What movie trailers taught me
I love watching movie trailers. How they condense the whole movie into 5 minutes… has to be an art of its own. The best bits, the best expressions, the best dialogues—you can literally feel the whole movie in those five minutes.
And this is what Ray Edwards wrote in his book How to Write Copy That Sells that our marketing copy should be like “movie trailers”. We watch the trailer and we get to know what the movie is about, the dominant emotion of the movie and why we must watch it (famous actors, superb cinematography, action, dialogue, etc).
In fact, we make the DECISION of whether to watch the movie or not from the trailer itself.
Our marketing copy has to be like that. Pick out the biggest benefits that the product offers—the amazing feature that sets it apart, the unique delivery mechanism, the 24/7 customer service, and whatever you think might convince your prospect to finally say “yes”.
Do note that movie trailers usually follow the Rule of One. One big idea, one audience, and one big emotion. Everything else supports it.
For example, in the trailer of All Quiet on the Western Front, the dominant story idea revolves around World War I where budding youths are being pushed to the front as a human sacrifice.
It shows the gruesome details of the war from the perspective of common men who enlisted in the army hoping to achieve glory, yet ended up with nothing but regrets.
We see the struggles, the diplomacy, and the history behind it.
Not to mention that it is based on a literary masterpiece with the namesake and that it got rave reviews from big publications and movie critics.
Am I convinced to watch it? Of course. Their marketing seems to be spot on for its target audience.
