If you’ve ever tried your hand at doing any sales or marketing copy, then you know the importance of writing about benefits instead of features. When you’re selling a car with your copy, you’re not really selling a box with four wheels and an engine; instead, you’re selling the benefits of having that specific thing in your prospects’ lives.
Here are a few tips to help you write about benefits more effectively:
- Use persuasive language. Think back to the kinds of writing that have successfully persuaded you in the past. If you have one on hand, bring it up. Chances are, you’ll notice a lot of active verbs with short phrases and memorable rhythm. You’ll see verbs that lean towards positive action and less that imply a negative response.
- Know your prospects. Study your audience and investigate how the product can be genuinely beneficial in their lives. Flesh them out in as detailed a manner as you can, taking into account their backgrounds, future aspirations, and present stature in life.
- Play to your prospects’ motivations. What, exactly, drives your prospects to buy the things they buy? What is it they value? This could be a whole gamut of things, from the appearance of prosperity to exclusivity to the feeling of being smarter than others.
- Present the most attractive benefit first. That way, you stir enough interest in the prospect to keep them reading your pitch. Go from the most attractive to the least attractive.
- Don’t list every possible benefit. Instead of focus on 1 to 5 key benefits, depending on how long your pitch is going to be. Yes, one can be enough provided it’s a very attractive lure to the audience you’re aiming to reach.
- Work to condense each benefit into a single sentence. The shorter you can state a benefit, the better. Not only will it be more memorable, it gives you plenty of room in formatting, allowing you to summarize everything later in a list.
- Illustrate the benefits. Don’t just say it, show it. Provide examples and anecdotes that help the readers imagine that benefit coming into their own lives. Narratives make what you’re describing feel more real.
- Encourage the reader to act. Always make a call to action that ties your pitch to the benefit they can realize if only they take that next step. Summarize your benefits, if you have more than one, before calling for action.