Does Your Copy Have Personality?

Some peo­ple don’t mind hard-​​hitting copy, while oth­ers pre­fer newsy copy. Some peo­ple pre­fer long copy to get as much infor­ma­tion as pos­si­ble, oth­ers pre­fer short, brief, to-​​the-​​point copy. Some like drama, sto­ries, and tes­ti­mo­ni­als; oth­ers data, sta­tis­tics, and facts.

Does it all mat­ter? Absolutely.

What makes one style of copy more favor­able than another? Why does one per­son buy from one type of copy and not from another? It really comes down to the buy­ing behav­ior of your mar­ket. And in fact, there are four major per­son­al­ity types.

Before I tell you what they are, remem­ber that the style you choose will not appeal to every­one. It never will. Roy Williams, author of The Wiz­ard of Ads, once noted, “Even some of the best ads miss the mark with at least half of their tar­get audience.”

You may have heard me say this before, but it’s impor­tant. Don’t be all things to all peo­ple. If you do, you have no choice but to paint your copy with broad brush­strokes in order to appeal to every­one. Instead, give your copy per­son­al­ity. Even if it offends some.

Oth­er­wise, ads crafted so as not to offend any­one will be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive. They may even back­fire. And more impor­tantly, they might be more offen­sive than you think.

When your tar­get mar­ket reads your bland, vanilla copy, it will often shrug it off because they feel you are not cater­ing to them specif­i­cally — even if what you’re sell­ing does.

There­fore, the more you try not to offend any­one, the more generic you become with your copy. And the more generic you are, the more your copy will be dis­con­nected from your audi­ence. In short, appeal to every­one and you will appeal to no one.

In other words, to your prospect, you appear as if you don’t under­stand them, because your copy doesn’t cater to their spe­cific, indi­vid­ual needs, goals, con­cerns, bud­get, and unique set of cir­cum­stances. Even if the prod­uct is per­fect for them.

As a result, you alien­ate most of your mar­ket that way.

Sure, your sales copy may avoid offend­ing a minor­ity. But in turn, by gener­i­ciz­ing it you inad­ver­tently offend the major­ity — per­haps in a sub­tle, indi­rect, or uncon­scious way — because you appear as if you sim­ply don’t care.

You see, ads are dis­tinc­tive. They’re alive. They’re like pieces of art. Each one has a cer­tain per­son­al­ity. And no mat­ter what you do, like it or not that per­son­al­ity may attract some peo­ple and repulse oth­ers at the same time.

Your goal, there­fore, is to directly and dis­tinctly appeal to the major­ity, in spite of the minor­ity. Oth­er­wise, try to be too gen­eral (or bet­ter said, “too generic”) with your copy, and the result will be copy that’s bland, ane­mic, and unproductive.

Your copy offers more than just infor­ma­tion. It also presents that infor­ma­tion in a way that the major­ity of your tar­get audi­ence bet­ter appre­ci­ates, absorbs, and acts upon it.

Cater­ing to the major­ity won’t just be con­ducive to the great­est results but also begins the all-​​important process of build­ing a rela­tion­ship with your market.

A lot of mar­keters think that tar­get­ing your mar­ket means you must put your ad in front of qual­i­fied buy­ers. But it means more than that. It also means to write and mold the copy in a way that the mes­sage tar­gets them, too. That is, it tar­gets their personality.

There­fore, it’s not only best to tar­get one mar­ket at a time but also to tar­get one pre­dom­i­nant buyer per­son­al­ity at a time, too. That way, your infor­ma­tion is pre­sented in a way that your mar­ket feels the copy is cen­tered on them. And them alone.

So how do you do tar­get your market’s personality?

Over the years, psy­chol­o­gists and behav­ioral sci­en­tists have cat­e­go­rized per­son­al­ity styles. They may have labeled them dif­fer­ently, but they are gen­er­ally the same. They all come down to essen­tially four dif­fer­ent per­son­al­ity styles.

Is this some new sci­ence? No. Around 400 B.C.E., Hip­pocrates, in “Air, Water And Places,” dubbed these four types as San­guine, Phleg­matic, Cho­leric, and Melancholic.

In recent times, Roy Williams, in one of his arti­cles, calls them Spon­ta­neous, Human­is­tic, Com­pet­i­tive, and Method­i­cal. Behav­ioral sci­en­tist and moti­va­tional speaker, Dr. Tony Alessan­dra, labels them as Direc­tors, Social­iz­ers, Relaters, and Thinkers.

They are essen­tially all the same.

(For more, visit Dr. Alessandra’s “The Plat­inum Rule.” The Golden Rule states that you should do unto oth­ers as you would want to have done unto you. But Tony defines The Plat­inum Rule as: “Do unto oth­ers as they would want to have done unto them.”)

How­ever, the most com­mon labels given to them — the ones most mar­ket­ing text­books use, includ­ing the same text­books from which I used to teach mar­ket­ing man­age­ment in col­lege — are: Dri­ver, Expres­sive, Ana­lyt­i­cal, and Amiable.

Those are the labels I pre­fer and will be using for the remain­der of this article.

Where do these labels come from and what do they mean?

Essen­tially, per­son­al­ity styles are defined by two key behav­ioral char­ac­ter­is­tics, which are assertive­ness and respon­sive­ness. The cat­e­gory — or label, if you will — is based on one of four com­bi­na­tions of how assertive and respon­sive they are.

For exam­ple, a per­son can be:

1. High assertive and low respon­sive, or a dri­ver.
2. High assertive and high respon­sive, or an expres­sive.
3. Low assertive and low respon­sive, or an ana­lyt­i­cal.
4. Low assertive and high respon­sive, or an ami­able.

Respon­sive­ness, which is expressed out­wardly, is how well a per­son responds to oth­ers. Assertive­ness is expressed inwardly, and it’s how well they assert themselves.

For exam­ple, some peo­ple are task-​​driven while oth­ers are results-​​driven. Some peo­ple are more emo­tional than fac­tual, and oth­ers vice versa. Some are ego-​​driven and self-​​absorbed, oth­ers are people-​​pleasers and focused on those around them.

But to explain it visu­ally, and one of the more pop­u­lar mod­els (and the best one for copy­writ­ing pur­poses), is by look­ing at these styles in the form of a quad­rant. The key is to deter­mine where one’s level of respon­sive­ness and assertive­ness inter­sect.

Here’s a screen­shot of the per­son­al­ity quad­rant from my video train­ing series, cur­rently avail­able online.

With all things being equal, your tar­get audi­ence will pre­dom­i­nantly fall into one of these styles. Granted, it may not pre­cisely fit into a sin­gle, neat cat­e­gory, and your entire mar­ket may not fit one spe­cific style.

But keep in mind, the key­word here is “predominant.”

(If they do fall into mul­ti­ple cat­e­gories, you might want to cre­ate dif­fer­ent prod­ucts, offers, and sales copy for each one. The more con­gru­ent your mes­sage is with your mar­ket, the more sales you will make. I’ll come back to this later as it is important.)

Nev­er­the­less, depend­ing on your prod­uct, your indus­try, and both the demo­graph­ics and psy­cho­graph­ics of your tar­get audi­ence, it is safe to say that the major­ity of them will likely demon­strate one par­tic­u­lar style more than any other.

To give you an idea, here’s a brief look at them:

Dri­vers are con­cerned with RESULTS.

They are prac­ti­cal, impa­tient, and time-​​sensitive. A Dri­ver is a per­son who usu­ally is more con­cerned with the bottom-​​line. They want to know how long does it take to get your prod­uct, what kind of results they can expect, and how much does it cost.

Bankers, sales man­agers, pur­chas­ing agents, busi­ness­peo­ple, cor­po­rate exec­u­tives, and so on are typ­i­cally Dri­vers. They don’t care how to get from point “A” to point “B.” They just want to know if and when you can get them to point “B.”

Ana­lyt­i­cals are pre­oc­cu­pied with DETAILS.

They don’t care much about results. They’re dri­ven by facts and far more inter­ested in the inner work­ings of your prod­uct. They might want to know what is its exact size, where and of what is it made, what are the ingre­di­ents, what fea­tures does it pos­sess, what kind of guar­an­tees do you offer with it, and what, pre­cisely, makes it work.

Sci­en­tists, devel­op­ers, math­e­mati­cians, engi­neers, com­puter pro­gram­mers, doc­tors, and so on are mainly Ana­lyt­i­cals. They want facts and just the facts. So give them sta­tis­tics, data, spec­i­fi­ca­tions, ingre­di­ents, mea­sure­ments, etc. The more, the merrier.

Expres­sives care most about FEELINGS.

Sta­tus and recog­ni­tion are impor­tant to Expres­sives. How they per­ceive things and how other peo­ple per­ceive them take prece­dence. They are mostly impul­sive, col­or­ful, ego-​​centric, undis­ci­plined, and spon­ta­neous. They pre­fer to talk than to listen.

Actors, teach­ers, musi­cians, artists, graphic design­ers, movie direc­tors, come­di­ans, etc fall in the Expres­sive cat­e­gory. They buy mostly for the sake of pres­tige of own­er­ship, or to boost their stand­ing in their com­mu­ni­ties, orga­ni­za­tions, or peer groups.

(For instance, Expres­sives are the types of peo­ple who inten­tion­ally park their brand new lux­ury car on the street so that the neigh­bors can see them.)

Ami­ables are inter­ested in RELATIONSHIPS.

They are emo­tional, car­ing, and human­is­tic. They’re social-​​minded and care deeply about the rela­tion­ships they hold. How your prod­uct will help oth­ers and strengthen the rela­tion­ships they main­tain with them will be of utmost impor­tance to Amiables.

It’s not uncom­mon for Ami­ables to hold careers as sales­peo­ple, social work­ers, human resource per­son­nel, con­sul­tants, and so on. If your prod­uct solves a prob­lem, that’s good. But if it allows your prospect to solve other people’s prob­lems, that’s even better.

So how do you appeal to your buyer’s personality?

At this point, you should have an idea of how to cater to buyer per­son­al­ity styles.

With Dri­vers, be pithy and give them the bot­tom line. With Ana­lyt­i­cals, offer cold, hard infor­ma­tion rather than hype and sto­ries. With Expres­sives, tell them how you will make them look good. And with Ami­ables, use tes­ti­mo­ni­als, sto­ries, and anecdotes.

For instance, avoid lac­ing your copy with feel­ings and emo­tions when your audi­ence is com­prised of Ana­lyt­i­cals. Be spe­cific, objec­tive, and fac­tual, and refrain from hyper­bole or drama. Ana­lyt­i­cals are also highly skep­ti­cal, so offer as much proof as you can.

Sure, you can — and must — be emo­tional. All humans are. Even ana­lyt­i­cals make pur­chas­ing deci­sions based on emo­tion first. But don’t do so at the expense of facts. Back it up with logic and lots of it with which they can jus­tify their decisions.

While an Ana­lyt­i­cal will never have enough infor­ma­tion, don’t drown your vis­i­tors with need­less details when they con­sist of Dri­vers. Be quick, pithy, and straight to the point. If you use long copy, make sure it makes a point and sticks to the point. Consistently.

How­ever, be sen­si­tive and friendly when pitch­ing to Ami­ables. Use sto­ries, case stud­ies, and tes­ti­mo­ni­als. Take your time with them. Be warm and inter­ac­tive. In fact, your rela­tion­ship with them is just as impor­tant as the ben­e­fits of your product.

For Expres­sives, talk about how the prod­uct will make them feel, boost their sta­tus, and get oth­ers to notice and com­pli­ment them. Or how the prod­uct will make oth­ers around them cringe in hor­ror, turn green with envy, or even be humiliated.

Here’s a real-​​life sce­nario. A patient vis­its a den­tist for an ini­tial consultation.

The Ana­lyt­i­cal will be pre­oc­cu­pied mostly with the details of den­tal work. Know­ing pre­cisely how much freez­ing will be applied, which spe­cific teeth (and parts thereof) will be repaired, and what kind of fill­ing will be used are of enor­mous inter­est to him.

On the other hand, a Dri­ver will want to know how long will the pro­ce­dure take, how fast can he return to work after the pro­ce­dure is done, and, of course, how much will it cost. Every­thing else is unim­por­tant and irrelevant.

But for the Ami­able, they are mostly con­cerned with their abil­ity to please their spouse, friends, or boss with their improved appear­ance. They want to know if going ahead will improve their rela­tion­ships and make oth­ers happy, as well as secure oth­ers’ approval.

The Expres­sive, how­ever, will be inter­ested with how good will their new teeth look, how much pain such a pro­ce­dure might incur, how their teeth will change their appear­ance, and how attrac­tive the pro­ce­dure is going to make them.

Again, your mar­ket will likely fall into one pre­dom­i­nant cat­e­gory. In other words, the major­ity of your mar­ket will fit into one cat­e­gory more than any other.

Depend­ing on your type of indus­try and the kind of prod­uct you’re sell­ing, the style of your mes­sage should chiefly appeal to that one spe­cific per­son­al­ity style.

For exam­ple, if your prod­uct caters to expec­tant moth­ers, you will def­i­nitely speak to them dif­fer­ently than if you were to cater to entre­pre­neurs or sports fanatics.

But what if your mar­ket con­sists of more than one?

What if your mar­ket con­sists of strong, iden­ti­fi­ably dif­fer­ent groups? In other words, what if you have more than one pre­dom­i­nant per­son­al­ity type in your tar­get audi­ence? If so, I sub­mit that you can have a dif­fer­ent ad or saleslet­ter directed at each dif­fer­ent market.

It’s mar­ket seg­men­ta­tion, pure and simple.

You split your mar­ket into groups, and cater to each one sep­a­rately and indi­vid­u­ally. Large cor­po­ra­tions and retail­ers have been doing this for years. Take Coke ver­sus Diet Coke, or Levis’ Red Tabs sold in high-​​end stores, ver­sus Wal-Mart’s Orange Tab Levis.

Even if it’s the same prod­uct and they hap­pen to fall into more than one cat­e­gory in high enough num­bers, then you might want to clus­ter your mar­ket into groups, and cre­ate a new offer and sales copy that tar­get each dis­tinct segment.

For exam­ple, a clever entre­pre­neur can take a prod­uct and pack­age it, price it, and sell it to two dif­fer­ent audi­ences on two dif­fer­ent web­sites — and thus max­i­mize sales from all poten­tial mar­ket seg­ments. Even cre­at­ing her own com­pe­ti­tion, in some cases.

(Take, for instance, Audio​Gen​er​a​tor​.com ver­sus Instan​tA​u​dio​.com. The for­mer is geared for the small busi­nessper­son, while the lat­ter is more for cor­po­rate audiences.)

The bot­tom line is, give your copy per­son­al­ity, and your response will shoot through the roof. Sure, you might alien­ate a few. But what would you rather have: generic copy that pleases more but sells less? Or tar­geted copy that offends few but sells more?

As the late, great copy­writer, Gary Hal­bert, used to say in response to his detrac­tors regard­ing his pointed, dis­crim­i­nate per­son­als ad: “Don’t be so pre­oc­cu­pied with upset­ting the dogs when you’re try­ing to sell the foxes. Con­cen­trate on the foxes.”

About the Author

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