{"id":1029,"date":"2015-02-28T03:00:31","date_gmt":"2015-02-28T11:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salesfolk.com\/?p=1029"},"modified":"2015-10-07T20:18:16","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T03:18:16","slug":"i-smell-words-copywriting-synesthesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/i-smell-words-copywriting-synesthesia\/","title":{"rendered":"I Smell Words: Copywriting and Synesthesia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Think the colors of “The Dress” are interesting?<\/p>\n

What if you could smell and taste emotions, temperatures and words?<\/p>\n

What if every smell you inhaled instantly triggered a string of memories that were forever associated with that particular smell? (Not to mention every cross-linked emotion you associated with that smell.)<\/p>\n

For me “mosquitos have always smelled like ice,” and\u00a0laying by the warm fireplace tastes like bitter acid in my mouth.<\/p>\n

I have synesthesia, and the rarest of kinds.<\/p>\n

My sense of taste and smell are linked with many other senses including hot and cold, fear, anger, sadness, pain and so forth.\u00a0I even have acute sensations associated with different words.<\/p>\n

Every smell means something different to me, and emotions take on their own flavors, literally.<\/p>\n

\"synesthesia<\/a><\/p>\n

Synesthesia, Math & Copywriting<\/h3>\n

For as long as I can remember, writing and math have always been\u00a0two of my most favorite things. But for me, they’re not exclusive.<\/p>\n

The great copywriters like John Caples, Oglilvy, Sugarman, etc all emphasized the importance of viewing\u00a0copywriting as much of a science as an art. However, I’ve always perceived copywriting and languages as some kind of mathematical equation.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure if it’s the synesthesia or a coincidence that I connect copywriting with math, but I do know I naturally perceive the world as a series of patterns. Learning new languages like Japanese, Korean, Arabic or Cantonese was never an art or right brain activity for me, but instead something more robotic and mathematical like a computer.<\/p>\n

I don’t know if this is good or bad, but it is what it is.<\/p>\n

Whenever I’m writing copy–for a blog post or one of our clients’ cold email campaigns–there’s always a right and a wrong. Before I even start writing, I already know there’s an optimal configuration of words and sentences that I need to aim for. \u00a0My only challenge is to make the paper match the equation I see in my mind, and so copywriting is really more like deciphering a code inside my mind than a freeform\u00a0experience.<\/p>\n

My mind knows there’s a correct order of\u00a0words to convey the strongest emotions to create the most persuasive copy, and anything less is imperfect\u00a0to me.<\/p>\n

Sometimes this drives me crazy because I can’t quite get the paper to match the formula I see in my head, and so I obsess for days and hours until it’s perfect.<\/p>\n

\"synesthesia<\/a><\/p>\n

My Synesthesia & Math Driven Copywriting Formulas<\/h3>\n

It’s a little bit hard for me to deconstruct my own thought processes and reverse engineer my mind to understand my own copywriting equations, but I’m working on it.<\/p>\n

Here are a few things my mind regularly focuses on when making decisions around my copywriting:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Positive or Negative<\/strong>? (What emotion do I want to elicit with my message? Do I want to propel people with fear or honeypot them with desire? Great email campaigns often alternate between positive and negative\u00a0emotions.)<\/li>\n
  2. Minima, Maxima, or Average?<\/strong>\u00a0(Once I’ve decided if I want to convey a positive or negative sentiment, I then decide how extreme or not I want to be. Do I want to have a powerful Call To Action that everyone will respond to, and risk getting unqualified leads or scaring off more timid people, or should I be more gentle and incept ideas into my readers’ minds?)<\/li>\n
  3. Direct or Indirect?<\/strong>\u00a0(Should I be aggressive and direct, or should I be gentle and try to “honeypot” the reader? There’s a time and a place for both, but my email campaigns usually start more gently and become increasingly more direct over time.)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Once I’ve determined\u00a0which\u00a0effect I want to give\u00a0my reader, my mind works\u00a0backwards like “reverse induction” used in game theory.<\/p>\n

    I first choose the pattern\/structure of the copy I want to create. I have many formulas I use for my email campaigns and copywriting. Before writing a cold email campaign I architect the general order of emotions I want to evoke. Once I’ve decided the emotion for each touch-point of my 8 emails, and then I start crafting them.<\/p>\n

    For every email I can choose from a number of patterns in sentence structure based on the effect I strive to create based on the 3 decisions above. After that all I have to do is find the right words to match those patterns. \u00a0I’m fortunate that my mind naturally assigns numbers to every word on a positive\/negative scale based on the intensity the emotions those words evoke.<\/p>\n

    Here’s an example of how my mind scores some words:<\/p>\n

    Idea: +3<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Tip: +2<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Advice: +2<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Suggestion: +1<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Comment: 0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Critique: -2<\/strong><\/p>\n

    I score them this way based on how negative or positive I\u00a0perceive the connotations of these words to be (in most scenarios–their connotations could change in some cases). Notice that I have scoring systems for nouns and not just adjectives.<\/p>\n

    Once I’ve weaved together my beautiful pattern of words to create the right emotions I’m attempting to elicit, I pause and review everything on a macro and micro level to make sure it’s correct, reviewing the formulas in my head.<\/p>\n

    I smell the joy of success and accomplishment every time I create a\u00a0perfect pattern of copy.<\/p>\n

    So now you know the “big secret” behind my copywriting and cold email campaigns…. (Shhhhh, don’t tell anyone!)<\/p>\n

    PS: “The Dress” was orange and blue to me.<\/p>\n

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