

Brandon Welch 8:21
the business owner thinks and, gosh, I do both. I don’t want them to think I only do one. Yeah, when nobody would have ever thought that never. A

Caleb Agee 8:27
business owner isn’t going to call me if I don’t put commercial in the commercial, yeah, it’s like, Well, okay, yes, I think we, I think we could figure it out. Um, non specifics, our certified technicians receive additional training. What is that? Additional training? Who cares? I don’t know what you mean. They, we, we all the way home.

Brandon Welch 8:44
I trained Nate, the camera guy on you know, how to clean up. That’s additional training. Yeah? Additional training today, yeah? Like, hey, I need you to stay for five extra we taught him how to light the candles. That’s right. But, yeah, he’s certified.

Caleb Agee 8:58
So those certified technicians get additional training. They, we, we all the way home. This is how we like to say it around here most ads, we, we This little piggy syndrome, right? We, we all the way home. Yes, you know the

Brandon Welch 9:11
subject line for this email, maybe stop weing on them.

Caleb Agee 9:16
So they say we are a factory authorized carrier. If you’re using we in your ads, you have the flashlight pointed at the wrong place

Brandon Welch 9:24
and all over the place,

Caleb Agee 9:26
and they sound like an ad, like if you close your eyes and listen to that, doesn’t sound like I’m a person talking to you. When I read that to you, I sound like an ad. Yes, and so we offer longer warranties on top of the line, products backed by our exclusive air perks, annual maintenance program. You can almost hear the voice right when they say, that

Brandon Welch 9:45
guy that yes, that advertising guy, yes.

Caleb Agee 9:49
What’s a good ad going to sound like? Well,

Brandon Welch 9:51
it’s it’s going to be specific, not general. It’s not going to stuff. Services going to focus on one thing at a time. It’s going to say, you, not we. And. We’re going to write it as if it can be a conversation, not an ad. It would go something like this, same ad, same company or same same information, same company, different. AD, 6am they’re in your bed. 7am they’re in your car. 715 they’re off at school. 815 they’re in your ear, Mom, I don’t feel good. 816 that are clearing your schedule. It’s a sick kid day, and that’s perfectly okay, because nothing is more important than being a mom, but you don’t need any more unpredictability than you already have. So when your air conditioner needs service, call a plus. We show up exactly when we say or the service is free, and we fix it the right way with only the good parts, not the cheap stuff that’s made overseas. Save your flexibility for the people who matter, and we’ll give all our dependability to you a plus heating and air when we tell you a time, we’ll always be there. So

Caleb Agee 10:55
good we’re gonna try to not allow ourselves to drift into just good ad writing principles. We’re sticking to the eavesdropping of the eavesdropper. Today

Brandon Welch 11:05
we picked, we picked the person. Now that’s the trick I happen to know. But anybody could have Googled this. Who’s the most likely person, homeowner to call for service? I’m

Caleb Agee 11:15
going to assume it’s Mom, the female, yes, it’s

Brandon Welch 11:18
like 70 80% of the time, right? Just because she’s the responsible one and he would put it off, probably right. And now doesn’t mean we couldn’t write a specific ad to a dude. But guess what? The dude heard this. He did the anybody. The grandma heard this. The uncle heard this. The person without kids heard this, yeah, but we wrote it to her, and we made you wonder, Who am I talking to, where, if we’re if I would have just said, Hey, homeowners, who does that mean? That’s not for me. That’s whatever this is, somebody trying to sell me something, for starters. And I you didn’t know this was an ad for heating and air. And this is a good ad writing principle, so bonus. But until probably 18 seconds into the end, more than halfway, at least, I told you a story, right? But I told you a story about you, not a general population, right? So, and then, what do we know? This is the Maven method. Who are they? What are their needs, pains, hopes and fears? They are a mom. Their needs, pains, hopes and fears have everything to do with time, energy and everything to do with their kids, yes. And so we just told her a story that is a day in her life guarantee. Every mom, by the time first quarter report cards are in has had this experience if their kids are in school, for sure. Yeah, Mom, I don’t feel good, right? And so we must have used the word you 40 times in here. You don’t need any more unpredictability ability than you already have. And you know what? Everybody in the world says that the retired gazillionaire says that, right? Nobody likes unpredictability, but I made it about her. So when your air conditioner needs service, call a plus. And now I did some specific things here we show up exactly when we say or the service is free. I made a specific promise. Yeah, okay, sometimes good ad writing gives you good ideas for a company policy or something you should adopt as a strategy. Russell Brunson, really great ad writer of our time talks about go write the ad that would sell it, and then go build the business that makes it true. So they didn’t specifically say this other ad, it’s free. They said superior customer service. Well, dude, superior customer service says it’s got to cost you something if it costs me something, right? Yeah. So for what it’s worth, or the service is free. I did take a liberty there. But if that was my client, I would say, Dude, that’s a weak claim. Make it stronger, or don’t expect this ad to do anything for you. Yeah, Mr. Ad writer who wrote this a plus ad, have the courage to challenge and, frankly, the compassion for your client, to challenge them to give you better stuff. So demand that, yeah, but even if we left that line out and we fix it the right way with only the good parts, not the cheap stuff that’s made overseas. Yeah, I didn’t say we have superior parts. Yeah? It’s like, Oh, wow. I’m glad i i You know i was expecting in Superior parts, but I’m glad you told me

Caleb Agee 14:18
superior is my favorite brand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So

Brandon Welch 14:22
we say with only the good parts, meaning we talk about what we leave out, not, not what you might or might not get, right? Yep, not the cheap stuff that’s made overseas. Everybody has a big bad wolf. That’s a value, right? We buy American parts, right? And I’m pretty sure carrier, I could be wrong about this, but I’m sure pressure carrier is a USA product, right? Yeah, so we said that without saying we’re a certified carrier dealer, right? Okay, back to her. Okay. We’ve, we’ve done all the rules right now. We’ve said, we’ve talked, we’ve used the word you, not we. We’ve given specifics. We have kept this to one promise, not many. So. Uh, save your flexibility for the people who matter, and we’ll give all of our dependability to you. A plus heating and air when we tell you a time, we’ll always be there begging to be a general jingle, jingle, a plus heating and air will tell you a time, and we’ll always be there, right. Cool. That is an ad that will fully employ the eavesdropper effect.

Caleb Agee 15:24
Yes, and it all starts with understanding who we’re talking to. Yes,

Brandon Welch 15:28
the mom. We could have easily written it to the grandma. Easily we would have talked about bacon pies and the good old days we do this. There’s every ad campaign that we write. It’s like at the top of the paper, before any ad writer is allowed to write, who is it? No, who is it, and what kind of handbag does she carry? Where is she at? Right now it’s 10am when this ad is running. What is she doing? What would she rather be doing? What’s she thinking about? What she dreaming about, who holds power over you have to ask these questions. They’re in the Maven, marketer, folks, yep. Uh, chapters nine through 16. There you go. Yeah, chapter eight has the abbreviated, who are you talking to? Questions? But

Caleb Agee 16:04
okay, we’ve got another set of ads. Yes, this second set is community colleges. So the first one is one we found out in the world, we changed the name, and then the second one is actually, is another one that we’ve written that we feel speaks to a specific person. So yes, here it is, don’t put your future on hold. Stay safe and stay on track with online courses at Cardinal Community College, change your career, expand your skills, get the quality education you want at a price you can afford all at an accredited institution, choose for more than 400 online classes, wow, and more than 20. Take all 400 and more than 20 flexible online degree and certificate programs, anytime, anywhere, go to Cardinal. Cc.edu, for more information. They almost

Brandon Welch 16:57
had me when they said, Don’t put your future on hold. That was a good line. It’s a good start. It’s a good line. They started with. Good line.

Caleb Agee 17:03
They started with the U they did that better than that, better than they had.

Brandon Welch 17:06
But then change your career, expand your skills. What skills? Yeah, my hacky sack skills, my long term skills, what skills get the quality education you want at a price you can afford. What? What specifically can I afford? And how do you know that naming prices specifically in an ad, especially if you’re in an industry that doesn’t do that superpower or at

Caleb Agee 17:28
least differentiate yourself? Yep, 20% less than the universe the university down the street. You know, I’m saying yes, the price of Yeah,

Brandon Welch 17:36
I would Yeah. I would say, um, $67 not under 100 but 67 starting at $67 right? Yep, more than 400 online classes. Okay, you guys get the point. They they broke every rule in the book, except for the U they did the U rule work, right? But they broke every other rule. Okay, here’s what you might do. Instead, we’re going to play an ad that we actually wrote for our community college. And we had to, we had to work for a minute to sell them on this concept. But once you hear it, I think you’ll understand why it works better. Here it goes. Hey, by the way, we have a young kid reading this ad.

Advertisement Example 18:22
Hey you? Yeah, it’s me, your younger self. Remember me? Remember being a kid. We couldn’t wait to grow up. But what happened? We always wanted to work with robots. We’re gonna change the world. Why aren’t we doing that? I know life’s thrown you a few curveballs, a bunch of them, but I want to see you doing what you love. I want to see you as excited as I am to be alive. The plaster Manufacturing Center at OTC has programs in robotics, cyber security and mechatronics, so you can start an awesome career that excites us again. I don’t even know what Mechatronics is, but it’s definitely cooler than what we’re doing now, right? So get out there, make some money and make me proud. Go to dreambaker.otc.edu and find a career that would make your younger self super stinking happy. You won’t regret it. Dream bigger.otc.edu

Brandon Welch 19:21
one of my favorites. I like that ad. I’m so happy with that ad, yeah, and everybody here’s we’re talking to one person applied to everybody that even spoke to the person who could care less about robotics is a world class brain surgeon, because it took us, took us back to being a kid. It was about us, right? Sometimes you can find universal pains. Look at Maslow’s hierarchy. It’s going to have something to do with love and belonging, and it’s going to have something to do with esteem and achievement, yeah, and respect. Um. Um, which is what this ad was laced with. There’s, there’s a universal desire for everybody to be loved, respected, and like, on an adventure, right? Yeah. So if you can invoke that, but still talk, still pick the person in your mind. And the biggest hack I ever have learned in ad writing is you have to get in your mind that person so specific. And there are some that I use over and over. I use Janet. I use my mother in law, because I know her so well, and I know what she hates, and I know what she likes, and I I just, I put her in my mind and like, if I can sell this to Janet, I can sell it to everybody. Yes, in the world I use, I use Caleb. Sometimes Megan, on our team is one, because she has a very specific and skeptical way she shops. And I’m like, if I can sell that person, but what you’re doing is you’re picking the demographics that everybody does in ads, and you’re saying, But who is it specifically? No, what’s what’s her name, what’s his name? And then you’re writing it to him as if you’re having that conversation on the phone at the coffee shop.

Caleb Agee 20:59
Yep, you’re right, right here, talking to your face. Yes, if I can’t read this ad to you and it sound like I’m talking to you, then I probably messed up somewhere along the way. I think that’s the thing, though, we get into the avatar mode, and that’s really good. But then at the very end of that, the real hack is just dropping the mic. You know, who? Who that is in your life, you’re like, Oh, well, I just described Janet. Done. Yes, I can write an ad to Janet, absolutely. And that, or I just described Brandon, okay, I know how to write. It gets it gets a little bit easier, because you get so specific about that person, and then you just talk to them, because you know them, I promise you, you know somebody trying to just

Brandon Welch 21:38
it literally jumps your brain over to a different category, where you bring out words and thought patterns that is a conversation and not some mystical, ambiguous dump of words that we call ad speak. Yeah, so you want to avoid that. What you want to use is the eavesdropper effect instead. And the way that you do that is by making specific claims, not general statements, saying one thing at a time, saying you, not we, and writing a conversation, not an ad. So good. That’s all we have for you. Today, we’ll be back here every Monday, taking your real life marketing questions, because marketers who can’t teach you why are just a fancy lie. Like and Subscribe, forward it to a friend. Have a great day.