Copywriting lessons from The Music Man
Watching The Music Man with the kid the other night, and I had a copywriting epiphany.
This classic is a masterclass in buyer psychology + copywriting. It's all about selling people on a problem they didn’t know they had.
The Setup: River City is fine. Everything is just... fine.
The Hook: Along comes Professor Harold Hill (a grifter, but a great salesman (ahem... and copywriter, let's be real). He wants to make some cash and needs to sell the town on the idea of a marching band (and the high cost of instruments and uniforms).
How does he do it?
He talks about how good a band would be.
Just kidding... have you even seen the film/musical?
No! He pitches the Problem—the lurking, silent menace that will devour their youth:
“Oh, there is trouble, right here in River City! Trouble with a capital 'T' that rhymes with 'P' and that stands for Pool!”
Kids are going to play pool. And then they’re going to smoke cigars. And then they’re going to... gasp... SWEAR!
It's the fear of moral decay, wrapped up in a slightly sarcastic, over-the-top panic. He’s calling out the obvious (small-town boredom) and problematizing it.
The Copy Lesson: Don't Pitch the Band, Pitch the MORAL DECAY from the Pool Table
Your reader isn't waking up excited to buy your "cutting-edge cloud-based solution." They’re waking up to the tiny, annoying pain points that are giving them hives.
You think they have no problem? Oh, yes, they do! They just haven't articulated it with capital letters and a dramatic chord progression yet.
Your job: Name the pool table. Call out the "Trouble." Make the invisible itch painfully visible.
The solution? A marching band! (Or, you know, your actual product.)
Once he’s got the whole town freaking out about the moral ruin of the youth, the solution (instruments, uniforms, big brass band) looks less like a $20,000 expense and more like the only path to salvation.
Outstanding!
TL;DR: Stop selling your features. Start selling the glorious, immediate relief from their silent, embarrassing pool-playing problem.
