Grab ’em by their Attention

When I was a kid … and that was a small town where I grew up … there used to be some people who used to sell this or that “snake oil” to cure the loss of libido.  

I know you were going to skip reading this post but now you’re hooked.  This is what a grabber does (in a different way), and this post is all about grabbers.  

What’s a grabber? Something apparently irrelevant to your offer, that you use to grab your readers’ attention and perhaps to achieve likeability too.  

Before I give you an example from my digital today, let me go back to the story from the small town of my past.  

So, one of them used to have a couple of cobras in his possession and the other one had a white pelican to attract commoners.  

The former was a very glib salesman. After he was done playing with the snakes, he’d slowly pivot to his topic – the loss of libido, and infertility.  On his rug, he’d scatter a few photos of some famous Bollywood actors and actresses – men in the crowd (women and kids weren’t invited to the party, but my small height helped me blend in), would relate to those actors while the salesman would talk of how men slowly lose their health and most definitely their libido.  

And what was the purpose of the photos of some of the most beautiful actresses of that time? Well, they were also grabbers.  

But that used to be a hard crowd. Most of the people used to gather around him only to see the snakes, kill some time, see those photos, and most definitely listen to his cheesy, PAS kinda sales pitch.  

He didn’t know that thousands of miles away from his country, in the USA, amazing copywriters and advertisers like Dan Kennedy were actually using the same trick, but in a different way.  He didn’t know them, but he was a marketer at heart. 

They were sending attention-grabbing photos or other material e.g. coins via direct mail. Grabbers work because they evoke curiosity and that is what leads to a sale. 

In the modern-day too, grabber is used the same old-fashioned way, except the form has changed a little bit.  Now you use gifs and memes in your sales emails to achieve the same results. 

For example, if you write for dog niche, attach with your email a picture of a beautiful dog, and this pleasant surprise will eventually convert leads into customers. 

Know your people. It all starts with knowing them well. Don’t send dog photo to cat people; that’d most probably not offend them, but that won’t achieve anything for you either.

The trick is to surprise someone, grab their attention from its unseeable collars and then make a transition from something of their interest (their pain, desire, problems) to something of your interest (your product that is a cure to their problems and pains).