Back in 2014, I quit the one and only proper job I’ve ever had, as a buzzing little drone in a software company. I then started something I was completely unqualified for:
I became a stock analyst.
To be fair, all I was really doing was writing front-end content for The Motley Fool. But the very fact anybody would pay me to write about stocks was outrageous.
Not only did I know nothing about finance, or stocks, or business… but I also didn’t care.
There was nothing less interesting to me than how the price of Apple stock is moving, and whether NVIDIA would be a good buy at $19.
But here’s the kink in this story:
I spent each day reading about a new company, and writing up a 500-word blog post. “Yes, it’s a good buy.” “No, it won’t succeed in a new market.”
I had no idea what I was talking about. But a funny thing started to happen.
I was becoming interested in these companies. And by extension, in their stock prices. And yes, I even became interested in finance, and what all the different accounting numbers meant.
This, of course, has a very powerful implication for copywriting. The technical term for it is a “curiosity gap.”
Of course, people don’t get curious about a question they know the answer to. But they also don’t get curious about a question where their knowledge is non-existent.
The sweet spot is somewhere between these two extremes. Actually, it’s much closer to the “I know this answer” extreme.
In other words, if you want people to be curious about what you have to say, they must already know a lot about your topic.
But what if they don’t? Well, then it’s your job to tell them all about NVIDIA, in such a way that even a 2014 version of me would listen.
Finally, here’s a hot stock tip for you:
Click here and subscribe to my daily email newsletter. There’s actually nothing about finance in my emails. But if you’re interested in marketing and copywriting, I can fill in the occasional curiosity gap on those topics.