- Write On
- Posts
- Are you selling vitamins or painkillers?
Are you selling vitamins or painkillers?
How to position your product like a copywriting pro.
Joe Portsmouth
April 26, 2023
Welcome to the 14th issue of Write On!
The newsletter that doesn’t charge you extra for guac.
Estimated read time: 1 minute, 42 seconds
📣 But first, a quick Write On announcement…
I just opened up Write On ad slots for May!
Interested in getting your business, newsletter, or project in front of 9,500+ solopreneurs, marketers, and business leaders? Let’s partner together 👇
Top Finds This Week:
📖 Storytelling: 10 storytelling secrets you’ll refer back to again and again and again (link)
🧠 Psychology: 23 psychological triggers that turn readers into customers, from Joe Sugarman, author of The Adweek Copywriting Handbook (link)
🖼 Framework: Everything you need to get a 70%+ conversion rate on your email form landing page (link)
📜 Principles: Learn how to write in images. It makes your writing easier to read and more clear (link)
⚙️ Resource: Writing software I use daily (not my tweet, but I use the same tech stack) (link)
🤖 AI: I created a ChatGPT Headline Generator for you (including 50 frameworks + examples) so you can create headlines faster, capture attention, and get the click (link)
Vitamins vs. Painkillers
It doesn’t matter what you’re selling.
It matters how you position what you’re selling.
You’re either selling vitamins or painkillers:
So what’s the difference?
Vitamins provide long-term benefits, general improvements, or enhancements to the customer's life.
Painkillers address a specific pain point or problem for the customer. They provide an immediate or short-term solution to alleviate the customer's discomfort or inconvenience.
Both provide value to the customer, but one technique is more effective.
Painkillers.
Let me explain with an example.
Vitamin vs. Painkiller Example:
The product we’re selling: Golf lessons
Most companies write their copy like they’re selling vitamins. Like this:
"Unlock your full potential on the golf course with our expert guidance. Our comprehensive program helps you develop a consistently better golf game, leading to long-term improvement, increased enjoyment, and the confidence to tackle any course."
It doesn’t sound too bad on the surface, right?
The thing is… it can be way better.
Here’s how experts position their products as painkillers:
"Struggling with inconsistent swings ruining your golf game? Our proven techniques will instantly correct your swing, allowing you to shave strokes off your score and finally beat your buddies on the course."
Same promise (better golf game).
Different positioning.
Can you feel the difference?
The painkiller version exaggerates the pain points and then presents the desired solution:
Pain: You’re bad at golf
Desire: Beat your friends
💡 Bottom line: Before you publish anything, ask yourself: “Am I selling vitamins or painkillers?”
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading.
See you next Wednesday!
Joe
P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:
Want to get your business in front of 9,500+ other Write On readers? I just opened up ad slots for May (View open slots)
Keep your writing sharp all year round and enjoy free lifetime access to my collection of Write On copywriting guides (View all guides)
P.P.S. If you've got a moment, I'd love to get your feedback:
What did you think of today's newsletter? |
A WRITE ON REVIEW:
When Write On hits your inbox