If you want your ideal clients to actually read your emails, blog posts, sales pages and such… so they become genuinely interested in what you’ve got to offer… you’ve got to find a way to snag their already overtaxed attention right from the get-go.
And then pull them into the meat of your message.
One of the more reliable ways to do this is with Connecting Questions – questions you use at the start of your copy to hook your clients’ attention, deepen their interest, and get them fully engrossed in what you have to share.
Here is a short, 7-minute video tutorial on how to create Connecting Questions that immediately engage the hearts and minds of your ideal clients.
Watch it. Take notes. And then have some fun creating your own Connecting Questions for your next email, sales page or blog post.
Oh, be sure to catch the story below about why I was inspired to create this video. It’s a good one.
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And now… a little story about how this video came to be.
I was in the produce section of my local grocery store, shopping for lemons, when she snuck up on my right and asked, “Do you know anything about broccoli? Can you tell me if these are any good?” Startled out of my lemon-shopping reverie, I quickly turned to see who was talking to me. She was a short, white-haired woman, approximately 4’5″, with dark, dancing eyes. Dressed in a flowered moo-moo and long, white cardigan sweater, she held out two very good looking bunches of broccoli. As if she wanted me to take them from her.
“Uh, yeah, those look great,” I answered.
“Really?” she said, “I couldn’t be sure. I don’t know much about broccoli, and I can tell that you’re picky.”
Picky? I would have used the word “discerning,” but okay, I guess “picky” will do.
I smiled at her and said, “Well, I think you’ve got two really great bunches of broccoli there.” She stared at them and eventually said, “Ok, thank you.” I returned to my search for small lemons with smooth yellow skins, slightly tender to the touch.
Three days later, I was back at the same store, shopping for cat food, scanning the hundreds of Fancy Feast cans for the light brown label of the Chicken Liver entrée my cats love so much when I hear, “Can you tell me if this lemon is any good?” There she was, the very same woman, at my side with a lemon in her hand.
I wanted to ask her, “Is this a steady gig for you? Wandering the grocery store, asking for produce advice?” But I could tell, all she wanted was a little human interaction.
I looked at the lemon, picked it out of her hand, gave it a gentle squeeze and said, “No, this lemon’s too hard which means it’s mostly rind and very little juice. See? See how big the pores of the skin are?”
She looked at me, not the lemon, and said, “Oh, well. Thank you. I just wanted to ask you because I know you’re picky…” and then walked off.
No lie. She called me “picky” again!
These two surprising and really quite sweet encounters with my new white-haired lady friend made me aware of how most of the time when I’m shopping, I’m in a self-induced trance. I want to get in, get out, and be on my way as quickly as possible.
But if someone comes up to me and asks me a question, pop! I’m snapped out of my trance. My internal dialogue and fast-paced tempo are interrupted, and I’m immediately thrown into a human-to-human interaction.
That’s the power of questions; they tend to interrupt one’s train of thought and demand an answer. Even if that answer is “I don’t have a clue.”
This is why questions work so well in copy.
When you start your email or web page or post with a question, the mind of your reader immediately, almost involuntarily, is snapped out of its buzz and hum, and it starts looking for an answer. That’s just the way minds work.
Even if your reader is deep inside her own self-induced trance, your question can be enough to bring her back into the present, get her attention and pull her into the rest of your message.
So, how can you come up with questions that this kind of magical power?
Watch the video above. It will give you a bit of the art and science of creating questions that grab your clients attention, deepen their interest, get them fully engrossed in what you have to share.
Oh, and by the way… that little white-haired lady?
It turns out she regularly visits that grocery store and randomly asks people questions about produce. I caught her the other day asking a husky, middle-aged man about a cabbage. I didn’t overhear their conversation so I’m not sure if she called him “picky.”
But I kind of hope she didn’t. I’d like to think she saves that term for me.