Glass of water and Copywriting

A psychologist walked around a room while teaching stress management to an audience.

As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they’d be asked the “half empty or half full” question.

Instead, with a smile on her face, she inquired: “How heavy is this glass of water?”

Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.

She replied, “The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.”

She continued, “The stresses and worries in life are like that glass of water. Think about them for a while and nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and they begin to hurt. And if you think about them all day long, you will feel paralyzed – incapable of doing anything.”

Remember to put the glass down.

Hey, it’s Ryan here…

And when I came across this piece on Facebook I thought it was worth sharing.

Not only for the obvious meaning…

But for the lesson that it can teach us about effective copywriting.

(And about the kind of water that I drink.)

You probably know that good copy uses open loops to keep people interested…

It keeps them reading or watching because they need to close the loop.

Open loops are a source of stress or tension…

And it’s your job to judge HOW LONG to hold that tension before relieving it.

If you pick up a glass of water and put it down right away, you don’t notice the weight.

If you use an open loop in your marketing and close it right away…

People don’t even notice, and it doesn’t even feel like an open loop.

If you keep the loop open too long, the glass gets too heavy, so to speak…

And you can’t keep holding it anymore.

It ticks off your audience and they feel that you haven’t fulfilled your promises.

Even if you do eventually close that loop, too much time has passed and they’ve forgotten about it.

So where’s the sweet spot?

Well, it varies from market to market…

And it depends on how desperate people are to get that information you opened the loop for.

For example, earlier in this email I mentioned the kind of water that I drink every day.

Maybe you didn’t notice, because you don’t actually care what kind of water I drink.

But if I mentioned the email technique or headline or webinar that DOUBLED my results?

Well, I might get a few more interested parties waiting on the answer.

And if you write emails in a Soap Opera Sequence…

And you keep teasing that you’re going to close an open loop?

Well, you can keep people interested for a LONG time.

So what’s the big takeaway here?

Well, in the spirit of open loops…I’m going to leave that for another day.

Peace out,

Ryan Levesque