The Small But Mighty Marketing Show – Episode 06

How To Write More Compelling Features & Benefits
(Transforming Your Copy From Boring to Tell-Me-More-ing)

No doubt you already use the power of features and benefits in your marketing copy, but if you’re not careful it’s easy to end up creating a list which has all the charisma of Mr Bean at an introvert’s convention.

As consumers much of our buying process is driven by emotion, (often unconsciously) so in your business you need a way to turn factual features into compelling emotion-based benefits.

(Yes, even you at the back, with your Which? subscription and fact-logging spreadsheets….even you are swayed by emotional factors into buying, you just don’t realise it!)

So how can you do this?

When I’m writing copy for clients I use a simple “W” test to flesh out features into benefits, and put the thump-you-in-the-feelz emotion into the copy.

Watch this episode of The Small But Mighty Marketing Show to discover what this is, and how you can use the “W” test to add some emotional sizzle to YOUR copy…

Feel free to hit the ‘Share’ arrow on the video if you’ve found it useful.

And if you want help with transforming your stolid left-brained features into right-brained benefits that get your reader’s emotional resonance all-of-a-quiver (as they whip out their credit card)…get in touch.

******************************************

PREFER TO READ?

Here’s the transcript of the video of you’re a reader rather than a watcher…

Hi, It’s Tanya Smith Lorenz. In today’s Small But Mighty Marketing Show I want to talk to you about features and benefits. If you’ve ever written any marketing copy, chances are at some point that you’ve written some sort of bullet list. It’s a great way to get a lot of information into quite a concise format. But if you’re not careful, it can end up being really dull and boring – just a laundry list of the surface facts about what you’re trying to sell.

Emotion Comes Before Logic When We’re Buying

As consumers, we buy based on emotion, and then we normally justify that with logic. But the emotion has to come first. We have to feel an emotional connection to something most of the time when we’re thinking about buying. Obviously, this is done at a fairly unconscious level, but you need to incorporate emotion into your marketing copy to make it more compelling.

When you’re writing features and benefits about the thing that you’re selling, it can be quite a common mistake to end up focusing on just the features, which tend to be very logic based and superficial. You need to turn the features into benefits because often that’s where the emotional resonance lies for someone to feel more attracted and compelled to buy the thing that you’re selling.

At the moment, I am writing a sales page for a client who has a patented haircutting system and I’m working through the features and benefits of that sales page.

Features would be things like the fact that her clients get step-by-step tutorials, they get printable worksheets and checklists, they have assignments that they can hand in, and also there are a team of tutors in a forum who can help them look at their assignments, answer any questions that they have. Those obviously are fantastic features. If you’re her target audience, that’s great. You’d be interested in that.

But…there’s no real emotional resonance with that list that I just gave you.

So What? Why Does That Matter To Me? (The Ladder to Emotional Resonance)

What you need to do in order to come up with more compelling benefits that reflect on those features is what I call a “W” test, and that is saying to yourself, “So what? Why does this matter to me?”

So from that list of features that I just gave you, one of the benefits would be that you get a repeatable foolproof system of cutting hair. But then when you say, “So what? What does that give me?” You then start to get into things like – it saves you time. And it means that as a hair stylist you’re not having to worry about creating bad haircuts or haircuts that your clients don’t like.

But then even we can take that to the next level. “So what? Why does that matter? What does it give me?” As a hairstylist, what that then means is that you become more in demand; it means that you can put your prices up, and it means that you start to become more positioned as an expert in your niche.

Again, you can go even a further level and say, “So what? Why does that matter? What does that give me?” That gives you ultimately the freedom to choose the best clients to work with and also freedom to choose how you run your business. You can focus on things which are more important to you because you can cherry-pick the best client. You’ve got a reputation as an expert because you have this repeatable system that you can use. Ultimately, that means that you get the freedom to run your business how you want and that may mean that you get to spend more time with your family or you get to travel more.

Once you start to get into the benefits, the emotional benefits which hinge off the original features, you start to make your sales message much more compelling.

From Worksheets and Tutorials To Freedom and Fun…

We’ve gone from features being about tutorials and worksheets and matter-of-fact things like that to and real emotional benefits of what that actually gives you ultimately at the highest level is the freedom to be seen as an expert, to charge more, to get better clients. Ultimately, that means you can run your business more how you want to and you can get the benefits which mean the most to you, whether that’s spending time with family and friends, or travelling, or working part-time, or becoming known as a guru in your space. (Whatever the benefits are that emotionally resonate with the reader).

You don’t get to those without doing the W test based on the features. What does that give me? Why does that matter?

You keep going up and up each level to the ultimate emotional level, which resonates best with your target audience.

If you find yourself writing sales copy and you’re scratching your head about features and benefits, that’s just one small way that hopefully you will find useful to help you go from the surface features to the very deep emotional benefits which people get from when they buy from you, from whatever it is that you sell.

Hopefully you found that useful. As ever, head over to MoreBusinessBuzz.com if you want more tips and useful information like this to help you write better marketing copy. See you next time. Bye bye.