TL;DR: Stories are the most compelling force in the copywriter’s toolbox. You can make your stories more impactful and evoke more emotion using the checklist included in this week’s tool.

I don’t dwell on negative news too much, but there are some worrying signs about our culture and the economy that should at least be acknowledged.

I’m worried, but I believe in getting better at what you do and finding new ways to apply your talents. I’m going live on LinkedIn twice a month to talk about this.

Also, I’ll soon be merging Bold Words with my other newsletter, Ithaka. For the past year, Ithaka has been a special “insider’s” newsletter geared towards achieving a major life goal in 12 months or less. Again, it’s all about being better so the problems of the world have less impact and you’re empowered to help others.

You don’t have to do anything. Just enjoy the content that you’ll soon receive on both Tuesday and Thursday each week.

Feature: The Checklist That Paid for a Trip to Italy

My client used Claude to write the perfect lead magnet.

It was clear, logical, and showcased her expertise. The Call to Action promised relief from a compelling problem.

But after 341 downloads, only four readers booked a call.

The Trouble With Being Artificial and Too Intelligent

When I tried to read her PDF, my eyes glazed over.

There were no stories in the piece. Nothing relatable. It was like reading the owner’s manual for a complex piece of machinery.

I asked my client of she had helped anyone who had the problem her lead magnet addressed.

“Oh,” she chuckled, “Don’t get me started.”

As a matter of fact, my exact goal was to get her started. I kept bugging her until she told me three great “horror stories.” True, relatable stories that emphasized the pain her prospects were feeling.

I added them to the copy, and the next 100 downloads yielded into 17 appointments.

Now here’s the lesson. You have to breathe life into your content and make it suitable for living beings.

The old AIDA formula (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) is just one example of how you can make this happen. But there’s a catch.

Notice that three of the four letters in AIDA stand for emotional responses. Your copy needs to make the reader feel fear, greed, and curiosity.

Here are a few elements that will do this:

• Relevant news

• Stories

• Visual metaphors

• Hypothetical situations.

Pour gasoline on the fire by making your content more readable and by adding more emotional words.

Simplify all the important technical terms with analogies. I know a REALTOR who explains that escrow is like Paypal for houses.

If you’re feeling frisky, invent new words for important concepts. For example, you could refer to universal life insurance as “Microbanking.”

Another way to pump up the emotion in your copy is to change your verbs. If you “help” a certain demographic, can replace the help with “guide, drive, inspire, renew, or empower?”

The Most Important Element in Your Copy

With the right prompts, you can coach your favorite AI into raising the emotional temperature of your copy.

But there’s one critical element that AI doesn’t do well: Storytelling. No matter how good the GPT becomes, no matter what language model it trained on, AI can’t yet have real world experiences.

Stories are relatable because they happen to you. They happen to us all. There are regions of the brain that light up when stories are being told.

Most significantly, when you’re telling a story, the listener’s usual resistance goes down. You can feel when you’re being talked at or sold to. But you don’t feel this way when you’re hearing a story.

On the other hand, if you don’t tell a story in your copy, your potential clients will never get to your CTA.

The Checklist That Paid for a Trip to Italy

When I started adding stories to my copy, I went from being a “freelancer” to a sought-after professional.

I remember the exact day when I realized this story-based approach was working. I was looking at flights to Italy as part of a visualization exercise, and I realized I had enough revenue to buy a ticket.

When I realized I was going to be writing a lot of copy in my future, I created a checklist. I’m giving you a short version below. Pay close attention to the first three items they give you the most bang for your buck.

In fact, if you illustrate every point you want to make with a story or analogy, you don’t need to worry about the rest of the checklist.

That wraps it up for now. If you have any questions or comments about this issue, hit the Reply button and tell me what’s on your mind. I may not answer you directly, but I read every one.

Always keep growing,

Jacob Bear