As a copywriter I’m always telling clients that the best copy focuses on the benefits of their product or service.
Customers are only interested in what you can do for them. They don’t care about you, your company or even what you sell (apart from to make sure you’re trustworthy). They just want to know how you’re going to make their life easier.
But when it comes to writing the copy, focusing on the benefits is tricky.
The first thing you have to work out is what the benefits are.
Identifying your benefits
When it comes to the features and specification of what you’re offering, you’ve got loads to write about, but the benefits? That’s a whole different ball game.
Before you start writing you need to work out who is your ideal customer.
Who are you writing for?
If you could pick your ideal customer, what would they be like?
Think about their age, occupation, likes and dislikes, what keeps them awake at night and what they want to get out of life.
Once you know everything about them, you’ll be able to write to them with passion to engage them in what you’re saying, to convince them their lives would be so much better with your product or service.
What about the benefits?
Once you know whom you’re writing to, it’s time to do some research to work out what the benefits are.
The first stage is to list all the features and specifications of what you’re offering.
Then, take each of these in turn and decide how they benefit your customers.
The next step is to think about the problems you will help them avoid backing up your benefits.
Finally, write down all the buying objections you can think of (e.g. in relation to cost) and how you would address them using the benefits you’ve already identified.
Copywriting isn’t as straight forward as you may think. If you want people to buy, you must:
- Address them directly
- Appeal to their needs and wants
- Demonstrate how your product/service will benefit them directly
- Address all potential buying objections
That’s quite a tall order for anyone, which is why many businesses bring in a professional copywriter.