Copywriting – Creating A Granfalloon
A “granfalloon” is a term coined by Kurt Vonnegut in 1963 for his novel titled “Cat’s Cradle”. Vonnegut described a granfalloon as a “…proud and meaningless association of human beings.” Any group that bonds together through superficial, shared characteristics is a granfalloon.
Have you ever met someone who shared the same birthday as you? Pretty exciting, isn’t it? For an instant, if not longer, you feel a special camaraderie with that person. But why? Do you really have anything significant in common beyond being born on the same day? Probably not. The association, while interesting, is essentially meaningless.
Yet, humans are naturally drawn to others who share characteristics or values that they have, no matter how insignificant. The same birthday, same initials, being born in the same city, or even having the same name can create a granfalloon among groups of otherwise unrelated individuals.
The next time you sit down to write a sales letter, consider creating a granfalloon and putting your reader right in the middle of it. Once you place your reader in a granfalloon, remove him from the group you created for him and place him above it. Make him feel superior. Nobody likes to be called a conformist-we’d all like to think that we’re completely unique and unusual (and in the ways that count the most, we all are!)
Examine the emotions that the reader will experience. Start your sales letter by making your reader feel included. Make him feel like part of the “in” crowd by pointing out others that don’t fit in the group. Let’s say you’re selling an e-book on investing. You could set up the granfalloon like this:
“Most investors simply rely on intuition to choose their investments, staying with one or two ‘safe’ options. Like many smarter investors, you realize the importance of diversifying your portfolio to maximize your investment return.”
Now the reader feels like part of a group of “smarter investors”-it’s a large, undefined group, but the identification with the group still feels real.
Most copywriters keep the reader in this group, this granfalloon, for the duration of the sales letter. And that’s a valid strategy, in ordinary sales letters. But you want to do it differently, don’t you?
Let’s tell our reader that the best way to leave the group and rise above it is to order our product:
“When you order Top Ten Investment Strategies, you’ll gain insights into today’s markets that most investors are unaware of.”
The reader is now separated from the group, but he feels superior to it, instead of just feeling apart from it. This feeling of superiority that the reader can achieve when he purchases the product is a strong emotional benefit. Nobody minds feeling “different” if they actually believe they’re “better” than a group that they were formerly a part of.
Remember, people buy on emotion. You’ve just told your reader that he will join an elite group if he purchases your product. Some of the most successful sales letters in history have been crafted around the idea that the reader can join an exclusive club by purchasing the product. Fear and greed still sell, but by seeking out “higher” emotions to tap in your readers, you have a wide range of emotions from which to choose to best make your product or service appealing to your reader.
Meredith Montgomery is a freelance copywriter who lives in Katy, TX, just west of Houston. She specializes in direct response copy that grabs readers and compels them to sit up and pay attention.
