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THIS WEEK
Copywriting - Features vs. Benefits 101
ALSO IN THIS EDITION
| Copywriting - Features vs. Benefits 101 |
Repeat after me – people buy benefits! And yet most small businesses still write their copy as if all someone is interested in are the details about their product.
When someone wakes up in the morning and they are feeling cold they think "I need to get warm ". They don't wake up and think "I must go and buy a 5-bar radiant heater."
When someone looks around their office and sees it looks grotty they think "I need to get a cleaner in to keep my office looking great" and not "I want someone with the latest in microfibre cloths to clean my desks".
People have problems in their lives. When someone spends money on a product or service, they are looking for solutions to their problems.
People may be interested in the features of your product in a sort of "gee will you look at that" kind of way, but unless the features actually do something to solve their problem, their wallets will remain firmly in their handbags and pockets.
Your goal is not to force people to buy your product or service, it is to share your product and service with people who have a problem and would benefit from your product or service. You want to get their attention and say "hey I hear you have a problem – I think this can help you".
By being totally clear on the benefits your product brings to people you are more likely to get their attention. If your product does what you say it does, then you solve that person's problems and as a result you both end up with a win-win.
 How do you turn your features into benefits?
The first thing to do is to draw up your page with a minimum of 3 columns. List all of the features or characteristics of your product or service down the left hand column of a page.
In the middle column ask yourself the question – "Which means ..."?
So – if you have in your left column 5 bar radiant heater. If you ask yourself "Which means ..." one answer could be "it heats up really quickly".
In the last column ask yourself the question – "Which means ...?" again, this time about your answer you have just given. One answer could be "you and your family are warm and cosy quickly. Your kids don't have to shiver getting out of the bath".
Sometimes you really need to work hard on that last column as you are trying to identify the most exciting and influential benefits for your customer. You are looking for the things that will trigger the best response.
People respond most strongly when something connects with their personal values or emotional needs. Human Givens Psychotherapy has taken the work of Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs a step further. They suggest that each human looks to have their physical and emotional needs met in order to survive and grow.
Physical needs include:
- Food
- Shelter
- Air & water
- Sleep
- Nutritious food
Emotional needs include:
- Security
- Giving and receiving attention
- Sense of autonomy and control
- Being emotionally connected to others
- Feeling part of a wider community
- Friendship & intimacy
- Privacy
- Sense of status within social groupings
- Sense of competence and achievement
- Meaning and purpose
(Source Wikipedia)
What this means is when you are looking for the most powerful benefits, you are looking at benefits that will fulfil at least one of the emotional needs for people. You are looking to find ways for people to feel more secure, powerful, important, more in control, free, relaxed, loved, part of a community, with more time for themselves, like they have achieved something, fulfilled, proud or accepted.
Connecting a benefit with personal values is also extremely powerful. Your values are your internal compass. Everyone makes decisions and pays attention to things that are most aligned with their top values.
I particularly value the work of Dr John Demartini on defining our hierarchy of values. His theory says that we always spend our money on what is most important on our values system. If we value our children, we will spend our money on them and other things are left behind. If we value saving, then we save our money first.
By being clear on the emotional needs and the values that your product or service meets, you are better positioned to share this information with potential customers.
So ... get your list of benefits and share them with the world in your web copy and your general marketing. You will be amazed at the difference it will make.
| HR Tip - Selling the Benefits of Change |
Many businesses struggle with implementing change for their employees. But there are strong parallels that can be drawn from the world of copywriting to how you sell change to your employees.
Many managers just focus on the features of the change such as the duties of these roles will change or we will no longer be delivering x but we will be ramping up delivering y.
As you learnt in the copywriting article - people don't buy features, they buy benefits. And the benefits are most powerful when they are tied to a person's values. You need to sell the change in a way that your team will buy into the outcomes.
So - for each change jot down the answer to the question "which means". In the example where the duties of the role were going to change, the answers could be:
... which means that
- the person will be trained to undertake a broader range of duties which will make them even more highly skilled (for people that value ongoing learning), or
- the person will have less stress and hassle and more time to focus on what they do best (for people that value being able to focus on one thing at a time),
- the person will have to work less long hours and can get their life back (for people who value work life balance).
The important thing is to work out the benefit of each feature in change and then make sure you link this to a person or your team's value set.
Travel agencies have been going through a tough time lately. Many are reporting drops in passenger numbers as people have less discretionary income to spend on travel.
The agencies could sit and moan, or they could take a leaf out of the Flight Centre group and spin out a separate company - Travel Associates, who only cater to 5 star, exclusive travel market.
This market is largely immune to the economic woes of the rest of the industry. They travel frequently and spend more when they do travel. They are looking for personal experiences rather than the everyday trips. Which is why Travel Associates is such a great concept.
 You won't find Travel Associates offices in a shopping centre - they are located in exclusive cafe and fashion precincts, and they are only accessible by appointment. No dropping in to browse the brochures here!
Their focus is on total personal attention. Your consultant spends a lot of time working out what experiences you wish to enjoy on your holiday and then tailoring something to match your desires.
Each consultant is hired on the basis of extensive years of experience in the travel industry and a personal thirst for travel. They must be well travelled themselves - otherwise they are not hired.
Travel Associates certainly have taken a very clever approach to their market - exclusivity, personal service, and exceptionally skilled staff.
In your business - how are you catering to your top end clients? What can you adapt from the Travel Associates model?
PS: They have a great magazine as well as ezine they send out to subscribers. It is worth getting on the mailing list!
This week MYOB released a survey of nearly 1700 small businesses. The stats were eye-popping! Check out this post to see if you are one of just 41% of small businesses,
10 Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Next Tradeshow
exuberantly yours
Ingrid
Heart Harmony
PS: This week's blog also included posts about Gaia Capitalism, some copywriting imponderables and One Trillion and Counting!
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