Get what you want, by framing it as being what other people want.
As a teen, I played baseball. The team wasn’t particularly good, but our pitcher was a veritable prodigy; at the age of fifteen he was throwing a 65 MPH fastball… and it seemed I was the only person capable (and willing) enough to be his catcher. My parents, seeing my interest in the sport, hired a trainer for a few sessions to develop my skills. The first thing he taught me became my obsession: the art of framing a pitch.
The top Google result for “framing a pitch” describes it as “giving the umpire a clear view of where you caught the ball” when in actuality it’s “giving the umpire a clear view of where you want him to think caught the ball.” Another writer, hidden deeper in the results, shared this:
Framing is a subtle movement of the wrist that drags the ball toward the strike zone. This slight movement occurs just as you catch the ball. The keyword here is subtle.
Umpires are not stupid or blind and will not be swayed to call a strike by some miraculous ball that changed direction and moved a foot to the right. http://www.baseball-catcher.com/guide/framing.htm )
It wouldn’t be until years later that it became clear how this applied to online marketing.
You can frame a product or service to be “in the strike zone” (where customers convert), but only if it’s close enough to what they’re looking for. Framing is that final tweak, not the whole thing. Furthermore, if you make too drastic of a framing to get your offer in the strike zone… the prospective customer will see that. They’ll not only recognize that it’s not a fit, but they’ll see you’re trying to frame a bad pitch and it will destroy the trust between you… permanently.
Driving traffic through paid advertising and don’t have trust with them yet? Frame a bad pitch and you’ll guarantee that you never will. If you have to stretch your framing, fix your offer or market to a different audience that has a different strike zone.
References
- Framing a Pitch, baseball-catcher.com