"P.I.T.C.H." Your Message The Best Way

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📆 Monday, 12^th February 2024 

Hi, and welcome back to Growth Espresso - your one-stop destination for everything e-com.

In this edition of Espresso ☕️, we’re talking copywriting.

As a marketer, copywriting is our holy grail. It appears an easy skill, especially with ChatGPT coming around, but the ones who do it day in and day out can tell you how tricky it is to master it 🪄 

So today, let’s talk about the science of writing compelling copies & discuss the P.I.T.C.H. framework ✨ which you can use to supercharge your ads ⚡️ 

Interested? Then let’s dive right into it 👇️ 

But first, a little word from our sponsor today - Ariyh

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A 5-step system to increase the memorability and influence of your message by 550%, and make sure people will understand, relate and share your message.

The P.I.T.C.H. strategy:

P: PERSONALIZE 🪞 

CASE STUDY 1.

A worldwide hotel company was having issues with towels being stolen from guests. Close to 50% were being stolen, and thus not recycled by the hotel. To address this, they added a poster in every bathroom that read: “most people staying in this hotel are recycling their towels -- so should you."

With this one simple implementation, the recycling rate went up to 75% (25% increase).

Happy with the results, they wanted to test and see how they could improve their towel recycling rate even further. They implemented a new poster that read: "Most people who have stayed in your hotel room have recycled their towels."

The recycling rate went up to 83%.

In total, they were able to decrease the rate of stolen towels across all their locations worldwide by implementing a message -- a personal message.

CASE STUDY 2

In the UK, in the early 2000s, a major highway overhaul project was underway. Multiple signs around the highway read: "PLEASE SLOW DOWN, CONSTRUCTION AHEAD." They realized that these signs were ineffective, and construction workers were worried about their safety having to work on a major highway with cars zooming by all day.

They decided to add a new sign, this time, with a personalized message. The sign portrayed a child, wearing a construction vest and a hard hat, that read: "Please slow down, my daddy works here". Overnight, the average car speed on that section of the highway was measured to be 30% lower than the day prior.

I: IMAGERY 🖼️

In the 90's, Mr. Silverman, a nutritionist, was trying to raise awareness about the decline in U.S. public health. He attended live events, giving away health tips. Back then, people believed that buttered popcorn was a healthy snack. He loved to use statistics and numbers in his messaging. When presenting the facts about popcorn at a health seminar - he mentioned that a medium-sized movie theatre popcorn contained 38g of saturated fat (an abhorrent amount) yet, the crowd seemed untouched and did not express the feeling of shock he had anticipated. WHY? Because people don't understand numbers (or the significance behind numbers).

He switched up his strategy. Instead of presenting numbers and stats, he presented imagery. To address his popcorn dilemma, he put a picture of a medium-sized popcorn side by side with a picture of an egg+sausage breakfast, a Big Mac lunch, and a steak dinner. He then said, "1 medium-sized buttered popcorn contains the same amount of saturated fat as all three of these meals combined." The crowd went wild. A couple of months later, movie theatres worldwide started regulating the amount of butter served with each serving of popcorn.

IMAGERY = IMPACT. When you present your information in bullet point format, only 10% is remembered after 3 days. When you present your information with imagery, 65% is remembered after 3 days.

T: TANGIBILITY 📏

To make something tangible is to make people connect something they already know with your idea.

A company producing coffee pods for Keurig approached their investors and asked for additional funding to improve their packaging. Hundreds of millions of plastic pods were ending up in landfills, a major impact on the company’s carbon footprint. The investors refused their appeal for additional funding. Their reasoning: Why fix something if it ain't broken?

The company had to come up with a better way to pitch their need for additional funds. They decided to give a tangible example. "With the number of pods we sell per year, we can build a 35-story building spreading across 2 blocks in NYC." That's a solid, tangible example, it's impactful and easy to visualize. Needless to say, the funding got approved.

C: CURIOSITY 🤔

You need to open people’s minds for them to listen to you.

GAP theory: to get people engaged, you need to open up a gap in their knowledge. When people are listening to something they don’t know much about, they will be engaged and attentive.

Instead of giving people information, ASK THEM THE QUESTIONS (make them do the reflection). They’ll be more likely to remember and care about the information you present afterwards.

H: HEADLINE 📰

Think about the key, long-term takeaway you want people to remember from the information you're presenting. Keep your headline message short, yet memorable. (4-6 words, repeat it across your presentation, website etc.)

Content credit - Today’s content is inspired by u/swiftjitsu’s post on r/ecommerce