How To Write Curiosity

Here are 7 ways to write curiosity into your marketing messages:

1. Challenge Common Beliefs
2. Open A Story Gap
3. Ask A Question
4. How To Benefit
5. Reveal A Secret
6. Numbered Lists
7. Hard-Won Lessons

#1. Challenge Common Beliefs

What do you know to be true?

The sun rises in the East and sets in the West. What else?

Gravity makes apples fall, and you can't walk on water!

But…

What if you can walk on water. What if Gravity doesn’t exist in your world… if you know the secrets to make objects dance like autumn leaves in the breeze.

If that's the case, then you have a lethal curiosity weapon, and it is your ethical responsibility to use it.

Here’s a gravity-defying example from the property investment world:

How to buy a house for free!

What do you think when you read that sentence? Bullshit! Yeah right? Prove it? Tell me more…

If you’re saying, prove it and tell me more then the curiosity trigger has worked. If you’re saying bullshit, then the idea is too much of a stretch, and that's okay.

Just so you know, it is possible to buy a house for free. How do I know? Because I've done it. In fact, I got paid to buy a house because I got more I got more than all my money back, and I’ve still got the house!

How is that possible?

That’s the wonder of property investing. Gravity doesn’t really exist in that world. But… you first need to suspend your disbelief and accept that these things are possible.

What about this one…?

Drop a dress size a week by eating Big Mac’s and French fries!

What do you think when you read that sentence?

There’s an element of disbelief because it’s challenging your reality of the world. The reality that fast food makes you fat. It’s also challenging the common belief that losing weight is hard and that it requires sweat and starvation.

So…

You’re either looking for the way to get what you want without the pain… or you accept the world of no pain, no gain.

Some people are not willing to look outside what they know. They are certain that the only way to lose weight is to eat healthy food that tastes well, ****, (I’ll let you fill in the blanks) and to spend a minimum of an hour a day in the gym.

Guess what. They are absolutely right. If you eat less calories and do a lot more exercise, you are going to lose weight.

But…

Is that the only way? If you're unable or unwilling to exercise for an hour day, do you have to accept that you'll never be your ideal weight? Or is there another way…

What about some gravity suspending statements from the marketing world:

Happy paying customers without a sales team

Marketing that makes the cash register ring

Free advertising that makes instant sales!

How do these statements make you feel? Would you like me to reveal the secrets to Free advertising that makes instant sales?

You see, it is possible, and I've used it to achieve life-changing results. If you're curious to know how this is possible, then please leave a comment below, and I'll reveal this secret in an upcoming blog.

What about, marketing that makes the cash register ring!

For most businesses, marketing is seen as cost! Possibly it's seen as an investment in future, but it's certainly not recognized as an activity that makes the cash register ring. That’s the exclusive job of the sales team. They are the glory team that should never be challenged! Unless… you want to make a giant leap in your sales and profits.

How can marketing make the cash register ring? That’s what I’ve outlined in my book How To Turn Expertise Into Cash. You can download your free copy by click this link: How To Turn Expertise Into Cash.

Similarly, happy paying customers without a sales team might be a wish that you don’t dare to dream because you don’t know anyone that’s done it. I’ve doubled and tripled a businesses turnover without a sales team by telling true stories that inspire people to change their lives. Like most things in life, this is easy when you know how.

So is there a formula that you can use to write curiosity by challenging a common belief?

Absolutely!

Here it is…

[Desire Benefit] without [Pain or Top-Of-Mind Objection]

So, ask yourself, what does your community want more than anything else? That’s their Desire Benefit. When you describe their Desire Benefit in words they can see you will enjoy a more profitable response. That’s why drop a dress size a week works so well. You can see the benefit.

Then list the objections that you would have to achieve that result. If you are struggling to think of objections imagine telling a friend how they can have what they want most in their life. What yes, but… reactions do you think they will say?

Can you honestly show your community how they can possess what they want most in the world (their desire benefit) without the pain or objections?

If so, you’ve just struck curiosity gold!

#2. Open A Story Gap

There are 3 elements of a great story.

1. Character
2. Conflict
3. Narrative Arc

In other words, who is the Hero, what does he want and what is stopping him from getting it.

That’s the basics of a great story.

What’s the curiosity element?

It’s the question that makes you ask, how is the hero going to kill the dragon / win the girl / save the world.

How can you open a story gap in your email subject lines, webinar titles and sales page headlines? Here are some from my repertoire:

Bankrupt Cambridge photographer accidentally discovers the secret to turn expertise into £672,989 in just 9 days!

Broke barmaid discovers how to make £3,000 per month from houses you don’t own

7-figure pizza boy

Broke student becomes a property millionaire in a year!

What do these headlines and statements do?

The start a story and create a curiosity itch that has to be scratched.

Many of these headlines combine curiosity elements. Let’s look more closely at the second headline: Broke barmaid discovers how to make £3,000 per month from houses you don’t own.

What curiosity elements does it use? It challenges a common belief, right? After all, it’s impossible to make money in property without owning a house!

Not necessarily…

Just look at letting agents. Yes, but… they don’t make £3,000 a month from a single property.

What other common beliefs are being challenged?

The belief that you need money to make money. And that it takes years of learning and practical experience before you can make money from a skill.

The words broke barmaid carry with them the fact that you don’t need money to get started and that you don’t need to be academically gifted.

Now, did I think all of that while I was crafting the headline? Not really. I was looking for a shocking story to tell. That came first. Once I had uncovered the story, I opened a story gap to create a curiosity itch.

So how can you do the same?

You start with the jaw-dropping result that your community wants. Then contrast the result with where you started. The bigger the gap between where you started and the result that you achieved, the greater the interest in the story and the greater desire to find out more. This is what grabs your communities focused attention.

Don’t be tempted to exaggerate these extremes to give your story a double shot of espresso. If you’re anything like me, then you’re just an ordinary guy that refused to give up. You suffered through your own setbacks and failures to get where you are today.

Tell your story honestly. You will attract the right people to you because of your story and because of your values.

With my story (Bankrupt Cambridge photographer accidentally discovers the secret to turn expertise into £672,989 in just 9 days!)I could give it a double shot of espresso to make the results even bigger. But what would be the point? If that's not a good enough result, then I'm not the trainer, mentor or consultant for you.

Start telling your stories and the stories of the people you have helped, and you will grow your business in ways you can't imagine. Open a story gap in your email subject lines and watch your open rates soar.

#3. Ask A Question

Questions are a powerful way to involve the reader in your message. They force the reader to say to themselves, yes, this has been created for me.

So what do curiosity questions look like?

Here are a few that we'll talk about:

98% of millionaires do this morning ritual religiously, do you?

Are you using the most powerful sales generating tool in your marketing funnel?  

Is email killing your business?

Is generosity murdering your webinar sales?

What is it about these questions that generates curiosity? Let’s look at each of them in turn.

The first question (98% of millionaires do this morning ritual religiously, do you?)  grabs the reader’s attention with the word millionaire. It creates a curiosity itch by not telling you what the morning ritual is. So, if you want to know the common trait among 98% of millionaires, you’ve got to open the email, watch the video or read the sales page.

The second question (Are you using the most powerful sales generating tool in your marketing funnel?) grabs the attention of business owners and marketing professionals with use of secret language. Nobody else knows what a marketing funnel is or cares about the most powerful sales generating tool.

The curiosity itch is created by not telling you what the most explosive sales generating tool is. If you're an entrepreneur or marketing professional that's interested in making more sales, then this question is going to force you to read on.

This statement would work well as a headline for Facebook ads because of the use of secret language. This attracts your ideal customer and turns everyone else away… which is the perfect situation when you are paying per click. You only want your perfect customer to click on your ad.

The third question (Is email killing your business?) is going to grab a business owners attention. Every entrepreneur that I speak to, wants to know the answer to this question. They want to know the magic number of emails to send on a weekly basis to achieve their sales goals and not receive spam complaints.

This is a controversial topic which does have a right and a wrong answer! What’s the magic number?

I’m going to save that for a blog post for another day!

Yes, I'm being cruel by creating an itch that you can't scratch immediately and this is such a vast and important topic that I want to give you a detailed answer.

The final question (Is generosity murdering your webinar sales?) is another question that will hit the panic button for many entrepreneurs. After all, webinars are the most powerful sales vehicle, right?

If you've been following me for a while, you'll know that webinars are not the most explosive sales vehicle. You'll know that they are part of your sales mix… so you'll still want to know how to write a webinar presentation that brings in the cash.

When it comes to webinar presentations, you don't want to be known as the business that gives no value. Equally, you don't want to give so much information that your audience is confused before you present your offer.

So the answer to the question is maybe… let me show you how I’ve killed webinar sales with generosity so you can see if you’re making the same mistakes. Again, I’ll save this for another blog post because this is a huge topic area.

So how can you write your own curiosity questions?

It comes back to challenging a common belief. If the common belief is that webinars are the greatest online sales tool, then writing about them is going to grab your communities attention. So start with a Desire Benefit or topic of interest. Then look at all the ways that you can challenge the common beliefs. Here’s how to combine these elements:

Is [this benefit] killing [that desired outcome]

Here’s how this formula could work in the dating market.

Are you shoes killing your first date?

Here’s how it could work in the weight loss market.

Is broccoli keeping you fat?

The fundamental point is that the question challenges a belief your community has about something they want or something they are using in their life.

Now It’s Your Turn

Rather than overwhelm you with the 7 ways to write curiosity, I’m going to stop here for today. I’ll give you part 2 next week. If you would prefer to have all the information in one long post then please leave a comment below to let me know for next time.

To start writing curiosity into your marketing messages, please write down the benefits that your ideal customer wants badly. This could be more money, more time, losing weight or finding the love of their life.

This is the starting point for all your marketing messages. Why? Because people buy what they want! They read about what they want. If you're going to grab and hold their attention, you've got to write about what they want.

Then make a list of the pain points or challenges to achieving what they want. If you're struggling with this, then call up a friend and start talking about the Desire Benefit. When you hear them say yes, but… start writing every word that comes out of their mouth.

You are looking for the top of mind objections. You are looking for the reasons why that’s impossible.

If you've got a better system to achieve a specific result, then you are challenging the status quo. Don't be afraid of this fact. Embrace it and use it to make more sales.

Please let me know how you use this information in your business. I don’t want these posts to be entertainment. I want them to give you the tools to grow your business. So please let me know what happens when you use these secrets.

If this can help someone you know, then please share it with them.

Until next time…

Carpe diem

Roland Eva

P.S. if you'd like a proven system to turn your expertise into cash so you can become your own boss and work from home, then please click the link below to download your FREE copy of my book How To Turn Expertise Into Cash.