A guest post by copywriter, Martin Booth.

Copywriting Advise: Sell the benefit, not the product

Everyone has a story to tell. So many business owners understand the value of telling their tale, which is great news for copywriters like me – because my job is to write that story for you.

But what should that story be about? It’s essential to consider the content of the message you want to convey to your potential customer.

The fact that it should be told as engagingly and persuasively as possible, and in a voice that is recognisably and authentically yours, is only one of the factors you need to consider.

Because the story you tell should be as compelling as possible, all the way from “Once upon a time” to the moment where everybody lives happily ever after.

As a business owner, you may want to shout from the rooftops about your product and services. You have spent so much time developing them that you are, quite naturally, excited about the things you produce and every detail of their delivery.

But… sadly, your audience doesn’t really want to hear about that. All it cares about your services is one thing: How will they make things better for me?

It’s tempting – and completely understandable, given that you are so close to the products to which you have dedicated your professional time and expertise – to talk purely about them.

I had one B2B client in the Far East that created a product that was designed to assist in a particular manufacturing process. Unfortunately, its website was all about the science behind the product.

You had to burrow a long way down before you reached the important fact that using this product had saved customers an awful lot of time and money. That was their story – at least, it was once I’d revised the site.

The same applies to B2C services. If you’re a plumber, don’t write about your certificates, the tools you use and the types of pipe you deploy. What your customer wants to hear is: I can fix your leak. I can keep your house warm.

Ultimately, people care less about your product than they do about what it can do for them and how it makes their lives better.

So when you tell your story, focus on that. Forget about the technical detail, and the precise descriptions of the components that go into your product.

Talk instead about how your buyer’s life will be improved by their purchase of that product. That way, you make the emotional connection that is so crucial to all decisions – yes, even commercial ones.

Opinion is divided over how long you have to attract and hold the attention of a visitor to your website. It may be two seconds, it may be seven seconds. What is not in doubt it that it is not very long at all.

And in those few seconds, you have to grab your reader’s attention by appealing to their emotions. You have far more chance of doing that by telling them what’s in it for them than you do by highlighting the technical wizardry that delivers that benefit.

Get that right… and you increase the chance that your story will have a happy ending.

 

MARTIN BOOTH  is an award-winning copywriter who is the founder and director of LeBoo Media. He set up the business after working as a sports journalist on the staff of several national newspapers, and in content-focused roles in the betting industry.