A lot of brands (even those with great products) struggle to sell, for two reasons:
- They don’t understand persuasion principles
- Or they don’t know the customer well enough
That’s why your inbox gets flooded with “it’s your lucky day” promos on St. Patrick’s Day.
To me, this lazy marketing is almost always a sign of a lack of research.
David Ogilvy has this saying…
“Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process.”
You don’t find creative sales angles out of thin air.
Creative ideas find you, as long as you do your research.
Over the past year, I’ve written hundreds of direct response campaigns across a dozen different markets.
I’ve analyzed tens of thousands of email campaigns from leading DTC brands.
For 32 of these campaigns, I’ve written a deep dive article, each 1000 words long.
By this point, I’ve developed a muscle for “coming up with creative ideas.”
Before I share with you my 4 pillars for never running out of marketing angles, I put together something that will help you sell your products:
21 Creative Email Campaign Angles Claude or ChatGPT Won’t Tell You
Inside, you’ll find:
- The Dan Kennedy Approach to building brand loyalty (Angle #14)
- Eddie Shleyner’s storytelling technique that turns a simple, everyday moment into your most persuasive sales pitch (Angle #11)
- The “Dead Celebrity” hook that makes your product impossible to scroll past (even if you sell something completely unglamorous) (Angle #3)
… and much more.
There’s no AI prompt that will give you these ideas, because they all require deep human understanding and research.
You can also re-work some of these angles, and use them as Meta ads.
Anyway, here are 4 pillars I follow to generate marketing angles:
1. Rule Of One
You can generate dozens of sales angles using this method alone.
The idea is that you pick one thing, and make it the center of your campaign.
This thing could be a product benefit, a sales objection, or a moment in your prospect’s life.
For example, you could create a campaign around one benefit your product offers over your competitors, and then write a hook saying “we’re X, they’re NOT” (example #8 in the eBook).
Another one of my favorite campaigns is called “one moment.”
Essentially, you zoom in on a key moment in your customer’s life where your product transforms their experience (example #12).
Just make sure you keep the focus on ONE thing. Otherwise your message gets diluted.
2. Social Proof
Social proof could make a prospect go from “unaware” to “sold” in a matter of seconds.
When I go on Amazon these days, the first thing I check is product reviews. I don’t need to know anything about the product for me to become convinced.
Obviously, the reviews can be fake, so it’s important that you verify them.
If you can get a customer to send you a video testimonial, or a before-and-after picture, even better.
But the point is this…
The less you blabber about how great your products are, and the more you start showing why other people love it, the more persuasive your marketing becomes.
It’s one of Cialdini’s persuasion principles for a reason.
3. Storytelling
Whenever I write a marketing campaign, my brain is always thinking:
“How can I turn this into a story?”
And the reason is simple…
Good stories are memorable and entertaining.
But more importantly, they lower the customer’s guard to selling.
If you can attach a story to your sales campaigns, your prospects will be much more willing to buy, because you’re already giving them value through entertainment.
One of the easiest use cases here is to write a story about why your brand exists.
4. Unique Mechanism
This is direct response marketing 101.
In a nutshell, a unique mechanism reframes why your prospect is struggling to fix a problem, and then positions your product as the solution.
You’ve probably seen those ads that say “you’re not tired because of X, you’re tired because of Y.”
They then go on to explain how X percentage of people are deficient in something specific.
And then they sell you a supplement that will finally help you fix your energy.
That’s a unique mechanism in action.
Now, it’s much easier to come up with unique mechanisms in health products, where you’re dealing with scientific data and research.
But it can also be done in commoditized products (like this famous olive oil sales page right here).
Okay, that’s it for now.
Gonna run and jump on a few projects…
Siim
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