As you might have noticed, the primary emotion for grabbing a Stage #1 prospect’s attention is fear. Depending on your target market, excitement can also be a good trigger for Stage #1 prospects. But Stage #2 prospects are already concerned, so the gloom and doom is both redundant and negative. On the other hand, if they’re already excited, they don’t want to hear about the exciting benefits. They want to find out how they can experience the benefit themselves. So a Stage #2 prospect’s driving emotion is curiosity. When it comes to invoking curiosity, conspiracy, scandal and secret knowledge are just what the doctor ordered. You’ve seen those ads that talk about: “TheONE Well Kept Secret of ___ ,” …or: “The ___ Secret that Your __Doesn’t Want You to Know About.” If you’ve used these “secret knowledge revealed” headlines, you probably know that they don’t always work as well as some copywriting enthusiasts claim. Sometimes, they bomb miserable. I’ve seen it. Now you know why. It’s not the message, it’s the timing. For example, let’s pretend again that you’re my 35 year old man who actually cares whether he lives or dies. And let’s also assume you’re already concerned about prostate cancer and curious about solutions for preventing it. You see this in your email inbox, your postal mail or on a sponsored Facebook ad: **