My dog, Aggie — suited up in her bright yellow raincoat — steps a nervous paw towards the pile of bones littered across my neighbor’s lawn.

A cautious sniff here. And there.

And then … a massive jump (at what looks like the height of a grown man) before running a large circle around the pile of bones.

The little charade seemed to be her attempt to prove that she is not a pup to be messed with.

Aggie, 1.
Bones, 0.

It’s been like this with her ever since Halloween decor made its way out of the damp basements of homeowners across town and onto their lawns.

But today, while Aggie was asserting her dominance over the painted plastic, I noticed something else about the spooky decor.

A sort of “great escape” of the living dead.

It seems like every other house features somewhere between 5 and 8 full-grown skeletons, with each “group” in the middle of what seems to be a synchronized plot to escape the hallowed ground they’re currently inhabiting.

Life-size skeletons … helping each other over wrought iron fences.

Sneakily ushering each other down the side-of-house corridors.

And in the case of at least one house, beckoning each other up — and on — to the roof!

Now … the thing that was interesting to me about this whole scenario is that the skeletons were NOT escaping alone.

They were escaping together.

Misery — and apparently, death — loves company, right?

Well it’s true in copywriting too.

It can be easy … even logical … to lead with the positive impact a reader will experience when using a product.

But this could be the wrong move. And it could even backfire on you.

Michael Masterson and John Forde talk about this idea in their book Great Leads, which I’m currently reading.

An excerpt:

“... Some studies even show that ‘up’ messages directed at someone who's already feeling ‘down’ can actually make them feel worse.

Why is that?

At least in part, it's because negative emotions that have an unwelcome way of washing over you - fear, pain, anger, frustration, shame, desperation, and more - can be isolating. It's easy to feel like you're the only one in the world who really ‘gets’ how wrong things feel.”

The natural question that follows, then, is when to use which?

Well, the rule behind that is what’s discussed in Great Leads … but it’s not what you might think.

If you’re interested in it — and many other types of leads and how to use them — you can find the book at the link below:

stealthiscopy.com/great-leads

David Patrick