does the S.L.P.C. formula work for writing ____?

Got the following question (among others) from a reader this week:

This is one of the most frequently asked questions I get.

- Does it work for writing LinkedIn posts?
- Does it work for writing Facebook ads?
- Does it work for writing Instagram captions?
- Etc etc etc

And just to refresh your memory…

S.L.P.C. stands for:

S - Story
L - Lesson
P - Pivot
C - Call to action

This is the 4-step formula I cover in my book.

Now, the easy way to figure out whether it will work for another medium is…

Traffic temperature.

Here’s what I mean:

Your email subscribers are a warm audience.

They already know who you are and have taken multiple actions to put themselves on your list.

They’ve given you permission to show up in their inbox…

And by extension, the space (and the grace) to tell a story from your daily life.

On the flipside:

If you’re running ads to cold traffic on Meta or any other platform…

The people seeing your ad don’t know you.

They’re not invested in what you have to say.

(at least not yet)

Instead, you’re interrupting their day in the hopes of grabbing their attention.

So in this case…

You have to go for the jugular.

You don’t have the luxury of making your point indirectly.

Otherwise, they’ll just keep scrolling.

That’s why the S.L.P.C. formula doesn’t work for writing cold ads.

In other words:

❌ It doesn’t work for cold audience
✅ It does work for warm audiences

This is how you can quickly figure out whether it applies to a specific format or medium.

Make sense?

I hope so.

Because that’s all I got for ya today.

I’m battling a nasty head cold that is seriously cramping my creative juices 🫠

Jim Hamilton