Hang around in most copywriting circle jerks and you hear copywriters repeatedly saying:
“Benefits, not features.”
But this ain’t exactly the most persuasive way to lead someone to a buying decision.
First, the features give context to the benefit.
Let’s take your average run of the mill vitamin D supplement:
The benefit could be boosting your mood because the feature is it includes a new mechanism to release vitamin D in your body the same way as the sun.
See how that’s more powerful, interesting, and persuasive than simply saying boost your mood?
But there are more mistakes these benefit bozos make:
Take, for example, disobeying the Rule of One, which is commonplace when copywriters list too many benefits. They string their benefits in quick-hit fashion, which makes them easy to gloss over, easy to doubt, and borderline anti-persuasive. It’s typically better to focus on a single benefit, explain the nuances of this benefit and how your product or service delivers on this promise.
But the worst mistake is this:
Opting for benefits instead of stories.
The human brain naturally gravitates to stories. It’s the key factor between having the attention span of a goldfish or binging an entire 20-hour show in a weekend. And, yes, stories tend to be more persuasive and profitable than benefits.
Why?
Well, not only can your audience “see” themselves as the person in the story (if’n you do your job well), but they also eliminate objections. Almost every benefit comes with an objection—but it’s impossible to “object” to stories.
Lace a story with solid benefits throughout and wrap it all up in a USP (unique selling proposition), and then you have a winning campaign more often than not.
But this takes thought.
Reflection.
And work.
But the sad truth is most copywriters are lazy. They know that slapping a few benefits in an email will still make their most loyal customers buy. But your most loyal customers only account for 20% of your audience and customer base. If you want to grow your business, then, well, you’ll need to learn how to lace benefits into your stories and wrap them up with a “USP bow.”
That’s the bad news.
The good news?
Instead of learning how to do this yourself, you can simply hit reply. We’ll hop on a quick call to make sure we’re a good fit. And if we are? Then, as long as you’re okay with paying my outlandish fees, I’ll take this gruesome process off of your hands.
John
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