THE APPEARANCE OF CONSISTENCY
Humans have a nearly obsessive desire to be—or to appear—consistent to others and to ourselves. Once we’ve subscribed to something, voted for something, bought something, or taken a stand on something, we are under tremendous pressure to behave consistently with that commitment in order to justify our earlier decision.
I use this technique in writing web copy by first helping my readers express a firm stand or opinion about something, then presenting my product in a way that plays to the stand my readers have taken. I first construct a question to which readers could not possibly answer no, such as “If I could show you a way to double or triple your sales closing rate—and teach you how to sell 50 to 100 percent of ...
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