Full Funnel Nudity [Edition #8]: A Sharpshooter

The funnel I am breaking down today is about as targeted as any I’ve seen in recent months.

It’s packed full of potent copy.

And it also does something that’s incredibly hard to do unless you truly know your customer.

It triggers the prospect's biggest fear and desire at the SAME time.

Talk about Jedi-level advertising skills!

Now, I have to warn you before we delve into this funnel.

Depending on how you feel about firearms, this funnel might trigger you too.

Because the funnel we’re dissecting is for gun owners.

If you have strong beliefs about firearms ownership and you wanna get off this ride here, it’s all good.

To each their own.

That said, I am going to proceed because this funnel is loaded with brilliant direct-response advertising.

Dissecting it is an ideal opportunity to soak up new knowledge. And as far as I know, sponges are apolitical. 

With that disclaimer out da way… allow me to remind you what it is that we do around here:

The Power of Living in Your Prospect's World

Back another career ago, I was a parole officer.

As part of my job, I carried a service weapon — a 40-caliber Glock.

Once, while working an on-call shift, I got paged to pick up a fugitive who had been pulled over and arrested one state away - New Jersey!

I rousted a fellow officer out of bed. And we hit the road in the middle of the night to retrieve our absconder.

Two and half hours later, just after we hit the Jersey border, we stopped to fill up and empty the tank.

When we stopped, there were a couple of local police officers parked out front of the gas station.

I waved to them as I walked into the Wawa…

… And then, a moment of panic hit me.

I thought to myself, “I am not sure if I am allowed to carry a concealed weapon in this state?”

Okay, sure, I probably wouldn’t have gotten busted for accidentally violating their concealed carry laws while on duty.

But, still… not knowing New Jersey's handgun carry laws was at the very least unprofessional. 

And as a plain clothes (out of uniform) officer, if something bad had happened, my ignorance could also have been downright dangerous.

I share that back story because sometimes you have to walk a mile in your prospect's shoes… or, as the case may be, drive 200 miles across state lines with a Glock strapped to your hip… to find out what really matters to them.

You are unlikely to turn up an experience like the one I had through customer research.

Instead, you have to go deeper.

You have to live in your prospect’s world. And when an advertiser does that, it shows!

That’s why, when I saw this ad from the U.S. Concealed Carry Association… I knew exactly how powerful it was.

The simple hook - “Travel Safely”-  is an angle the advertiser could only discover from living in their prospect’s world.

Combine a hook that truly motivates your audience with the next thing this ad has, and you’ve got a winner!

And that “next thing” is ad copy loaded with trigger words.

Trigger Words

Let’s start with the #1 trigger word in advertising - “New.”

I was involved in a comprehensive study of Facebook’s top advertisers a few years back.

When we analyzed the copy of the top advertisers, we found the most commonly used word was “New.”

It’s the top trigger word because our brains are hardwired to pay attention to what’s “new.”

Despite the short copy in this as, it doesn't stop at what’s new.

It packs in a couple more powerful words as well.

Also, “must-know” is a good turn of phrase when you want to ramp up the FOMO.

Moving on, let’s “click-through” and turn our attention to the landing page.

Aim small, miss small

In most of the landing page tests I’ve done, long copy beats short copy.

The exception to that rule is when the advertising hook is so strong that you don’t need much copy at all to reinforce the offer.

I would say this landing page falls into that exceptional category.

There’s not much copy on this page.

Yet, the copy that is there is effective.

And you can see how it perfectly dovetails the promise of the ad.

It 100% meets the “smooth landing” criteria.

A loaded sales page

The next thing I love about this funnel is that this advertiser knows how to stay on target.

They don't waste a chambered round by sending their new prospects to an empty thank you page.

Instead, they take them to the next step in the progression.

And, although they are jumping from a free email opt-in to a new sales pitch, there’s no disconnect.

They stay on topic and stay on point by using their headline copy to tie their pitch to the prospect’s main concern.

I am not going to breakdown the whole sales page.

It's a superb copy. You should read it and see for yourself and see how it lures you in and keeps you engaged.

However, I will call attention to a couple of techniques that you can mimic and use in your own sales writing.

The first technique to take notice of is one Eddie Shleyner recently talked about in his newsletter.

Eddie referred to this technique as “realism.”

Although I've seen and used this writing style before, I never knew it had a name. (Thanks for filling me in Eddie!)

Writers use realism (as I know it’s called) to deliver the facts of a story in a concise, methodical manner.

Since most sales letters leverage the power of true stories, this type of writing can give your copy a ton of punch.

You can see how this works in the first few paragraphs of the advertiser's sales letter.

There’s no inner dialogue, opinion, or pointed persuasion.

Each line simply lays out the facts of the scene the author is setting, drawing in the reader and allowing them to experience what the main character is experiencing.

Then, the author flips the script.

He breaks the third wall to inject his option in the first subhead.

The author continues to use these transitions throughout the sales page.

He returns to the story drawing the reader back into the main characters' harrowing and literal life-or-death struggle.

Then, he interrupts the story to pop out an important sidebar that sets up the crux of his sales argument.

It's a beautiful use of pacing, writing technique, and design that builds suspense, trust and desire all at the same time.

A tight grouping

In target shooting, there are two types of marksman markspeople.

One who can score the target, meaning they shoot their rounds inside the bullseye.

Then there’s the other type whose rounds are so accurate each one cuts the target in almost the same spot. That’s what’s referred to as tight grouping. 

And I would call this advertiser’s emails a tight grouping.

I mean, just look at those subject lines.

Also, every email delivered to my primary inbox with precision accuracy.

Obviously, I haven’t read all of them. But I plan to because the copy inside is tip-top!

And with the emails reviewed, that brings us ALMOST to the end of another edition of Full Funnel Nudity.

But before we close this one out, let’s recap…

The key takeaways

So how did I do?

Did you enjoy this edition of Full Funnel Nudity?

Or did I miss the target this time?

Leave a comment letting me know what you think about edition #8.