One of the most humbling experiences of my life was the day I managed to “land a client” as a freelance copywriter.
I put that in quotations because technically it wasn’t a client, since I never got paid in cash, but with a reality check.
At the time I’d just left the corporate 9-5 and was desperate to get my hands dirty.
I smashed a 14-day copywriting boot camp in 7 and was reaching out to about 50-100 businesses a day, ready to offer my services.
After pumping out some decent volume, I somehow managed to talk a guy into letting me manage his email marketing.
The deal was that I produce an email sequence + a landing page; if he liked it, we’d go from there. Easy peasy.
…Or so I thought lol.
The guy ghosted me as soon as I sent over my work. It must have been bad beyond repair.
Ah well, that’s business right? Pick yourself up and go again.
What followed was a brutal cycle of going through the same pattern over and over.
Send free value > get ghosted
Send free value > get ghosted
Send free value > get ghosted
You’d think I’d get the hint and take a step back to analyze what I was doing wrong.
Nope.
As the stubborn (& competitive) person I am, I kept doubling down, submitting work that was even more complex and convoluted than the previous, and labelling it “advanced.”
Looking back, I was making the exact same mistakes I see so many creators make right now.
Overcomplicating the shit out of everything.
Today’s write-up is a result of the years of trial and error as an online writer and overthinker.
I’ve come to learn persuasive writing is actually pretty simple, and you only really need to master 1 thing in order to be a “good” content writer — at least in my eyes.
Before we get into it:
If work feels like a meaningless slog, I’ll be teaching the modern skills (branding, content, monetization) of building a purposeful business so that making a living is actually exciting (& not soul-sucking).
Check out Project X for more info, price increases August 3rd.
The One Ring To Rule Them All
In my last article, I wrote about the six principles of persuasion to set the foundation for this one.
That’s because in order to write persuasively one needs to know how to think persuasively.
In other words, a basic understanding of what actually influences human behaviour.
I encourage you to read the full article but here’s a quick snapshot to get the general gist.
Basically, these are all ‘angles’ a content writer should consider before putting pen to paper.
Instead of studying the algorithm where it’s constantly changing, you’re better off studying human nature where it has remained a constant. That is where you’ll get your edge.
Now that we’ve established that, we can finally get to the fun stuff.
Creating, writing, and posting content.
Now if you’ve ever run a Google search on “copywriting” you’ve probably come across tons of writing frameworks such as:
- PAS — Problem. Agitate. Solution.
- DIC — Disrupt. Intrigue. Click.
- AIDA — Attention. Interest. Desire. Action.
- PASTOR — Problem. Amplify. Story. Transformation. Offer. Response.
All of these have the same intention—to persuade, influence, and convert people.
But it isn’t just the copywriting and advertising world that shares these goals.
In the storytelling & filmmaking world, there are:
- SCR — Setup. Confrontation. Resolution.
And even in the ancient mythological world, there are:
- DIR — Departure. Initiation. Return.
Or most commonly referred to as “The Hero’s Journey”.
What I’m trying to get at by laying all these out in the open is to demonstrate that if you cross-analyzed every framework, and abstracted the common theme, you are left with 3 essential core elements:
- Hook
- Hold
- Resolve
Combine these 3 elements into a single unit and you have what I call the content block.
Why do I call it a block?
Because like blocks of Lego, content is made up of individual units stacked on top of one another.
Think of a single post—a 280-character limit— as a single content block.
Think of a thread—which is basically multiple single posts strung together—as a stack of content blocks.
Think of a piece of long-form—such as this article you’re reading right now—as a tower of content blocks.
Do you see the power in this?
If you master the unit, you master the universe (of copywriting lol).
By focusing your attention on mastering the content block alone, your skills will naturally translate to longer forms of content when you’re ready to expand.
Like mastering basic culinary skills in order to create a master dish—the days of overthinking and overcomplicating content writing are over when we focus on the three core elements.
Let’s break down each one, shall we?
1) The Hook: Grabbing a stranger’s attention
The hook is the first and arguably most important element of the content block.
If you fail to hook the reader’s attention, everything you do afterwards will go completely unnoticed.
In a nutshell:
The Hook is how you get a stranger to notice your content.
In other words, making people stop what they are doing and redirect their attention towards you.
We do this by getting these two things right:
- Give people a dam good reason
- Provide people with a favourable format
Nail these two and you have their attention at your fingertips.
1) Give a dam good reason
Imagine this:
You’re walking down the street and suddenly hear a loud BANG.
Before you can process what’s happening, you will instinctively turn to face the direction of whatever caused the disruption.
A crash? A gunshot? An explosion?
It’s this absolute necessity to satisfy our curiosity that could be the difference between life and death.
Content works in exactly the same way—albeit in a much less extreme manner.
People will scroll past your content if you cannot provide the “bang” or reason as to why they should stop what they are doing and give their attention to you.
This doesn’t mean you should be typing in ALL CAPS as if you were screaming at the top of your lungs.
This isn’t a good reason, it’s just being annoying.
By reason I mean the big ‘Why.’
Why should people care?
Next week, I’ll provide 11 dam good reasons that you can use to bake into your content.
But since we’ve got a lot to cover, I’ll provide just the one for today.
Recency bias.
The latest and greatest.
There’s a reason “the news” will always be in demand so long as humans exist.
People have an innate desire to stay up-to-date with the latest information.
It’s why you’d rather click on a video that was “uploaded 4 hours ago” over a video that was uploaded 4 years ago — even if they were the same exact video.
Here are a few examples:
The best business models for [insert current year]
Elon’s new X update has changed everything…
The best skills to learn now that AI is here to stay…
These are just random examples I came up with that could use a bit of work, but you can see how I am angling it towards our bias for recency to create that urgency.
2) Provide a favourable format
People are more likely to engage with something that has rewarded them in the past.
Memes are a very good example of this.
There was one circulating recently called the “bell curve” meme.
It basically highlighted how a deeper understanding leads back to simple truths, making light of people who get nowhere because they tend to overcomplicate everything (the main message of this article).
I freaking love this meme and find it both hilarious and insightful.
Now whenever I see it pop up on my timeline, I pretty much always stop to read it no matter what context it’s being used for.
This is what I mean by favourable format.
If a person has been rewarded by a “7 harsh truths” or “unpopular opinion” hook in the past, they will 9/10 click on it again to get that same dopamine release.
The caveat here is to not copy everything word-for-word, but to steal like an artist (a concept I will be exploring in a future article).
2) The Hold: Guiding people’s attention
Now that we’ve hooked your reader’s attention, the next step is to hold that attention by feeding their curiosity.
Curiosity is a kind of low-grade anxiety.
People need to know what happens next, especially if you’ve set the hook up well.
There are two effective ways to hold a person’s attention:
- Lists/steps
- Illustrations
1) Lists/steps
Things, tips, ideas, opinions, advice, actions, lessons, principles, facts, etc. presented one after the other, guiding people down the page.
Lists seem to be the one style that never goes out of fashion.
They are particularly useful for those just starting, as writing a list on any topic helps stretch and expand your thinking.
Why do they work? A few reasons.
- The mind seeks order: there’s a reason we write to-do lists when we need to get shit done. Our minds are a chaotic place and lists are at the top of the list (see what I did there) when it comes to organizing our priorities.
- Each item is a reason to engage: a good list has more “surface area” for readers to play with. Meaning, there are more points of entry to either support or attack your argument.
- They stop the scroll: lists are a form of pattern disruption. Particularly when the average poster rarely pays attention to their formatting, a good list can act as the perfect scroll stopper.
As a bonus, they also cater to the ‘scanners’ i.e., people who scan the page before reading its entirety (put your hand up if you did that for this article).
Here are a few examples of list-style posts on X.
Pay attention to the versatility, flexibility, and use case of each one.
2) Illustrations
examples, metaphors, analogies, personal experiences, scenarios, stories, anecdotes, quotes, descriptions, hypothetical etc.
Basically anything you use to enhance, explain, or amplify your core message.
If you’re not holding attention with a list or sequence of steps, you’re holding it with an illustration.
I opened this very article with a personal story.
It brings relatability, feeds curiosity, and puts forward a transformation that entices further reading.
To help get the cognitive gears turning, simply ask yourself:
How can I explain this in a way that makes sense to a 5-year-old?
You’d be surprised how well this gets the creative juices pumping.
Here are a few examples to illustrate what I mean:
They say a picture tells a thousand words but the right words can paint a timeless vision.
3) The Resolve: Rewarding people’s attention
You know that empty feeling you get when you’re watching a movie that gripped you in the opening; held your suspense in the middle; but then completely drops off at the end?
You feel almost a sense of betrayal.
The same feeling applies to our content (albeit on a smaller scale).
Write this down:
How “good” your content is, depends on how often people feel rewarded by it.
If you write a killer hook but fail to deliver on your promise, people will only remember you for what you couldn’t deliver.
How you resolve can be done by hitting these main points:
- Deliver on or exceed your hook/promise
- Tie loose ends by bringing everything together
- Summarize the main idea in a punchy/memorable way
This comes with practice and you’ll have to do it yourself to really get a feel for it.
A personal trick I use is that I start with the “one truth” that I want to convey, and use that as the basis for my resolve.
That way, the hook and hold don’t go off on random tangents and stick to the main idea.
Everyone thinks differently, so experiment and do what works for you.
Here are a few examples to help you get a better picture:
That about covers the gist of the content block :).
In case you weren’t fully sold on its powers, I challenge you to scroll to the top of this article and observe the block stacking in real time.
P.S If you’re a writer, creator, freelancer, or just someone who’s always wanted to build their own thing but don’t know where to start—I’ll be teaching all the fundamentals in a close-knit practical environment. Check out Project X to see if this is a good fit for you (currently 50% off).
As always, thank you for reading <3
Stay tuned for next week.
— Mat
