Future Pacing for Good Copywriting

This is a good copywriting ‘fix’ to electrify your sales copy.

Even if you’re a beginner or don’t like writing.

Check it out.

I’m sure you know the importance of ‘future pacing copy’ for good copywriting.

’Painting the future’ for our prospects so they ‘see’ themselves having achieved the result. And living their ‘new’ life is a key component to influence and persuasion.

So I want to share a little ‘tip’ I look for whenever I’m helping someone tweak their sales page.

Let’s say you sell a weight loss program.

You want to sign on new members.

Future pacing copy might be something like this;

. . .

“When you join the Joey Minimizer program , you’ll lose 10 pounds of belly fat in just 30 days. You’ll feel more confident when you go out. And best of all, you will be supported and encouraged if there are days when you feel like quitting. This will finally be the program that sheds those extra pounds!”

. . .

(btw, I’m not a weight loss expert and couldn’t tell you if any of this is true…it’s just an example to teach my point)

Now.

That first one is an “ok” example of good sales copy.

And even though it’s not the “best” copy ever written, it's still good copywriting.  I’m sure you can see the ‘future pacing’ I’m doing.

But we want to make it better.

Here’s one way to tap into the power of future pacing copywriting:

. . .

“On the first day of the Joey Minimizer program you do a simple, low impact exercise. It only takes 10 minutes.

And you realize this isn’t so hard after all.

You realize it’s not like all the other programs that throw you into a super-hard…disruptive…painful exercise routine from day one.

No.

You’re actually looking forward to day 2.

But you think ‘it can’t be this easy’.

So you jump into the support group. You read through some of the posts from people who are a bit ahead of you.

Yup.

They’re saying the same thing.

They can’t believe how simple and easy this program is either.

Reading the results from others inspires you even more. So you know you can lose 10 pounds too.

And you’re happy about your decision to be here.

Because you’re already feeling more confident than you did yesterday.”

. . .

anyway, I could go on and on and on.

But here’s the real ’secret’ to good copywriting.

Read through the two future pace copy examples one more time with this lens;

The first one is about what CAN happen. The focus is on a promise – a hope.

Classic future pacing.

But the second one, tells the story about what IS happening.

It’s in the PRESENT tense.

Which means in good sales copy, the reader can ‘see’ themselves in the ACT of DOING.

Why is this important?

Because in the second ‘future’, I remove the CAN HAPPEN…and replaced it with this IS HAPPENING.

Cool, right?

Which means YOU can turn any copy you have right now by changing the tense. Then you'll have future pace copy in play.

Read through your own copy and adjust it to make it “happening now”. As if they’ve already bought your stuff.

Which brings me to a hidden psychological secret.

When you future pace in the ‘present’ tense, the reader is in the place of “as if”.

“As if” they already bought from you…

And this is one of the best good copywriting tips I've learned.

In short, you remove the “buying” part…and jump straight to the “using” (your product/service) part.

Now that you know how to future pace, here's The first thing to do when writing copy for sales pages(Opens in a new browser tab)

Hope this helps.

If you have any questions or comments about good copywriting, drop ‘em below 🙂