“I don’t want to kill you Mr Holmes; I’m going to talk to you, and you’re going to kill yourself.”
A Study in Pink was 10 years old this summer! Yes, really!
I wrote this blog post at the time, when it was on my mind, then left it languishing on file as it's not quite the perfect analogy for what I wanted to say. But anyway here it is.
Besides the fact that the BBC’s Sherlock is one of my all-time favourite shows, its opening episode, A Study in Pink, contains this gem of a line about the power of words: “I don’t want to kill you Mr Holmes; I’m going to talk to you, and you’re going to kill yourself.”
More to the point, it's about the power of words based on knowing your audience deeply enough to be able to impeccably read their actions and predict their behaviour.
The cabby had spent many years studying the behaviours of the people he took in his cab, and that’s what enabled him to beat the odds when he had his gruesome assignments to carry out to earn money for his children.
It’s perhaps a leeeetle stretch of an analogy, but it’s a fun one (for a Sherlock fan and copywriter, anyway!) and illustrates a point: the power of knowing your audience deeply.
“You don’t want to force people to buy your stuff; you want to talk to them, and then they’ll decide to buy it themselves.”
You can’t force people to buy your stuff anyway. Stooping to manipulation or dishonest claims is not an option, and a very off-putting tone of desperation won’t work.
But if you’re speaking to people you understand deeply, then your words - carefully chosen - simply facilitate, and smooth away any objections. The decision is indeed 100% theirs.
It worked brilliantly for the bad cabby in A Study in Pink.
Until he met his match in Sherlock.
(And to extend the analogy, how did Sherlock outsmart him? He knew his audience - the cabby - even better; so he knew he could call his bluff).
Now, we don’t all have Sherlock’s brilliant on-the-spot observation and deduction skills. And the bad cabby was abusing his power.
But we can do detailed research into our customers and their needs.
You’re solving a problem for them by offering a product or service that they genuinely need or desire, and drawing their attention to how it will make their life easier or better. The better you know them, the better you can do that. Good copy connects precisely the right target audience with your product, and shows them exactly why it is the best solution for them right now.
The most important part of writing any sales or marketing collateral is the research!
What do you do to research your customers before you write your emails, website, adverts or any other way you communicate with them?
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