If You Have to Pitch, You Failed

There are two ways writers can appeal to their audiences to make a purchase: implicit and explicit.

The explicit method is direct and is as simple as it sounds. You recommend them a product or service after verifying their requirement and validating their budget. In this method, you must make a strong case for the offering through your copy.

The implicit method is subtle. It’s about sharing select information at the right time to draw the buyer toward the good or service. Here, the lead feels they are making the purchase decision independently rather than reacting to your pitch.

As you may imagine, implicit pitches, despite taking longer, are more effective. Folks who act on their own accord are more likely to follow through. 

In this chapter, let’s look at how writers can make implicit pitches through their copy.

A seed that grows into a forest

It’s a bit like Christopher Nolan’s “Inception.”

Every voluntary action or initiative emerges from a thought in your brain. Content writers must plant the right thoughts in their readers’ minds that’ll eventually grow into a steadfast purchase decision.

There are three ways you can do it because there are three kinds of potential customers:

1. Problem

We look for products or services to fix problems. And these are the first kind of prospects — folks who are aware of a challenge they have.

Start by highlighting the seriousness of the problem and outline the short and long-term consequences if it is not resolved. Don’t be a nerd and talk in terms of revenue or any other boring metric, though.

You have to make it emotional and relatable.

For instance, if your target audience is losing many hours a day in extracting action points from Zoom meetings, mention how much of a hassle it is. Explain the frustration and irritation they have to deal with every day.

Of course, do give some spotlight to the business consequences but keep in mind that organizations are run by people.

Then, introduce a solution. In the context of the aforementioned example, it could be an AI notetaking app. Again, focus on the emotion. Talk about how relieved they will be with the software because it can jot down the minutes of the meetings in real time. 

The juxtaposition between both emotions, irritation vs. relief, will move them to act. Even though the app has business value, particularly for professionals who sit in many meetings, they can only relate to the emotion on a personal level.

And at the end of the day, they are the people who’ll make the purchase decision and ultimately use the product.

2. Solution

Then, there comes a segment of prospects who are aware of their problem, and by extension, the solution as well. Continuing with the above example, professionals who lose a chunk of their day to writing the minutes of meetings and are aware of AI notetaking apps fall into this category.

Your objective as a content writer is to educate them more about the solution they are already aware of.

For instance, you can provide an ROI estimation, qualitatively and quantitatively, of investing in these notetaking software. Similarly, an article about “the features of an ideal AI notetaking tool” will do nicely as well.

Here, the product mention becomes a bit more apparent. On the explicit-implicit scale of sales pitches, this will incline more toward the explicit end compared to the pitch in the previous section.

Basically, you will have to introduce them to your offering and paint it as the best in the market.

3. Offering

After being introduced to your product, the prospect may still need some days or weeks to complete the purchase. This is when you need to share product-specific marketing material.

Content pieces such as case studies, testimonials, and product comparisons are crucial for demonstrating practical value. The potential buyer needs to believe that others like them have found success with your offerings.

Just like the past two categories, you must lean into the emotion. Highlight the frustration and angst that your current customers went through before they discovered your product. Then, contrast that feeling with the one they had after completing the purchase.

Always educate, never sell

Your buyers (probably) know how to make decisions for themselves. And no one wants others to decide for them. This is yet another reason why pitches that are more implicit than explicit earn more loyal customers.

A simple and effective way to achieve this is by creating educational content only.

Even when sharing case studies, which are stories of your customers who have solved problems with your products or services, you must follow this tactic. The central focus should be the informative story where the main character (your buyer) goes on a journey.

Consequently, the decision to make the purchase grows many legs. The best part is that each of those legs would be grown by the potential buyer. When the moment of truth comes, they will seamlessly open their wallets and hand you their money. 

Every customer wants to direct their own purchase journey. Let them. Just be their assistant who provides them the correct information at each step. Be their companion in the journey.

Wrapping up: The fundamentals of content writing

This marks the end of the second section of this book where we discussed the core objectives of a professional content writer and dived into the thought process behind quality content.

The fundamental goal of a content writer is to assist a potential customer at each step of their purchase journey. Initially, provide them with information about how their problem is costing them and start recommending the product or service as they proceed further.

In terms of content performance, search ranking is essential. SEO requires you to speak the language of your audience in the sense that you should use the terms and phrases they’d normally use because that’s what they will search on Google and other tools.

After that, it is all about delivering an engaging experience to your readers. This is pivotal to make sure they get the entire message and see you as a friend.

All of this makes conversion easier. 

The upcoming section of the book will discuss how you can build a portfolio from scratch and get your first writing gig. I’ll also tell you a bit about making the right career moves as you go on.

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Next Chapter: Build a Content Writing Portfolio

Previous Chapter: Good Content vs Great Content

Index (Prologue): What is Content Writing