Ever broken something and been forced to wear a cast?

I’ve actually broken four different bones.

I even broke my collarbone twice (that’s a story for another day…)

One of the most annoying things about the recovery process – besides the aches and pains – is the maddening itching sensations under the cast.

You can’t get to the itchy skin of course. There’s a giant hunk of plaster of paris in the way.

So you have to get creative with forks, rulers, and other long flat things to reach the itchy spots. But when you do… oh man, there’s hardly anything better!

The itch is so uncomfortable it’s worth the trouble it takes to scratch it. This usually lasts as long as it takes to get the cast off.

The same goes for selling products and services online…

There has to be an “itch” – an impetus – driving people to find out more about your stuff and (eventually) buy it.

You could have the highest-quality widget in the world. But it won’t sell well if it doesn’t address a legitimate problem or frustration.

Think about how world-class authors do this to hook readers in their novels.

First they introduce a few characters. Then they immediately present a situation the characters are forced to get out of. This has to happen in the first few pages. If it doesn’t, they’ll lose most readers’ interest.

There’s a caveat too: the situation or problem has to be significant. It has to be something readers actually care about for the story to work.

No one cares how Jane’s struggle to decide between a white or blue blouse ends.

Practically everyone, on the other hand, is intrigued by Frodo’s quest to destroy the one ring in Lord of the Rings. That’s literally a situation of life and death.

Compelling prose isn’t enough. It takes a compelling problem to really get those pages turning.

Sometimes consumers know exactly what their problems are. They fall down the stairs, and they know right away they should probably get to the doctor.

But other times the problems are more subtle. The iPod solved a problem most of us didn’t know we had: not being able to store or access our digital music in one place.

The people you want to become your customers are walking around with plenty of open wounds. Many of them have just scabbed over.

It’s practically impossible to create desire, but you can uncover it if it’s already there.

Do this early on in your website copy. This isn’t the time or place to be subtle.

You already have the hero to the story you’re writing – the potential customer. Now’s the time to introduce the situation that only your product or service can help them solve.

The sales-driving formula: a “hero” + an undesirable situation to escape from + the solution (product/service) that helps them do just that.

I still remember how it felt the first time I jumped in.

It was like being hugged with a bristle brush and a thousand frozen needles at the same time.

Muscles started to cramp up by the time my face rose above the water’s surface.

I’d just hurled myself from a 100 degree Texas summer afternoon into Barton Springs.

No warm bath water there. Just crisp, 68 degree spring-fed water all year round.

All I could think about was moving as fast as I could.

All I could think about was getting warm again.

That’s one of the reasons I love the place so much. There’s no better way to cool off on a scorching Austin day.

Dip in, and try not to scream.

Get out, and stretch out on the grass while the sun warms you.

I could do it all day…

Sometimes you just need to shock your system, you know?

The people you want to become customers aren’t any different. There are painful, frustrating things in their lives – some of them that you could solve – but they’re stuck in a rut. It’s easier to trudge along with their routine than take action and fix something.

There’s a reason why people who dip their toes in the water at Barton Springs tend to reconsider their decision to swim…

Most online copy is like this. It pulls people to the edge of the water and gets them to dip their toes in. It makes them just uncomfortable enough to go scrambling back to the status quo.

But you can’t afford to do this. You need to send them hurtling into the cold water like a rocket.

How?

By doing everything in your power to make a killer first impression. A headline that grabs them by the throat. A compelling opener that gets them hooked. Things like that.

But don’t just shock people for the fun of it.

Some “internet marketers” love red font, highlighted text, and ridiculous claims (“Lose 25 Pounds This Week… Eating Cookie Dough!!!”) They use gimmicks to get the shock factor, but they don’t back it up with a solid offer.

No one wants to get into the freezing water.

But another world opens when they do… as long as you’re offering a legit solution to their problems.

No more timidity with your first impression.

Throw them in right over the edge, and give them something to swim to with an irresistible offer.

Spring-fed sales, baby. Spring-fed sales.

All of those prospects in pain…

And so little time!

You can’t save them all.

But too many businesses are pretending like they can.

Their websites present them as a Swiss Army Knife (with all the nifty attachments) solution that can cure all of their visitors’ ills.

A business like this fashions itself as kind of “online Superman.” By hook or by crook, they’re dead set on helping out every freaking person who stumbles onto their website.

This line of thinking is understandable – who wouldn’t want to turn every hit into a paying customer – but it isn’t profitable.

Superman can fly and throw a truck through the air so far it disappears…

(There’s a reason why he’s a comic book character.)

Let’s put all the cards on the table here. I can’t help every potential customer. And neither can you.

This isn’t exactly a rah rah post, but it isn’t meant to discourage you either.

Identifying where your strengths and weaknesses lie – and figuring out how to serve people only from a place of strength – is the first step to improving your customers’ experience.

So you can’t help out Everyone (with a capital ‘E’) who comes to your website. Big deal. Neither can anyone else!

It’s amazing what happens when you stop catering to everyone.

Instead of trying to make your business fit a wide range of needs, you get to focus on serving the people whose situations line up perfectly with your unique skill-set. There’s clarity instead of confusion.

It’s time to stop trying to be Superman and become a new kind of hero: “Awareness Man” (or “Awareness Gal.”)

That’s the first step to taking your business to the next level. And it’s one a lot of people are too afraid, complacent, or ego-driven to take.

With awareness, you know what you do well and what you struggle with. You reorganize your business so you can spend more time doing what you’re already good at. That time investment makes you great, which leads to higher prices, happier customers, and more business.

Are you acting like a chameleon – trying to mold your business to suit every possible situation and need?

Or are you sorting the people you can help the most from your pool of visitors and prospects?

You can help some people – your tribe – better than anyone else in the world. So hang up your cape and focus on them.

Leave Superman for the comic books.

You know the story of Luke Skywalker?

The main protagonist in Star Wars who goes from humble beginnings to become the greatest jedi knight the galaxy has ever known?

Okay. Good.

Here’s the thing about Luke Skywalker: he never would’ve started his journey if he didn’t have the proper motivation.

He was bored to tears living with his aunt and uncle on his home planet, Tatooine. But he was just like every other farm boy who was too big for his britches – his thoughts of escape were limited to daydreams and fantasy.

It took the arrival of two precocious droids and his aunt and uncle’s deaths to get him to hop on the Millennium Falcon and start his quest.

In other words, it took some serious motivation to get Luke out of his rut and into action.

The people you want to become your customers are a lot like this.

They have real problems – problems your business can help them solve – causing them pain. But it’s oh so comfortable to linger in a state of non-action. It’ll probably take some motivation to get them to pull the trigger.

The type of motivation that’ll work best for you depends on your audience and what you’re selling.

There’s “carrot” motivation and there’s “stick” motivation.

We chase carrots.

And we run away from sticks.

In Star Wars, Luke had both. Stormtroopers murdered his family and were looking for him. So it made sense to get away – fast.

But there was also an intriguing message from Princess Leia, along with a natural curiosity to explore the world, propelling him forward.

Stick and carrot.

There’s a generalization going around that “people’s desire to avoid pain trumps their desire to gain pleasure.”

But that generalization doesn’t hold up with certain audiences. Aspiring entrepreneurs have a completely different risk tolerance than, say, postal workers.

You can use the carrot, the stick, or both. They aren’t mutually exclusive.

Are you confident you’re motivating your target customers in the most effective way?

The only way to know for sure is to experiment, track, and refine.

It’s one of the most important elements of successful web copy. Way too many business owners aren’t giving it enough time or attention.

But you can. Play around with this, and you’ll get more prospects off Tatooine and into your sales pipeline.

Good content marketing is not a crap shoot – it has always been about the story.

That was the phrase actor Kevin Spacey used when he spoke at Content Marketing World last month.

Wait.

What in the world does a Hollywood actor know about content marketing?

More than you might think.

While Spacey might not be an expert at writing headlines, researching content ideas, or Google’s latest SEO shenanigans, his quote above tells me he gets the underlying principle that drives that stuff.

That puts him ahead of about 95% of the content marketers out there.

All these people – the ones who don’t get it – are preoccupied with keywords, social shares, and meta tags. They’re missing the forest for the trees.

If they spent half as much time improving their storytelling as they do obsessing about the other stuff, they’d build stronger (and more profitable) connections with their visitors.

Good stories have drawn people in since the dawn of civilization. They still do. And they still will… regardless of changes in technology.

It’s easy to identify a “good story.” It sucks us in. It makes time disappear…

But it’s tougher to put your finger on why that story was so good. Most of us don’t reverse engineer the process.

It’s worth the effort if your goal is to bond with visitors through content. Figuring out what makes a story good is the first step to using those strategies in your copy.

I’ll spend a lot of time exploring those elements in this blog…

But one Spacey touched on at Content Marketing World deserves this post for itself:

Conflict creates tension and keeps people engaged, and the best stories are filled with characters that take risks and court drama.

Conflict is essential.

Your product or service can’t make someone’s life better if there isn’t an itch to scratch.

A lot of businesses are trying to hook people with cool premises. That might hold attention for a few seconds, but it doesn’t pad wallets. There isn’t enough tension!

Where’s the biggest opportunity to introduce tension into your content?

In the gap between your prospect’s life now and the life they could be living – if they only bought your product or service.

You need both of these elements for it to work.

There isn’t tension if you just talk about how much your prospect’s life sucks right now. That’s just pain.

And there isn’t tension if you just talk about an idealistic future. That’s just fantasy.

It’s the combination of the two – the now and the “what could be” – that ratchets up the tension and sets the pace for a compelling story.

After you paint that picture, that’s when the fun starts. That’s when you can convince people to jump across that gap and do business with you.