Real, simple.
View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) As someone who earns a living by writing persuasive copy, I often talk about the importance of understanding the difference between features and benefits.
I do this because benefits are consistently underused and are the least understood part of marketing today. That remains true both for businesses and public-sector organizations.
Features are easy to grasp. They are facts: the elements that your product or service are made from. When we take on a writing job on our own, we’re all prone to gravitate to features (which is one more reason why it pays to hire a professional writer and get that outsider’s perspective).
Benefits, on the other hand, are a bit more tricky. They describe what the customer can gain by choosing your product or service.
Each benefit is a promise.
I like the way David Ogilvy—the grand old man of advertising—once summed it up. “It pays to promise a benefit,” he wrote, but then added, “…the product must deliver the benefit you promise. Most advertising promises nothing. It is doomed to fail in the marketplace.”
When making the case in writing for your product or service, it’s not enough to just add benefits onto features.
The promises you make need to be ones that your audience will understand and care about. This is where a lot of people hesitate and wind up with benefits that are vague, indirect or couched in jargon.
Back in 2001, market research firm Eureka Ranch analyzed over 900 brands, evaluating the resonance of benefits. They found that those who chose simple, obvious benefits were 75% more likely to succeed than those who buried their promises in wishy-washy language.
Instead, be real. Keep it simple.
Take the time to research your market and understand the underlying problems that motivate someone to buy from you. When you understand this, the promises you make with your benefits will be more specific and much more capable of living up to expectations.
Very best, Patrick
http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=|URL:MC_SUBJECT|: |URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT| Tweet (http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=|URL:MC_SUBJECT|: |URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT|) http://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=|URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT| Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=|URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT|)
============================================================ |IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE| |LIST:DESCRIPTION|
unsubscribe from this list (|UNSUB|) update subscription preferences (|UPDATE_PROFILE|)
|IF:REWARDS| |REWARDS_TEXT| |END:IF|