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Turning Features Into
Benefits
By Terry Dean
The basic building
blocks of all advertising are your product's benefits (In this section we
will say product, but all of these statements are true of services
also)...What does your prospect get out of it? This is the foundation to
your advertising, your meat & potatoes so to speak! The first lesson in
almost every study of advertising starts (And often ends) with this
point...You must list your product's benefits, not it's features. And you
MUST know the difference. Every copywriter worth
anything has been plugging away on you for decades on this one principle.
Now, it is my turn to do it as well. I am honestly shocked that more than
90% of businesses still haven't figured this simple step out, but they
haven't. I have looked at
hundreds of ads where the writer still hasn't figured out this simple
principle, whether it was in the mail, in a magazine, or on the internet.
If you don't know the difference between the two, you might as well quit
now while you are ahead. While they have told
you to list all of the benefits, not the features, I expect that you may
never had anyone tell you exactly how to do it. Well, you are in for a
lesson then. Changing Features into
benefits is one of the simplest parts of writing your ads, but if you have
never been shown the key it can be a downright disaster. Simply, A feature is
it's basic qualities: how many pages, the color, the financing, the
durability, the warrantee, the size, the pay plan, the products, etc. A
benefit is whatever a Prospect will receive from each of the product's
features. In other words, the easiest way to transform a feature into a
benefit is to ask "What's in it for me?" If you ask that of each feature,
the benefit will come flying out at you. For example, if you
were selling an air conditioner, a feature may be it's high output cooling
system...BUT nobody really cares about this. What they do care about is
that it will keep them at a nice cool 70 degrees even when their
thermometer is melting in the 112 degree heat outside... If you are selling a
car that gets 55 miles per gallon, that is a feature. The benefit is that
you will only have to stop to get gas 1/2 the time everyone else does PLUS
you save double on all of your gasoline bills! See, that wasn't too
difficult. All you have to do is go down a list of features and ask
yourself two simple questions: 1) What's In this For
Me? 2) What do I get out
of it? Once you get those two
questions down, you have half of the art of ad writing down pat. Every
time a prospect looks at your advertising, they ARE ASKING those
questions! If all you tell them are the product's features or about
yourself, you can kiss the sale goodbye. You're better off
asking those questions FIRST! Then, your advertising will be ready to
answer them when the prospects ask the same questions. Your prospects
couldn't care less who you are or what you are selling, Unless There is
something in it for them. Don't make people
search through your advertising to find out what's in it for them. Put it
right up front...In the headline, in the opening paragraph, in the offer,
throughout the bullets, and all the way to the P.S. Make sure your sales
letter is chalk full of benefits your prospects want and need. That is why I call the
benefits your "Basic Building Blocks" to advertising. You will use these
benefits as you create your Headlines, offers, bullets, etc. THEY ARE YOUR
SALES LETTER! Terry Dean, a 5 year
veteran of Internet marketing, will Take You By The Hand and Show You
Exact Results of All the Internet Marketing Techniques he tests and Uses
Every Single Month" Click here to Find Out More: |
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