Copywriting Academy 3: Towards or away – what's my motivation?

So I come up to you in the street brandishing a fresh, ripe, juicy apple (no, not the new iPhone). I want you to buy it. But what to say?

Now, of course, I can use all sorts of words to try to make the sale (about 170,000 in English) but there is something more fundamental I should consider first: your motivation for buying.

Persuasion is all about the receiver, it's what they take in (not what you give out) that matters. If the potential customer has no motivation whatsoever to buy your product, you are better off finding a fresh audence.

Back to our potential apple buyer. It's impossible in the space of a post to go through all their possible motivations (hungry, hot, trying to resist a biscuit, eager to please etc). It is, however, possible to look at two overarching frameworks for these motivations.

Towards or away from?

No matter which motivation you focus on, you are left with two options: you can give your audience a vision of achieving a goal or you can offer them a chance to avoid something negative. These are the 'towards' and 'away from' frameworks.

So, back to our apple again. My 'towards' option could read something like:

This delicious Braeburn apple will give you a healthy five minute break that'll leave you feeling refreshed, energised and ready for the rest of your day.

However, we could go for the 'away from' option:

This delicious Braeburn apple will give you that little extra fortification against the temptations of today's artery-clogging snacks, allowing you to last until lunchtime and maintain a more healthy diet.

Same apple. Same motivation (I'm a bit peckish). Very different approach.

So which should you choose?

It's true to say that people naturally fall into either being 'towards' or 'away from' personalities. But the split is generally said to be 50 : 50 (with a lucky few in the middle favouring both equally). So that doesn't help much.

Overall, however, the 'away from' approach will generally deliver better short term results – it is more immediate, more viceral. So, more often than not, this would be my favoured option.

The best way, of course, is to test both.

You can see all the posts in the copywriting Academy series by following this link.

Image by Pink Sherbet on Flickr