I once took a media communications course in which I discovered an interesting example of the way the mind works.

As part of a given lesson, a videotape was shown of a televised newscast during which a journalist was about to give a live report on a forest fire that was devastating the mid-west.

The news anchor in the television newsroom said: “We now take you to Sally Smith — she’s in the station’s helicopter flying above the scene of the fire.” He then turned around to face the background screen, which gave a live bird’s-eye view of the raging fire, and asked: “Sally, tell us, how big is the fire?”

In a voice partially drowned by the whizzing sound of helicopter blades, Sally reports: “John, it’s so big, it’s covering well over 140 acres of land — that’s about 200 football fields back-to-back for you and me.”

What is this telling you?

People think in pictures, not in numbers. The mind does not think in words either — unless it is told to do exactly that. The mind is like a computer and it hates confusion. It will naturally translate words or phrases into their visual equivalent.

For instance, if I told you to think of a garbage can, you’re not going to think of the word “G-A-R-B-A-G-E.” Your mind will automatically visualize a garbage can. Right?

Why do you think Windows and MacIntosh dominate in operating systems? It is because, rather than having to type an elaborate command for your computer to execute, you can simply use your mouse, point to an icon, and click. These icons basically represent programs (a bunch of code). They contain a string of numerous commands that are in fact translated into a language the computer understands.

Our mind works in almost the same way. It instantly translates what it’s being told into something it can easily understand. Rather than tell a story, describe it. The color, the texture, the sight, the sound. Everything perceived by all the senses.

Look at it this way:

“Eat great spaghetti at Romano’s restaurant tonight.”

Try this instead:

“Michael ate spaghetti so scrumptious, with its plump pasta and succulent, spicy Arrabiata sauce made with only the freshest ingredients and chef Roberto’s secret recipe, that each morsel reminded him of walking down a trattoria-lined cobblestone street in the heart of Florence, Italy. He couldn’t believe he could get something as delicious from a local restaurant, but that’s exactly the kind of tasty adventure chef Roberto offers you each night. Call Romano’s to reserve your little Italian getaway this evening.”

In this example, I used what I call UPWORDS.

Upwords are effective in any conversation, sales call, or written message in that they simply help the message to be better understood and appreciated.

Mark Twain once said that “numbers don’t stick in the mind, pictures do.” In fact, the word “upwords” is an acronym that stands for universal picture words or relatively descriptive sentences. Upwords are examples, stories, analogies, metaphors, symbols, picture words, mental imagery, colloquialisms, etc.

Essentially, upwords are words, phrases, and expressions that help messages to be easily interpreted by their target audiences. Even jargon, buzzwords and colloquialisms are appropriate upwords if they are acceptable to, and used frequently by, a specific target audience or industry.

For example, a challenge among cosmetic surgeons is the fact that people will call for a quote over the phone when obviously the doctor needs to see the patient beforehand. Since cosmetic surgery is an uncommon process, doctors will often use the more common dental work as an analogy.

Why? Because unlike surgery, most people have had their teeth done at some point in their lives. So they can say: “Like a dentist, I can not give an estimate over the phone without any x-rays of your teeth or the knowledge of how many cavities you actually have.”

Beauticians usually face the same problem. Since many customers tend to shop around for these types of services, and since beauty is a subjective thing, then making a decision based on price alone can be detrimental to both the consumer and the business.

So, using art as an analogy, beauticians can say: “A makeover is a makeover, just like a painting is a painting, but there’s quite a difference between a preschooler’s fingerpainting and a Rembrandt.”

If you’re a computer programmer trying to sell your services to the plant manager of a farm equipment manufacturer, and in your presentation you provide complex technical data in abstract language only computer geeks would understand, you will obviously do very poorly. You must therefore mold your message in a way that it can be easily understood by farmers or plant workers.

Different words mean different things to different people.

We all come from different backgrounds. Our education, experiences, and environment help to condition our thinking. Therefore, use analogies, metaphors, and picture words in your presentation that will make your message easier to understand by the other’s personal set of circumstances.

As Jack Trout once said, “A word is worth a thousand pictures.”

Now, how do you apply this to your situation?

Recently, I was watching television (which is a very rare occurrence). As summer is around the corner, a public service announcement for National Parks Canada was aired. The 30-second “commercial” centered on how to protect oneself from dangerous animals often found in Canada’s wilderness — namely bears and wolves.

The commercial particularly targeted youngsters, such as summer-camp kids.

What was interesting in this public service announcement was not so much what the narrator said, as how he said it. Specifically, he used “upwords.”

The sentence that caught my attention was, “Be safe by staying away from animals and standing back at least 3 bus lengths.” Note that the narrator didn’t say “105 feet” (assuming that a bus is about 35 feet long). Instead, he used a visual equivalent — an object easily recognized by children watching the announcement:

A school bus.

A challenge for many webmasters, designers, and marketers is to ensure a site communicates effectively to its audience. Studies have proven that most websites are misunderstood, or partially understood, by their audiences.

When the web was first created, the need to communicate in a language that the vast majority of people could understand was not important. In those days, using technical terminology, or “technolese,” was commonplace since the Internet was mostly populated by programmers and geeks.

Today, however, things have changed.

A while ago, I was at a local IBM Home Computing store buying a computer. Beside me happened to be someone shopping for her first system. I overheard the customer’s questions and the sales clerk’s explanations, and what struck me was that the shopper knew little, if anything, about computers.

Apparently, she never touched a keyboard in her life. What’s more, she really only wanted her new system for one thing. After the clerk attempted to describe all the features and different applications of the computer, with a puzzled look on her face she replied with, “But can I send email with it?”

For better or worse, this is the reality of today’s Internet population. With computers becoming more affordable and the Internet more accessible, the growing online population now consists of market segments that would have never used computers otherwise. Many users are novices, and some are even computer- or Internet-illiterate.

Granted, that segment is shrinking at an incredible speed. Even students as early as kindergarten are taught how to use computers in class in an increasing number of schools.

That said, and specifically with web copy, even users who are technologically savvy can get confused by a poorly thought-out message. And few people will buy from a website that confuses them in the slightest.

So to better your chances, talk like your audience. Think like your audience. Speak their language by molding your message in a way that makes it easy for your audience to understand.

In order to use upwords effectively in your copy, you must first develop a “perfect customer profile.” As much as possible, discover and list the demographics, psychographics, geographics, and technographics of your market.

• Demographics are the basic characteristics of your market (or the largest segment of your market). Information such as age, gender, culture, industry, income level, marital status, and so on are all part of the mix.
   
• Psychographics include your market’s behavioral qualities, such as purchase histories, buying patterns, trends, psychology, thought processes, interests and hobbies, associations to which your customers belong, etc.
   
• Geographics should include not only the locations in which your customers reside, but also the areas where they work, shop, etc.
   
• The term “technographics” is fairly new. Originally coined by Forrester Research, the term consists of your market’s attitudes toward technology. In other words, technographics measure the inclination to adopt (or avoid) new technology such as computers and the Internet.

Researching these four categories will give you an excellent idea of who your target audience is. Think about “a day in the life” of your perfect customer. What does she dream about at night? What keeps him awake? What’s their biggest problem? And more importantly, how do they talk about it?

Once you’ve developed your perfect customer profile, it will then be easy for you to craft compelling copy your audience will quickly and fully understand, without the need to think.

What do I mean?

My friend and top copywriter Peter Stone said it best:

They say that in selling, you should strive for “the temporary suspension of disbelief.” But in copywriting, it’s “the temporary suspension of critical thinking.”

Critical thinking leads to procrastination.

Look at it this way. Words mean different things to different people. Consequently, your challenge is to choose those words that will help get your message across as effectively and succinctly as possible. The only “thinking” they really need to do is whether or not to buy from you, not “what the heck did he mean?”

Remember: words are not the message — they only communicate it. So, the manner in which you encode (i.e., or word) your message is absolutely critical. To explain, here’s an illustration:

Sender ► Encoding ► Message ► Decoding ► Receiver

Your objective, therefore, is to encode the message in a way that the chances of it being decoded and interpreted in the same way are higher.

To that end, you must first know your “receiver” — and if you’ve done your research, you do. Then, you must use the words that will help paint vivid pictures in her mind.

The mind hates confusion. It will naturally translate words into their visual equivalent. A youngster understands the length of a school bus far more than he understands “105 feet.”

So, regardless of what you sell, it must be explained in a way that is understood by the people you hope will buy it. If your market consists of artists, use art examples. If your market consists of managers, use business analogies. If your market consists of florists, use metaphors that florists can understand.

Let’s expand on the latter with an example.

Say, your site sells an email management software specifically geared toward florists. The copy might read as follows:

“Email messages from your clients are like fresh-cut roses. They need to be handled promptly and efficiently. If not, clients can prick you and hurt your business — or they can wither away, never to return.”

Using metaphors is just one of many ways to apply upwords to your website copy. There are many more.

Granted, using upwords can be a challenge for the less confident writer. But by clearly defining your audience, you simplify the task of encoding your message by knowing, beforehand, how your audience will decode it, interpret it and act upon it.

Knowing how to reach your target audience begins with knowing who they are. The more you know, the more writing compelling copy that sells will be like “a walk in the park,” “a piece of cake” or “as easy as pie.”

“Get the picture?”

About the Author

Michel Fortin is a direct response copywriter, author, speaker, consultant, and CEO of The Success Doctor, Inc. Visit his blog and signup free to get tested conversion strategies and response-boosting tips by email, along with blog updates, news, and more! Go now to http://www.michelfortin.com.

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