|
Freelance Copywriter Secrets: 7 Ways To Write Powerful Benefit Statments
I read a major magazine from cover to cover the other day, looking
at the advertisements. These are ads that cost the companies thousands
of dollars to run, but throughout my reading I kept thinking, "where
are the benefits?"
When I reached the end, I realized that less than 10% of the ads were
benefit oriented. And yet, if you were to ask the copywriters who wrote
these ads, each of them could give you a lengthy lecture on how
important strong benefit statements are to writing good copy.
The problem is that many of us think we are writing about benefits, but
we are writing only near misses. We use words that take the place of
benefits and mistake them for the benefits themselves. But here are 7
ways that can help you (and me) write stronger benefits statements:
1. Don't write a single sentence of your copy until you first
write out an entire page full of benefits. If your product or service
is relatively complex, your benefits list may run into several pages.
This exercise alone cuts through our natural tendency to write only
superficial benefit statements. By the time you get past the first 10
or so, your benefits will start becoming stronger and stronger.
2. As yo write your list, think about your product as either a
solution or an opportunity. What kind of pain will this widget take
away? What new opportunities will it open up?
3. Get past the tendency to write about features but think we are
writing about benefits. This happens when we are so close to the
product or service that our minds translate a feature into the benefit
it was designed to bring about. For example, if to a car industry
insider, anti-lock braking systems mean safety. But to everyone else,
that leap in imaginiation takes additional explanation. Fix this by
tagging each statement with a sentence like, "and what this means to
you, is .."
4. Approach your product or service from the point of view of your
targeted customer. Write out a long list (fill up several pages, again)
with sentences that begin with, "this is for the person (or
organization) who wants ______ . Looking at your product from the
perspective of what the customer wants opens up more and more insights
that you can easily turn into benefit statements.
5. Take the benefit statements you've already written and go one
or more levels deeper. Let's take the auto braking system again. Now
your want sentence my be, "for the person who wants the confidence
while driving in bad weather." Or, "for the person who wants to be able
to avoid accidents caused by unexpected mistakes from other drives or
pedestrians."
6. Don't forget to write emotional benefits. Sometimes we think
only of the practical types of benefits, but certain emotions and
feelings can be just as important to the customer as the "what it will
do for me" practical ones. In your list of sentences describing "for
the person who wants _____," be sure to include feelings this person
wants to feel. Continuing with the brake example, "this is for the car
owner who wants to feel secure when his teenage daughter is driving
alone on a stormy night," includes the kinds of feelings that are true
benefits for potential customers.
7. A good benefit statement can sometimes be a negative. Often the
things a person doesn't want or wants to avoid are just as persuasive
as those that are stated in the positive. Don't forget to include
benefit statements that clearly define what a person does not want in
your list of benefits.
Benefit statements are the building blocks of all the work a freelance
writer does. The people who read our ads, web content or direct mail
pieces are only interested in what your product or service will do for
them. When your benefits ring true to them, you are speaking their
language.
freelance copywriter, copywriting tips, white papers, rainmaking tips
COPYRIGHT(C)2006, Charles Brown. All rights reserved.
Charles Brown is a Dallas, Texas based freelance copywriter who writes
web copy, advertisements, white papers and direct mail. Read his
"Freelance Copywriter Secrets" at dynamiccopywriting.blogspot.com or contact him at 817.715.3852 or **charbrow@gmail.com**.
| 