From E.T To Gone With The Wind: How Movie Themes Improve Your Sales Copy

“A group of Earth children help a stranded alien botanist return home”

“American classic in which a manipulative woman and a roguish man carry on a turbulent love affair in the American south during the Civil War and Reconstruction“

Most people reading those would be able to identify the iconic films that they were describing. But even if they didn’t, they’d have a very good idea what the stories were about.

What’s more, the films stay very close to those descriptions throughout. Each new character, scene and story development helping to reinforce the overall theme of the film.

And you just know I’m going to tell you that your sales copy should be the same right?

Of course I am. 🙂

If you’ve ever struggled with getting your sales page to “flow,”  it’s probably that you don’t know what your main theme or “story” is. What tends to happen is you bounce from one selling point to another whilst also trying to tackle objections and create a strong call to action.

Reading it back you can’t understand how it’s got all the elements of a sales page, but it just doesn’t read right.

For example, (I love examples) let’s say you’ve developed a new course that teaches people how to sing karaoke tunes that won’t get them thrown out of a bar.

Your service might have many selling points:

• You’re a mobile unit – you can come to them
• You teach them five karaoke standards of their choosing and get them to a standard that won’t make people’s ears bleed
• You can teach them in 2 days
• Their success will lead to increased confidence
• They might impress that special someone with their crooning and get a little love interest
• They could use their new-found talent to warm up a crowd with their 5 songs before a cabaret show
• They could enter a talent competition

Those are all good points, but if you jam them into your sales copy one after another, you’re not going to make as big an impact compared to picking one theme to really drive home, much like in those classic movies.

So how do you pick your “movie” theme?

Start With The Frustrations

As always,we’re going to begin by looking at our audience.

What is their biggest problem?

Well in this case your target audience are people who would love to sing karaoke, but fear that their attempts will get them, well… thrown out.

So, their frustrations are:

• They love to sing but are terrible at it
• They love going to karaoke bars with friends but are too embarassed to perform
• They just wish they had the confidence and know how to get through Dead Ringer For Love by Meatloaf

Next, you want to ask:

Beef Up Relevant Selling Points

From the list above we have:

• You teach them five karaoke standards of their choosing and get them to a standard that won’t make people’s ears bleed
• You can teach them in 2 days

The other points, impressing a new romance, entering a talent contest or warming up a cabaret act are important secondary benefits that you can also mention in your copy, but the main weight of what you write should be reinforcing:

How your product solves your customer’s main frustration

Classic films have sub-plots, but everything leads back to that main theme or story and when you focus on doing the same in your sales copy you’ll find it’s got a tighter flow.

Hope this helped. Let me know in the comments if you’ve struggle getting your sales copy to flow, and if you’ve ever been confused about what your main selling point is.