Anticipation Marketing: Crushing Your Next Launch Without Being Salesy
45:51 Share

Are you thinking of attending social media marketing world, but you're concerned that you're not going to learn anything new? Listen to what fellow marketers have to say. Regina Cowitt says, I've been wanting to attend this conference for years and finally got to go. It was phenomenal and packs a punch with incredibly valuable and actionable information. Katie Brinkley says, just four years ago, I made a decision that would pivot my entire entrepreneurial journey.

I attended Social Media Marketing World. The rewards promised to be nothing short of extraordinary. Rebecca Good says, I absolutely loved every single presentation and wish I could turn back the clock like Hermione from Harry Potter and get to experience every single session. I learned so much and would absolutely love the opportunity to go back again. Come see what you're missing.

Visit socialmediamarketingworld.info and grab your tickets today.

Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner. Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the Social Media Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner, and this is the podcast for marketers and business owners who want to know how to navigate the ever-changing marketing jungle.

Today, we're going to be joined by Brenna McGowan, and we're going to explore the concept of anticipation marketing. If you've struggled with your marketing and you just can't seem to get people to buy, maybe you need a better strategy. And I think today's episode is going to absolutely blow your mind. By the way, if you're new to this podcast, be sure to follow this show on whatever app you're listening to so you don't miss any of our future content.

Let's transition over to this week's interview with Brennan McGowan. Helping you to simplify your social safari. Here is this week's expert guide.

Today, I'm very excited to be joined by Brenna McGowan. If you don't know who Brenna is, she is a copywriter and a launch strategist who specializes in helping coaches, course creators, and consultants exceed their sales goals in an authentic way. Her pre-launch plan program is for entrepreneurs and includes coaching and training. Her online event is called

behind the launch. Brenna, welcome to the show. How are you doing today? Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Awesome to have you here. Today, Brenna and I are going to explore how to employ anticipation in your marketing. And I'm really excited to learn from you today. Before we get on that really interesting deep dive, I'd love to hear a little bit about your backstory. How'd you get into marketing? How'd you get into this anticipation stuff?

Start wherever you want to start. Yeah. So I was primarily a stay-at-home mom. And what ended up happening, a few things collided at once, which was I was about to turn 40 and going into midlife. And I was working as an assistant, an administrative assistant. And I had done some in the back. Like I had done a little bit of social media blogs and emails, but it wasn't my primary job.

job, especially at the time that I decided to, that I needed a change. I was working as an assistant and I just started to think like,

I just didn't imagine when I was young that I would be an assistant. That just wasn't what I thought about. So I ended up at that time, I had a friend who was starting an esthetician business. And at that time, she needed some social media marketing. And so I offered to help her do her Instagram and some email marketing in exchange for eyelashes. I joke around that I started my business out of vanity.

And the marketing I was doing for her was picking up some traction. And I thought, oh my gosh, like maybe this is a business. And so I advertised myself. I started, I didn't even have a Facebook page that I was even using for my personal life. When was this, by the way? How long ago are we talking here? So this was at the end of 2017, beginning of 2018. So I,

I believe it was right around April of 2018 that I threw out a post on Facebook. And my whole goal at this time was like, okay, if I can make like $500 extra a month, I can take my kids to school, pick them up. I can pay the electric bill, get Botox occasionally because I'm now old and have wrinkles. And I was like, okay, if I can do this, then I'll be super happy. And I found myself as a social media manager and,

Didn't quite understand what I was getting myself into. And I just threw myself into the social media marketing world and actually transitioned to copywriting pretty quickly from that point.

And what ended up happening is I was doing copywriting, primarily emails, websites, but I ended up writing a lot of launch copy. And there was this, during this time when I started to write launch copy, there was a moment where I wrote a launch sequence for a client and it bombed.

And I was devastated. And I know you're a copywriter. There's so much, you just wonder, am I even equipped to do this? Should I even be asking people for money? This promotion didn't work. What was wrong with the copy? And so when I was able to, at that point, after I got over, after I cried a little bit and got over the bit of a devastation for how this campaign didn't go well, when I was able to take a moment and reflect, what I realized was,

We didn't properly warm up her audience. We abruptly put out an offer to an audience who wasn't ready, even though it was a large audience, right? We didn't prep the offer the way it needed to be. And so when I was able to kind of take that step back and realize that, it truly opened up my eyes. And I

I decided to take my copywriting skills and kind of go back to all that content that I used to do for clients and think, how could we merge copy and content? How could we create a campaign before the campaign, if you will? And so I asked a client, I said, I have this idea.

to do a longer runway with this system that I've kind of thought of in my head. Can we try it out on you? And once we did that, once we were able to do a longer runway, build anticipation, some of the things we're going to talk about today, we saw amazing results. Her results were, I think, 50% higher than her last promotion. She had to do less sales calls. She was someone who was introverted. So the fact that she didn't have to be on more sales calls, and not only that,

She called in better fit clients, people that really fit the mold of what she was trying to get into. And at that point, I was like, okay, I'm onto something. And here we are today. Very cool. So tell us a little bit about what you're doing today. Right. So I talk about anticipation marketing and something I've created now trademarked. And what it is, is how can we use anticipation and our natural, we're wired for anticipation.

Whether you realize it or not, we're recording this right now right before Christmas and the holidays. And so I think about how excited we are, how my kids are talking about it, how we're already talking about what we're doing for New Year's. There's these simple events in our life that we're super excited about.

But really what anticipation is, is how can we get people excited and how can we create buy-in before we ever put an offer in front of someone? And so the way I think about anticipation is,

I think the best way to describe it and demonstrate it is movies, because I think people who create and promote movies do this beautifully. And it's something that we can kind of take into our regular marketing that we're doing in our businesses. So if we think about a movie, you don't find out about a movie the day a movie comes out.

It's up to 120 days beforehand that they're starting to get buy-in from you. So first of all, when we're talking about anticipation, we have to think, okay, we're creating excitement, right? The definition of anticipation is excitement, waiting eagerly for something to happen. So you have to build a little time into your promotional schedule to build the anticipation that we're talking about.

But the other cool thing that happens with a movie is that you are seeing little bits and pieces of trailers for a movie, right? So what they're doing at that point is they are giving you a little piece. They're creating open loops for what's to happen.

What you don't realize is that you become a buyer of a movie even if you haven't exchanged dollars yet. Because at that point when you're watching a trailer, if you think about the last time you went to a movie theater and you're sitting in, you're watching a trailer, you're going, yeah, I actually want to see that movie next time. That's something I want to watch.

So what it also does is a movie is able to position themselves in your brain, right? They're able to gain your attention ahead of time. The other thing that happens with movies is because they've done this anticipation, they've done this buildup because they have created open loops, meaning when you're watching a trailer and you're thinking, like if you think about how a trailer goes, they're giving little pieces where you're leaning in, but they don't tell you what the resolution is.

So the other thing that happens with movies is that they increase their sales because they're doing that. And when you are able to finally, the movie comes out, you know, the box open day is always the largest day of a movie. And it's because they've done all of the pre-work. So, so often we think of promotions at the time we're actually selling when it's actually all

All of that buildup that sells that movie ahead of time. And it really goes back to two principles, which are in my mind, like I think it's we want what we can't have, right? Anticipation is one of those things is like, it's close enough that we can feel it, but we can't actually grab it.

And there is a lot of research around this that actually says that when we anticipate something, we actually feel the same amount of pleasure in the anticipation as we do when we actually get the product or service. So we're also you're hitting like little bits of dopamine when you're starting to infuse more anticipation into your marketing.

So we want what we can't have. And secondly, we're a little bit nosy, right? Part of anticipation is opening loops. And so when you are creating intrigue and curiosity, you're getting people to lean in. But to me, the difference between, you know, the big difference here of anticipation is that

You're getting people that are proactively coming to you. Sometimes I know with sales and I, you know, I do, I have my own business. I help so many different marketers and business owners promote their businesses. Sometimes you can feel like you're waving your hands out into the void. Like, Hey, come, you know, come, come look at my thing where anticipation gets people coming to you. I love it.

By the way, it's gold. It's solid gold. Everybody that was listening to you just didn't want you to stop talking. I know that's what they were thinking. All right. What I heard you say is that anticipation marketing is important because it allows you to basically warm up.

or maybe to use Robert Cialdini's phrase, pre-suede, which he wrote a book called Pre-Suasion, to kind of get them ready for what you're about to do next. When it is done well, just give me a couple of

of like, what are the benefits if it's done well from a marketing perspective? Well, I mean, the first benefit is you get your, you get people lining up to work with you, not the other way around, right? You naturally increase sales. The other thing that's really cool is that you, because anticipation, you can't quite get something. It creates a sense of FOMO. And when we can have that sense of FOMO, there's a natural sense of urgency, you know, where, uh,

A lot of times, you know, I do help a lot of like course creators and we're thinking, how can we build an urgency, right? The best urgency you can get is when you get someone who's like, I want this thing. And they're doing it without doors closing, countdown timers, discounts ending, right? We're getting that like natural desire for what someone wants.

and really playing into that. So there's so many, you increase your sales. Part of that is because you think about, according to DISC, which is, I've studied it a little bit, which is a personality test, that about half of people are fast decision makers. The other half are slow decision makers. A lot of marketing and sales tactics are really built on the person who's making decisions quickly or instantly. But if you're someone like me,

I'm someone who's like, I'm going to think about it. I'm going to talk to my friends about it. I'm going to talk to my husband about it. I'm going to decide I want to do it. Then I'm going to change my mind. Like it's going to take me a minute, especially if I'm investing a chunk of money. And so a lot of marketing isn't equipped for that person who needs that slower warmup. So that's one of the other benefits too, is that you start scooping up people that you might have otherwise left behind in your sales process. I love this. This is so cool. All right. So where do we start?

That's the big question, right? Like, let's say, all right, everybody's like, okay, Brenna, this sounds amazing. I am interested in employing, utilizing, deploying, whatever the right phrase is, anticipation marketing. Where do we begin? Okay, so for something that's super fun, I'm going to give a really like unsexy answer, which is market research. And it's the thing, especially as a copywriter, it's the thing that clients don't want to do. I run a program. It's a thing that students are hesitant to do.

but it opens your eyes when you really get into the research and really start talking to people. So the way that I love market research is voice of customer calls, where you're actually talking to someone. If you're someone who's like, oh my gosh, please don't put me on Zoom again. Like if you're one of those, like you don't have to be on Zoom. I do these sometimes on Voxer, which is a like walkie talkie app where I go back and forth and ask

questions. And actually, I think I get better research sometimes by not staring at someone and making them think of an answer right away. So how can you just start talking to people? You could be talking to people through comments on Instagram, Instagram stories, where if you have a story that someone replies to you and you can start up a conversation and just inquire. People really love to give their opinions and their input. So just asking more questions is extremely important. I also love AI for research. However,

and I know you and I are both big proponents of AI and use it all the time in our business, but I like to give AI a little bit of direction in terms of giving them a line of thinking, not just kind of letting them, letting AI randomly pull from the internet, all types of things. I find that the research gets better when I can say, okay, here's what I'm seeing. This is what I'm looking at. Can you give me more, you know, more examples like this? Are there, are there any points that are missing? Are there any hidden objections? Like there's,

asking it different questions. The other thing I love when I'm using AI for research too, is to ask for it to give me dialogue of what conversations, what people are saying in their head. So just collecting research, doing surveys, sending a survey out to your email list is another great way. But you always want to be asking open-ended questions to really get down to the heart. Because if you want someone to, if we're trying to get someone to anticipate something, we have to truly understand who they are and what they want.

to anticipate. And if we want to create open loops, we have to know what's important to them. So we know those little bits and pieces that we have to leave out in their marketing that creates that intrigue that gets them leaning into what we do.

Okay. Voice of customer calls. Just give us a couple of tips on how to do that because we've never talked about that before. And then I want to talk about this buyer belief thing that you and I were talking about when we were prepping. Yes. So voice of customer calls is just basically like where I think about it in thinking of it like as a story arc. Like I also, let me back up from that. I do two types of voice of customer calls and what I recommend, which is we talk to the people who have worked with us.

right? Because those are the people that are already, those are probably the easiest calls to set up too. You can just say, hey, you know, can we get on a call? Can we talk about our experience? That's the first set. The second set of people are people that have not bought from us. So the people that are thinking about it,

but haven't actually taken action to work with us. A lot of times with voice of customer, people concentrate on the people that have already bought, but those people are already kind of bought into our methods or methodology. We actually want to talk to the people that are a little bit hesitant as well. So the type of questions that you want to ask, and that goes back to the story arc is like, what were your struggles? Like, what are your fears around this? What is the thing that holds you back? What have you tried before?

What is the thing that you really want? What is the pain that you're trying to relieve? What is the desire that you want? So when you can kind of figure, I always think of like where someone started, like where's that struggle, that pain point? What's that fear?

What is the point that they know they might need to take action and what's stopping them? And then what is the thing that they truly are looking for on the other side? Because a lot, what I see a lot of times, and I help students do this all the time, is we make assumptions as to what people want. But, and even if it's the same thing, the way someone will say it is a lot different than the way that we will...

initially present it. So when we can start capturing some of that language, it makes a huge difference in our marketing and our copy. Yeah. And just what is this buyer belief document? Is it just taking all these things that we just captured and putting them into a document or is it something more than that? It's a buyer belief statement. So what I...

consider the buyer belief statement is this isn't quite a document. It is when you're presenting someone, I should say before you present someone an offer, there's a stage beforehand. So you have to sell someone on your framework, your methodology, what's behind your offer,

to get the buy-in on the actual solution, right? So we have to sell the outcome before the solution. So let me explain this a little bit deeper. So a really simple way to think about this is for my customer or client to buy from me, they have to believe, and we need to go into the core belief that's behind it. We say you have to sell your process, not your program or your offer, whatever it is. So for example, I have the pre-launch plan program.

Before someone is going to buy the prelaunch plan program, they have to be bought in. They have to believe that a prelaunch is a way to have promotional periods that create less stress, where they call in better clients, where they're able to pre-sell more seats, where they're able to increase revenue.

Or I was thinking for you, Mike, like for the, you have the AI business society, right? Right, right, right. Okay. So for you, your buyer belief statement is for someone to invest and buy and take part of your membership, they have to believe that AI is the way for them to stay ahead. Oh, yeah.

That'll help them increase their productivity, be more creative, save them time, all those things. They have to believe that. Yeah. Yes. And that is what you are selling to someone during this anticipation period. The promotion before the actual promotion is that you're trying to get buy-in on that because once you have buy-in on that and you present them with the membership, it's a much natural progression. What I see often two times is that

People are trying to smush this all into one promotional period and then things get lost in translation. I love it. Okay. So what I've heard you say is that before we begin this anticipation marketing concept, we need information. Ideally, this information is sourced from people.

actual customers or actual prospects that somebody has talked to, to understand what their uncertainties are, their struggles are, their fears, their real desires, the things that they really, really want. Right. And then ideally you develop some sort of belief statement that in order for someone to buy product X, they must believe this is true. So we set that foundation. And now on top of that,

we're going to build this anticipation marketing concept, right? So like what comes next? Right. So the thing that comes next is thinking about your content plan. Like what are, what type of content are you putting out? And,

to your clients, your customers. And so this can be anything. So you can use the types of content we're going to be discussing, whether it's you are someone who does email, you have a podcast, you spend a lot of time on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, wherever your marketing channels are, is where you can start infusing what we're talking about in here. So the first step is, okay, now I got to like back up and figure out

when am I going to start this process? And I like to start typically four to six weeks before I put an offer out. And now I know like what people are going to say is like, oh my gosh, four to six weeks. Like, but you're putting out content anyway. So this is about really being smart about the content you're putting out before you start heavily promoting a single offer.

Okay. So let's say we are going to go like with a four or six week thing. Let's talk about what do we do in the first week? So I like to break it into weeks. So it doesn't have to be weeks, but that's the way my brain kind of organizes content. So the first week that we do, and just so you know, if someone's listening to this and they're in the car, I have a freebie at the end is a launch calendar and it will break down these steps for you. So you don't have to take notes on this. It's

step by step. So the first thing is you want to talk about your why. And this is your story told in the frame of the reader in terms of your offer.

So this can be, you know, some people will call it an origin story. I don't quite see it that way. I see it more on is like, okay, how can we tell a story about why we do what we do? Under the framework we just talked about, right? That it has to relate to the buyer beliefs, right? Exactly. So that's the important frame. We're telling a story about why we do what we do that triggers change.

Presumably those beliefs. Is that where you were going to go with that? I mean, I don't know. I just could sense it. Yeah. No, you nailed it. And I did a little bit of this at the very beginning. If you think about my why story, right, which is I was a copywriter. I went into a launch. The launch bombed. I started to think about why it bombed. And through that, I came up with this system to do the prelaunch process.

So it's a very natural story if you think about it. It's just how did you get into your niche, your industry? What frustrates you on behalf of your clients and your customers? Reasons you do, why you do what you do. So you're really just exploring different reasons this week of how you got into your business. Case file 2025.

Marketing professionals report alarming symptoms of declining engagement, mysterious algorithm changes, and vanishing organic reach. Multiple witnesses confirm similar patterns across platforms.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to investigate this critical case plaguing marketers everywhere. Our expert investigators have assembled a comprehensive dossier of solutions, including previously undisclosed AI tools revolutionizing content creation, covert strategies for breaking through Instagram's algorithm, and secret tactics for maintaining Facebook ad performance.

Field agent Laura Pence Atencio investigated social media marketing world and said, each year, I believe we've reached the pinnacle and there can't be anything better. Only

only to be proven wrong as the education, energy, and enthusiasm exceed my expectations. And it's not an exaggeration to say I'm already anticipating next year's surprises. Join thousands of fellow marketers who've cracked the code on their marketing challenges. Pursue truth in marketing by attending Social Media Marketing World. Get your tickets at socialmediamarketingworld.info. This message will self-destruct in five minutes.

three, two. Okay. Talk to me about why story is so important. Help everyone understand that copywriter. I mean, I know, and you know, but they don't necessarily understand why this matters so much. Well,

Well, story, first of all, people buy, story gets into your subconscious. So you're getting to people's subconscious. And of course, stories, people just remember stories better. I always tell the story at the beginning about how I wanted to get Botox. And people make little jokes with me about it. Now it's become, and it's a little vulnerable, right? Like most women are out there talking about how they get injections once in a while, and that's why they start their business. So I kind of do a little bit for entertainment factor. But

but also because it makes me human. And that's why you want to humanize your brand. You want to create emotional connection. And really what it does is people don't buy, you know, Simon Sinek, I always go back to the quote, people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. So when you can create a story and people can feel like they know you, and especially right now, you know, in

at the end of 2024, as we entered 2025, I know at least in my industry, you know, trust is a little off. People are hesitant to spend money. And so this also really creates an opportunity for you to build, you know, the classic no like and trust. I love that. The question that goes through my mind and might be going through the minds of some of these people is how long of a story do I tell? So if I have a week to tell it, and let's say I have, you know, the socials as the primary thing or email, am I just telling

telling a little 60 second story or how much of the story do I share? Do I split it up over time? What's your perspective on that? Yeah, it's a great question. It depends on the different content that you're putting out. So if you're doing a podcast episode, yeah, you probably are telling that story all at once.

But maybe I'm breaking this up into reels. And I think about like, I always have my students think of why are three reasons why you do what you do? So for example, for me, one reason is, is that I wanted flexibility. I wanted to be able to pick up my kids from school, right? So my deeper reasoning is that I really wanted a lifestyle.

style. Another reason is I wanted to find a way to increase sales without like sales pressure. Like I am not someone who's like a natural sales person. And I wanted to find a way to help my clients and customers sell in a way that felt authentic and real where they could tell stories to sell where they weren't depending on like the conversion copywriter tactics that were taught as copywriters.

Another reason I do what I do is because I wanted people to be able to use their content in a way that makes more sales in the end. So I start looking at these different facets of why I do what I do, and then I could break those up into little pieces of content. So the answer is you can do all of it at once. You can break it up into little pieces. It just depends on the output, where you're putting this information that can make a difference. I love it. Okay, so in the first week of this multi-week,

concept that we're talking about. And we're really splitting this into about five weeks, if I'm not mistaken. So the first week really is storytelling time, which frankly is kind of probably the easiest part of this entire process because everybody has a story and all they got to do is just decide to tell it. Right. So let's move on to week two, actually. I mean, unless there's something else we need to know about the storytelling. I'll give you a quick example of what this can look like with one of my students. And you've

that this would be the easiest. I actually find that this is the hardest because everything else we're going to talk about moving forward is all literally, you're going to take that market research we talked about in the beginning and you're just divvying it up into content. It becomes plug and play where your story, sometimes people are like, they're afraid to tell their story. They don't think their story matters. They don't think it's important. They don't think it's interesting. And so I find sometimes that the story is a little bit different.

difficult. So one of my students, Michelle Pollack, we're working together right now on my program. And we started to think about like why she does what she does. And she's an executive coach. She helps female business owners really get satisfaction, fulfillment from their careers that they're not currently feeling right now.

And so what we were able to do is kind of back up into her why in terms of her offer and say, she also was in the same position where she was an executive. She was... Or a manager, I should say. And what she was doing, she had this shiny job. She worked in Hollywood. She worked in Broadway. She was living in LA. But she wasn't happy with her career. And so what she ended up doing, and she just thought like, is this everything? Is this what I'm doing for the rest of my life? Like there was...

She just didn't have satisfaction. And so she's able now to help take that experience that she has. And now she does coaching that helps women find fulfillment. So that's the way that you don't have to necessarily have the exact same experience where Michelle was very linear. It doesn't have to be that. But yeah, you just want to be able to tell that story once again in terms of the reader and what they're going through. Well, and I'll just add my two cents in here before we go on.

everybody who's listening, when you funnel your story in a certain direction, you can tell that story over and over again, different aspects of that story. So don't feel like you've already told the story and you cannot tell it again. You just kind of maybe tell it through a different lens or through a different frame or another side of the story because there's so many sides to every single story. I've done this successfully over my entrepreneurial career for 25 years. I've told different parts of different stories repeatedly

To try to get different effect and it absolutely can happen. So let's move on to what happens in the second week. So the second week is what I call pain points week. So pain point week is where you're thinking of a specific pain problem challenge that someone's going through in terms, once again, of the offer that you solve. Well, let's elaborate on that. Yeah.

So why this is so important is people want to feel seen, heard, understood. They want to buy from someone that can empathize with the challenges that they're going through. And once again, this all goes back to why research is so important. Because when we can actually step into the life of someone who's going through and understand their struggles, then we can actually represent it in our copy in a way that they feel like, oh my gosh, this person truly gets me.

The really important part here that I want you to kind of keep in mind is that a lot of times we want to solve someone's problem, especially like in online marketing where we're taught to give a lot of value. And in order to give value, we have to be educational. We have to solve the problem. That's not what we're doing during this period of time. What we're doing during this period of time is making someone like once again, make them feel like we understand what they're going through and

And also we're reminding people of the pain that they're in. And this might sound silly a little bit, but

Sometimes we have to be reminded of what we're going through, the cost of not taking action, what it's actually doing to us to not be taking care of this problem. And as humans, we naturally think, okay, unless the pain is so acute, and those are the people that buy from you right now. Those are the ones that are like, oh my gosh, I have this problem. I need to solve it today. But there's a lot of us that are like, eh.

yeah, I don't know, like, I need to kind of solve this. But I can think of several things in my own life that are like a problem I'm having, but the pain hasn't been acute enough. And so you want to kind of come in and gently, you know, some people may say agitate. I don't know if I love the word agitate here. But what I do like is like, okay, let's remind them of the pain. Let's reframe what the impact it's taking on their life. Yeah. Can you give us some examples?

So one of my students, Susan Ryok, she does a beautiful job and she's a UX copywriter. You should describe what UX is for people that don't know what that means. Yes. Thank you. User experience. So she really focuses on the user experience in terms of copywriting.

And so for Susan's people, Susan's people are copywriters, typically website copywriters. A lot of times they're taking on website projects that are like 100 pages. They're huge website projects, but not necessarily all of them. What happens is, and she tells a story, and this is why I love what we're talking about so much, because you're using story throughout. So instead of like

doing what would feel like sales content, we're telling simple stories of, for in this example, Susan's clients, she was talking about Susan herself has two young girls, and how like, when there's so much going on in life, it can feel hard to take any action. And then on top of it, when you get a new website copy project, all of a sudden, you're like, where do I even start?

Like as a copywriter, sometimes I'm looking at a blank page and I know I have to do research. I know I have to do the writing. I know I have to present to the client all the planning. And so she kind of really dove into like what this person was feeling at this point in time. So the person who's reading this is going, yeah, that's exactly how I feel.

And so what Susan was able to do from that email is she didn't give them a one, two, three answer of how to fix it. What she was then able to do, the CTA was, hey, come listen to this video when I talk to you about why taking advantage of UX copywriting right now is the thing for you. That was in her exact title.

But instead, she was furthering the relationship in terms of getting people to buy in, once again, to that buyer belief statement. Her buyer belief statement would be that to be, I wouldn't say a successful copywriter, but to be a copywriter who's in demand is that you need to have this UX experience. Okay.

this is interesting and I'm just going to free flow a little bit with you on AI, for example. So if I was trying to talk about the challenges that people face right now with AI, I would say AI is scary. A lot of people are concerned that it's going to take their job. And a lot of people are concerned that the machine is going to suck up all their information and give it away to other people. These are legit concerns. Everything in me wants to address those concerns and,

But what I might say instead is I've got a podcast episode where I kind of help people see past that. Is that how I would do something like this in this week or would it be something else? Yeah, I would definitely make sure that hook is something that they want to know. So we're spending a lot of times really thinking of the angles and the hooks of like where we're pushing people to. But yeah, exactly. Because what ends up happening is that...

We think sometimes by giving people a lot of information, it's going to help them. But it does one of two things. A lot of times, a lot of information overwhelms them and they go, in this case, especially with AI, you give me too much information about AI. And I'm like, OK, I know how I would finish this. And I would go on to say, while those things are true, it's actually not stopping marketers from moving forward with AI.

And the truth of the matter is that there's plenty of people that would rather hire a marketer who understands AI versus one who does not understand AI. And if you want to secure your job in the future, you really need to take action, something along those lines, right? To help them understand what's at stake, right? And then I would say, I've got a free report that you can download to understand more about this or something like that. Is that the way I would do something like that? Exactly. Exactly. And or depending on where you're at and what you're showcasing.

strategy is, you might even tease, hey, I actually have a membership that I'm going to be opening up where you can get this help. But in the meantime, go grab this free report. So you're doing, you're doing this little seeding in, right? So you're helping people stay out of that overwhelm. And the other thing you're not doing, the second thing that people, what happens is when you give them too much information, they feel like, oh, cool.

Like I told I listened to this and now I totally understand AI, even though you and I both know that's not true. And they go and try and do it on their own. So it really doesn't serve our people, especially I don't mind that type of content as much like when we're not in right before promotional period. But we really want to stay out of it right before promotion. Well, and the key take home is don't stop.

Don't solve it at this stage. Just talk about the cost of not taking action, right? And then give them something maybe to chew on. I mean, you don't even have to give them anything at this point. You can just like address it because we're building anticipation, right? Like, wouldn't it be amazing if there was a way to become more valued as a marketer and have it be powered by AI? Something along those lines. Okay, so first week is...

I'm telling stories about me. Second week, through the lens of the problem that the customer is facing. Second week is I'm talking about the struggle, the struggle that my audience faces, your audience faces.

And I'm trying to develop resonance and affinity with them and at the same time, inspire them that they can't stay in their little mud puddle. They've got to move. Right? Exactly. So what comes next? What's in the third week? So the third week is what I call myth week.

And Myth Week is where you are really tapping into those common misconceptions that people have in terms of what you offer or your buyer belief statement. So when you're thinking about these misconceptions, the way I think about it is it's the things that we believe to be true that aren't necessarily true, but they are true for us based on our circumstances, our lived experiences, our different viewpoints.

So we really want to tap into what does someone believe about my industry, my offer, my buyer belief statement that isn't necessarily true and doesn't benefit them? And what are those limiting beliefs around that subject?

And this is really important because when we can reframe how someone thinks about a subject or a situation, they just become more receptive to taking advantage of their offer and not just taking advantage of our offer, but actually helping themselves and get out of that pain that they are in. So how would we do that with our content in that week? Would this just be a couple like...

graphical posts or something with like lie truth kind of thing? Or what are we talking about here exactly? Yeah. I mean, you could do, I'm usually not that obvious. It's more of tapping into, once again, going back to your research, figuring out, okay, what are those top three or four things that people believe that aren't necessarily true? And then creating content around that. Once again, whether it's through lives, podcasts. Like here's a common misconception about

about AI, right? That it's stupid and it will never make you smart. Something along those lines, right? Yeah. And then here's the truth. Some of the most brilliant people in the world, including Nobel winning scientists are using it to literally change their industries, right? I mean, something along those lines, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And just thinking of it in terms of, once again, who your client or customer is. Yeah. And maybe I'd have to come up with a better example, right? Yeah. And I'm not saying that's it, but it might be depending on, you know, I deal with a lot of bit of like small business owners who think like, oh my gosh, AI is, you know, or I know as a copywriter, originally when it came out, I felt like AI was cheating a bit.

Right? Like I feel like I'm cheating if I'm using AI. So you get to tap into like those fun different angles that you might not otherwise. So it doesn't have to be, you know, so for like that sense, if we're talking about cheating. So I might tell a story that is an analogy of a time that I cheated and felt guilty about it.

And then a segue over could be like, this is how I felt about AI at first, but actually this is what I've discovered by using it. So people come once again, because you're telling stories and it's maybe not so in your face, like, you know, this is AI before, this is AI after. One of my clients and customers,

Julie Cabasis, she is a copywriter and a high ticket sales mentor. And so what she ended up doing inside of her relaunch, for example, was one of her, she does a video inside of her Facebook group every week. And because she does high ticket sales, her people are, one of the misconceptions is that they're going to be perceived as greedy if they start charging more. So

So what they were able to do is do a live where they actually talked about personal stories around their own journey to becoming high ticket mentors and actually demonstrate what that looked like. So yeah, so there's all kinds of fun in different ways. There's no right or wrong to this.

Also, we haven't even gotten there though. I do this in weeks because in my mind is kind of a natural buildup, but people don't watch our stuff linear either. So if you bounce around a little bit, like no one's going to be hurt in the process. Okay. I love where this is going. What's the next week? The fourth week. Okay. The fourth week is objections. So if you think about it, first we've established who we are.

We know that people recognize that we can help them in the pain that they're in. Now we're dealing with those hesitations, those things that stop people from taking action. So an objection is, you know, concerns or doubts that you can actually help them the way that you're saying you can help them. And, you know, the why this matters is so much is that if we don't kind of walk people through these objections and hit them head on, then

they don't buy from us. If people have enough objections, it stops the buying process. So this is truly really dealing with myths and objections is really, really important in this runway up to your launch. Give us an example of an objection that you probably have dealt with. Yeah. Well, one of my big objections for what the process I'm talking about is, okay, are people going to get sick of hearing about this particular subject or does this seem like too much work?

So you have to think about people aren't going to buy from me if they don't believe that this process can be easy and fluid. Then they're never no matter no matter if they think this is the best thing that's ever happened, they're not going to take advantage of it.

I think about a story about objections. I have a customer story I'll tell or a client story. But something that happened to me last month is I was in the line at the airport for TSA for some reason, no matter how much I travel, I've not motivated myself to get TSA pre. So here's that person, that pain we're talking about. I felt the pain, but it hasn't been bad enough, right? But what happened last month- Totally worth it.

Yeah, I know. It's so silly. It's like $97 for five years. So here I am standing at the TSA. I'm going to a speaking engagement and the line is long. And I'm usually that person who's like two hours early to get to the airport, but not today. Like today I'm running late and the line is longer than I've ever seen it in Sacramento.

And I'm starting to freak out. And there's this guy coming, right? This clear guy. And he's like, hey, jump out in line with me and you can get through the line. And he's shouting out to everyone, which is how I think of marketing in general a lot of times. Here this guy is shouting out to this crowd, trying to get people to come to him. And we're all standing in line and we're like...

okay, this sounds good, but what happens if I get out of line? And I got to get back in line again. And he can't do what he told me I was going to do. Exactly. And so that was my objection. It was like, it wasn't even, sometimes we think of like, oh, it's the cost or the time, right? Which are bigger objections, but- In your case, it was a lack of belief in what he was saying, right? Yeah, it was a lack of belief. It was, I was scared. If I got out of this line, I was going to miss my flight. If I missed my flight, I was going to miss my speaking engagement. So there was this like,

whole internal thought that happened in just seconds, right? And these are the type of people that you're dealing with. You're dealing with unreasonable people like me who have not gotten TSA pre, even though they know that they need it and they have the money to pay for clear, but they're still afraid to take action because of these

underlying objections that aren't being concerned. Now, if that person was like, hey, you're going to get out of line and I promise you, I guarantee you, you're going to make your flight. I may have been like, okay, cool. And now I can take care of this problem. But that's not what happens. Let's talk about what is the next week, the fifth week. Yes.

And really quick, I'll go back to a quick objection, too, is like I have my student, Emily Reagan. She does digital marketing, helps digital marketing assistants. And one of their big objections was, will I get enough clients before they're able to take her course? So she had to go through and really establish that people can get clients. So, yeah, there's all these different ways to think about objections and put it into your content.

So last but not least is what I call transformation week. And this is where you really set the stage for what's to come. Like what is on the other side of your offer? What is the transformation they're going to have? What is the pain that they're going to get out of? What is the outcome of the offer that you're putting in front of them? And transformation is so important because this is where you can future pace people, right? We want to get people into the mindset of like, okay, if I...

I go and take advantage of this, this is what my life is going to look like, right? Like going back to that TSA example, if they had time to do this, if he could set it up, like, hey, you're going on a flight in two weeks from now to go to San Diego, and you're going to be able to walk through that line, you're not gonna be able, you're not gonna have to take your shoes off, right? All of a sudden, I can see myself doing that we want to get people in the place where they can actually see the results that they're going to get. Because once again, if we can get people to see it,

It becomes a lot easier when I put that offer in front of them that next week after transformation week, they're going to be like, okay, yes, I can see this. And the other thing to keep in mind here is that people have to have a whole set of beliefs. You know, sometimes we think like, gosh, marketing is tough. Well, it is a little tough.

Because we're dealing, once again, unreasonable humans that have all of these things that are coming up. And we're dealing with a set of beliefs of, you know, for people to buy from us, they have to believe that you are the right person that they should buy from or your business, your brand, whatever it is. They have to believe that your solution, your offer is the right one to help them. And lastly, they have to believe in themselves enough

that they can actually get the results that you're talking about. So we really want to set the stage that is not only can you get this outcome, but it's actually possible for you in your situation.

Wow. This has been really cool, really magical. And I know we've only scratched the surface of that brain of yours. If people want to discover more about you, Brenna McGowan, what's the preferred social platform that they can connect with you on? And then also you mentioned that if they want to work with you, where do you want them to go? Yes. So I'm on Instagram the most. So that's where you can find me. Brenna McGowan Co. Kim, say hi. I'm in my DMs more than I should be. And then

And you can also go and find me at Brenna McGowan.co slash SME. And there I have a calendar, a launch calendar that's powered by AI. You answer a few questions and what it will do is it will actually spit out a launch plan for you based on what we've talked about. It'll tell you the certain weeks of what you do and what you need to plan. And it's a really great little freebie. So come check me out over there.

Brenna, B-R-E-N-N-A, McGowan, M-C-G-O-W-A-N dot C-O slash S-M-E. Brenna, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today. Thank you for having me.

Wasn't Brenna amazing? She will be presenting at Social Media Marketing World. So if you're not coming, there's another reason for you to come. And by the way, if there's anything that we mentioned that you missed, we took all the notes for you over at socialmediaexaminer.com slash 645. If you're new to the show, be sure to follow us. If you've been a long-time listener,

Would you give us a review on whatever platform you're listening to and maybe share this with your friends? I'm at Stelzner on Facebook, at Stelzner on LinkedIn and at Mike underscore Stelzner on X. And do check out our other shows, the AI Explored podcast and the Social Media Marketing Talk Show. This brings us to the end of the Social Media Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may your marketing keep evolving.

The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner. Make 2025 your best year ever. Grab your discount tickets to Social Media Marketing World right now by visiting socialmediamarketingworld.info.