Imagine that you’re coming home your sweetie at the end of the day.  When you walk in the door, do you want to be greeted with a passionate embrace?  Your bodies writhing against each other and your lips pressed together in a blissful urgency full of promise and desire?  

Or would you rather be greeted with indifference and a recitation of the items that you still need to complete on your mile-long “honey-do” list?

If you choose the “passionate embrace” option, then you probably know how you can increase the odds in your favor.  Slipping a romantic love note into a pocket for your sweetie to find later in the day; sending a flirty email to get thoughts racing and blood flowing; maybe even having a special gift delivered ‘just because’.

You know that all of these thoughtful gestures will trigger the right emotions and help set the mood for romance when the two of you finally connect at the end of the day. 

Copywriting is no different.  

You want your writing to trigger the right emotion and set the mood for your prospect.  When you set the mood, they’ll be more receptive to your copy.  And the sooner you set the mood, the more effective your copy will be.

Now if you’ve studied copywriting at all, you know that the Headline gets all the love – as well it should.  It’s what catches the reader’s eye and gets prospects to stop what they’re doing and read your ad.  John Caples pointed out that if the headline doesn’t draw the reader into the copy, the best copy in the world can’t sell the product because the copy won’t be read.

So, given the importance of the headline, wouldn’t you like to set the mood for the prospect before they even read your headline?

Heck yeah, you do!

And the way you set the mood is by using a prehead.  The most powerful way to use a prehead is to trigger the right emotional state and then tap into that state with the headline.

I’ll give you an example.  Think of the Biz Op market.  Let’s start with a headline example:

Slash Your Learning Curve And Explode Your Online Profits Now…
By Doing Two Simple Things That You Already Do Every Single Day!

The prospects are people who are dissatisfied with their income and with the restrictions of a “j-o-b”.  They dream of being their own boss, controlling their own schedules and raking in the dough so they can be free to spend their time as they like.

On top of all that, because they are reading magazines, surfing the internet and watching infomercials about how to achiever the freedom the dream of, they’re inundated with success stories and images of wealth.  As a result, they feel like they are the ONLY ones on the planet that aren’t living the good life.  

In the world they’re exposed to, EVERYONE (but them) is driving a Ferrari, living in a mansion, and working 1 hour a month under a palm tree on a beach.

Now imagine you’re one of these prospects, you’ve been trying to make money online without much success, and you come across this prehead, followed by the headline:
 

Tired of struggling online while everyone else is getting rich and living lives of freedom?                  

Slash Your Learning Curve And Explode Your Online Profits Now…
By Doing Two Simple Things That You Already Do Every Single Day!
 

Can you see how the prehead sets the emotional state for the reader and supercharges the headline? Very powerful stuff.

I guarantee that tapping into the emotional power of the prehead is the equivalent to romancing your sweetie throughout the day.

Remember that.  Then, go do something nice for your sweetheart.

Is she a Baby Boomer or a GenX? Was her British invasion The Beatles or Duran Duran? What’s her income range? Is she urban or rural? Red state or blue state? Married with kids or single and loving it? Is she Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, or Samantha? (If you’re in the women’s market and you don’t know who they are- catch up!)

You’re probably thinking Yeah, yeah. Tell me something I don’t know.

Heres the thing. Pinning down the demographics of your target market only scratches the surface. What you may not realize is this: with women, you have to go deeper.

At least 50% of my current clients are with me because they didn’t go deep enough. Even after crafting campaigns that match the age, sex, income, and education levels of their market they sought me out because their results told them they missed the mark. Striking the mother load of the women’s market goes further than conventional market segmentation.

You see, once you know your prospects age, affluence, and social tendencies you need to drill down several more levels. Because just like populations can be segmented by desired characteristics for effective targeted marketing, an individual – particularly a woman – can be as well.

On any given day, one woman fulfills a multitude of roles. Mom, wife, ex-wife, daughter, boss, employee, volunteer, caregiver, sister, friend you get the idea.

To really sell your product you need to know what role she’s fulfilling that generates a need for your product or services her idiodemographic.

Step into her shoes as she’s filling that role and get under her skin. If your product is for exasperated mothers, appealing to her competency as a leader in the corporate world can cause your campaign to fall flat on its face. She may be a skilled vice president who is proud of her work, but believe me, you’re pushing the wrong buttons at the wrong time, and she isn’t going to buy.

Smart companies rely on funnel vision for their marketing. By starting with the broad demographics most businesses are intimately familiar with, then drilling down to the idiodemographic characteristics of your ideal prospect, your marketing message pierces to the heart of her motivation.

You need funnel vision to reach the one woman who has agonized, fretted, and lost sleep over the very problem you can solve when your ad hits the newsstands or airwaves. And shell know, deep in her core, that your product or service is exactly what she needs and she wont rest until she has it.

Done right, your deeply targeted message will have a domino-effect transmission, moving from emotion, to pocketbook, and into the complex referral network so characteristic of women who are satisfied customers. Funnel vision is the one of the quickest ways to devise an effective campaign strategy that resonates with your ideal prospect immediately. Its the difference between reaching and connecting. Anyone can reach women. To sell to women, you have to connect with women.

When deciding whether or not to purchase a product or service, virtually all women stop to consider what effect their purchase will have on those around them.

Always remember when you’re marketing to women, that women are inclusive. Whether husbands, parents, sisters, children, friends, bosses and virtually everyone else in their inner circle realize it or not, women think about them as part of the pre-purchase process.

In their book Don’t Think Pink Lisa Johnson and Andrea Learned describe this as constituent-driven decision making.

Will these heels make me taller than Mike? Is this new flooring going to trip Mom when she visits? How will changing my investment strategy affect our plans to buy Lindsey’s car in April? Which week will my vacation least impact everyone at the office?

Women’s heads race with questions like this constantly.

My mother is a perfect example, but you need a little background for this to make sense. Back in 1999, my husband Joe had brain surgery (he’s doing very well, thanks!) which slightly impaired his left side of his body.

Now, although we live over live over 800 miles away and visit less than once a year, Joe played a prominent role in Mom’s decision making when she shopped for new sofas and chairs. For her, one of the make-or-break factors when buying furniture was “Will my son-in-law be able to sit and stand easily?”

If making a decision on a sofa based on an annual visit from your son-in-law who lives 800 miles away isn’t constituent-driven decision making, I don’t know what is!

What you need to know about constituent-driven decision making is this: If you fail to address how the benefits of your product or service ripple out beyond her personal experience, then you’re missing a critical component in your sales message.

After you’ve fully demonstrated how your product or service will make life easier for her, go a little further. Let her know how her loved ones and friends will benefit, even tangentially, after she makes her purchase.

Doing so will help you stand out among your competition and just may win you a lifelong customer!