Website Copy Conversion Strategies: The Agitate and Solve Technique

Photo credit: SeniorLiving.Org

When it comes to website copy conversion strategies, the Agitate and Solve Technique is a proven method.

The premise is simple: your website content highlights an understanding of problems and then offers a solution.

Professional copywriters will twist the knife and then give the audience a sigh of relief. And this technique works to accelerate your audience engagement and conversion rate, but to “agitate and solve” is not as simple as it sounds.

The founding father of the Agitate and Solve Technique, Dan Kennedy, writes in his book, The Ultimate Sales Letter: Attract New Customers. Boost Your Sales:

“When you understand that people are more likely to act to avoid pain than to get gain, you’ll understand how powerful this [agitate and solve] formula is. (…) It may be the most reliable sales formula ever invented.”

In this excerpt, Dan Kennedy delivers keen insight into the nitty-gritty of marketing psychology—specifically, why prospects decide to buy products and services in the first place.

Pain, stress, struggle, whatever you want to call it—it sucks to be put in a crummy position. And people want to avoid those icky feelings whenever possible. This is why the Agitate and Solve Technique exists, but like any copywriting strategy, it takes a little finesse to be truly effective.

That’s where our copywriting team comes in.

Check out the following website copy criteria that intensify the impact of the Agitate and Solve Technique.

Be emotional in the pain, but also emotional in the solutions.

Unless your target market is comprised of heartless automatons who remove their cybernetic faceplates before bedtime, then your audience has real, human needs.

Upping the emotional ante in website copy is not a new idea. However, in the framework of Agitate and Solve, it’s important to not only express the emotions of the pain, but also the relief that comes with the solution.

Experts in the digital marketing arena call this “future casting.” In short, give a benefit, and then put in the emotional element that drives the solution forward.

For example, the following copy showcases this technique as it pertains to the weight loss industry. See how the copy begins with a result, and then explains how the prospects will feel once they experience the solution.

Integrate logical copy as well—in both the agitation and solution.  

Ah, logic.

This is how you overcome several objections in your website copy. Website copywriters know it’s imperative to provide a logical solution, but what about the agitation portion of the formula?

Logic needs to go there, too.

Our professional copywriting team finds themselves using this technique most often when writing for the financial planning industry. As we educate the audience on what happens to their retirement money in the stock market, we pair logical appeals with emotional empathy.

Here’s an example:

“Most people who contribute to an IRA or 401(k) are either forced to do so by an employer, or they’ve been convinced to invest by someone who earns a BIG commission on their investment… but doesn’t really care how it performs.”

In the previous example, you see how our copywriters explain why the problem happens, and as a result, the audience understands the insight and expertise.

But logical appeals aren’t our favorite tenet of the Agitate and Solve Technique. This is…

Storytelling—use it.

You wouldn’t watch a movie that consisted of a recitation of facts and figures. The same rule applies to your website copy. To ramp up conversions and increase audience engagement, marry the Agitate and Solve Technique with storytelling.

Make it a point to create a narrative that highlights a problem, how that issue resolved, and the positive outcome.

That’s the winning formula.

To improve your website copy now with the Agitate and Solve Technique and more, check out our professional copywriting services.