My best resources for emotional stories, or how to talk directly to a prospect's mind

Hello all,

I'm sure that most of you will agree with me on the fact that nothing gets a lead more involved with our copy than a properly-written story. Prospects arrive in our sales page with a need, a desire or simply pain. It's up to us to pinpoint those needs and pains, and talk about them as if we were in the same situation as the prospect.

For me, writing stories is NOT about making things up. In fact, the more things you make up, the more obvious it will be for the leads. We live in an era where the BS detector of consumers is at its peak. People are becoming increasingly aware of shady marketing tactics and if something we say doesn't feel authentic they will not buy it.

Having said that, here are my top strategies for coming up with authentic, emotional stories that speak directly to my prospect's mind, even if I have never experienced something similar.

1) Interviews. This the most time-consuming option but nonetheless the most effective. What I usually do is go to niche forums and look for posts of people discussing specific problems they have. For instance in a weight loss forum you can find a lot of people complaining about their carb cravings or how they're not able to quit sugar. Those are real, stressing pain points that our prospects are expressing. I create an account at the forum, and I PM those thread creators. I don't pretend to be something I'm not. I just tell them that I'm doing research on the most pressing issues that people trying to lose weight are facing, and that I'd love to interview them on their experience. I also offer to pay them for their time, although most of the times they will refuse the money and just do the interview for free.
The interview itself can take 30-60 minutes, and my questions list is always short and concise. I start by asking them to tell their personal story and experience, and whenever they mention a problem, a pain point they had to face, I just ask "How did that make you feel?". The responses are pure gold for your sales copy. You'll know exactly how your prospects feel, and you'll be able to speak in their own language.

2) Compile stories from forums and social media sites. The second best option to interviews. It's also time consuming but for those that would rather not have any personal interaction with customers it can be a good option. This is pretty straightforward. Visit forums and social media communities where people of your niche group hang out and discuss their problems. Find threads or discussion groups where the main topic is a problem, a roadblock they're facing in their journey to achieve a goal. The content of those threads is pure gold. Not only because you get to learn exactly what types of problems they're facing, but also because you can see which words and language they tend to use. For instance, if I were in the diabetic weight loss niche and I visited one of their forums, I could learn the terms they use to describe their condition (A1C, BS for blood sugar, etc)

Regarding this second strategy, here's a golden resource that many people don't know about: http://www.experienceproject.com/ - This site is a gold mine, and I truly mean it. Do you want to read about first-hand experiences on any topic? Just go there and search for it. Seriously, I've written tons of copy just based on the really emotional stories I've found in that site. People go there and just spell every thought out of them, you get to learn about authentic and emotional experiences of your own prospects. Priceless.

I hope you find this post and the resources I present useful. I can assure you that they have worked for me very well, and I'm confident they'll work for you too

All the best