Put Drama, Power And Passion Into Your Benefits

What’s the difference between Benefits and Features?
A lot of people struggle with this one. You will hear time and time again from copywriters that your copy must be full of benefits. Your problem is how you determine the difference. Ok let’s look at some everyday examples. If you have a hairdressing salon it might look something like this.

Feature: -

1. We have 10 of the best trained stylists.
    
2. The most up to date salon including fully adjustable seats.
    
3. We stock only the best brands of hair products.
    
4. We have 3 of our own fully trained nail technicians.

Benefit: -

1. Fully trained redesign specialists means we will give you at least 5 brand new drop dead gorgeous hair designs to choose from.

2. Which means, no more uncomfortable hair washes leaving you with a sore neck.

3. Which means, our products will condition your hair to leave it silky smooth and manageable.

4. Which means you can complete your new look by having your nails beautifully manicured.

It’s a good idea before you start writing to make a list of the features of your product. To do this properly you have to really know your product. Beside each one write “which means” then write a benefit for your reader. If you can’t think of a benefit chances are it’s not an important feature.

Some writers take this a step further. The highly acclaimed Ted Nicholas for example writes as many benefits as he can think of on 3×5 cards. He uses short action words which are appealing to the reader always keeping in mind WIIFM.

The only reasons your reader will be interested in your product are the benefits they will gain from it, remember people are only interested in themselves. Quite often when you are going through this process of listing the benefits you discover your headline.

You then need to decide the order of the benefits, ie placing the strongest benefit first then the second and so on. These can be used in bullet form or weaved into your copy or sometimes even a combination of the two.

So remember, you have to think Benefits, Benefits and then more Benefits, you can never have too many!

Anne Pearson
Compelling Copywriter

http://www.mapcopywriting.com
anne@mapcopywriting.com
Skype – mapcopywriting
Tel / Fax – 01772 468979

Please feel free to use this article. All I ask in return is that you include the above signature and URL.

The Long Versus Short Argument

How long should your copy be?
I’m sure you’ve read a lot of discussions around this particular question…I know I have! So I’ll ask it again “How long should your copy be?” Well the first thing it depends on is what your product is. If for example your product is a tube of toothpaste…there’s only so much you can say about a tube of toothpaste without boring your reader to tears. Use short copy. If on the other hand your product has many features and benefits use long copy. The more you tell the more you sell.

Some people believe that a reader will not read long copy…nothing could be further from the truth. Some of the most successful direct mail letters and adverts over the years have used long copy. The world famous Claude Hopkins once wrote five pages of copy for Schlitz Beer which moved from fifth place to first place in just a few months.

Research does show that readership falls off quite quickly for the first fifty words, but slows quite dramatically between fifty and five hundred words. In his first famous Rolls-Royce advert David Ogily used 719 words. He literally piled one fascinating fact on top of another. In his last paragraph he wrote the line “People who feel diffident about driving a Rolls-Royce can buy a Bentley”. The number of motorists that picked up on the word diffident concluded him to believe his copy had been thoroughly read. So he used 1400 words in his next advert!

Every piece of copy you write is a complete sales pitch for your product. You have to treat it as though this is the only chance you will ever get to sell the product to your reader. The more facts you tell the more you will sell.

Here is a quick story about Max Hart (of Hart, Schaffner & Marx) arguing with his advertising manager George L. Dyer about long copy. Dyer said “I’ll bet you ten dollars I can write a newspaper page of solid type and you’d read every word of it,” Naturally Hart scoffed at the idea. “I don’t have to write a line of it to prove my point,” Dyer replied. “I’ll only tell you the headline: This Page Is All About Max Hart.”

 

Anne Pearson
Compelling Copywriter

http://www.mapcopywriting.com
anne@mapcopywriting.com
Skype – mapcopywriting
Tel / Fax – 01772 468979

Please feel free to use this article. All I ask in return is that you include the above signature and URL. 

7 Styles of Headline Guaranteed To Make Your Sales Soar

What style of headline is most successful?
There isn’t really one answer to that as there are several different styles that can be used with equal success. Before you even start to choose which style you are going to use write down as many benefits as you can think of. The headline should never be put in at the last minute without a great deal of time and thought. Ninety percent of your time should be spent getting the right headline because without it your sales copy will never be read anyway.

1. Announcement. To make this style of headline work you have to be careful not to make it merely factual and boring. It has to be specific aimed at your prospective buyer, for example it would be no good if BMW launched a new car like this:-

“BMW Launch their New Car” – There’s no benefit at all, just a fact. “Top Gear Presenter Praises BMW’s Amazing New M3…0-60 in 3.8 Seconds” – Although unlikely (we all know Jeremy Clarkson hates BMW’s) makes a much more compelling headline.

2. Guarantee. It’s great if your product comes with an iron clad guarantee…provided it lives up to your claims. This can make for a really powerful headline, for example:-

“Lose 10lbs of Ugly Fat in 14 days or Your Money Back” – This benefit is guaranteed.

3. How to. This style is best used when offering a solution to a problem. Although there are already thousands of books with ‘How To’ in the title it is still very successful, for example:-

“How to Improve Your Golf Swing…”

4. Specific. This is aimed specifically at your target reader and therefore will not be of any interest at all to the general public. For example:-

“At Last an End to Your Back Pain”

5. The Testimonial. What better than a testimonial. After all something your customers have said is a lot more believable and powerful than anything you could say yourself. For example:-

“He Couldn’t Believe It Was Me…It Wasn’t! To Be Honest I Just Called In For A Trim…I Left Feeling like a Superstar.

6. Reasons Why. You are giving the reader a specific number of reasons why they should do something. You are also arousing their curiosity as they want to know what the reasons are, so you are drawing them into your copy. For example:-

“12 Reasons Why You Must Be At Salon & Spa Super Conference”

7. Emotional. Use this style to really hook into people’s feelings. For example:-

“I Wept When The Battery In My Camcorder Ran Out At My Daughter’s Wedding”

I would recommend trying out a few different styles when you’re writing out your headlines. Write as many different headlines as you can.

 

Anne Pearson
Compelling Copywriter

http://www.mapcopywriting.com
anne@mapcopywriting.com
Skype – mapcopywriting
Tel / Fax – 01772 468979

Please feel free to use this article. All I ask in return is that you include the above signature and URL.

How To Write Headlines That Skyrocket Your Sales

Just how important is the headline anyway?
Probably the single most important thing you will write in your copy. There are a number of reasons that the headline is so important, one of them being that on average five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy…that’s five times! The headline is the red flag waving to attract the attention of your prospective buyer. It stands to reason then that by reading your headline your prospect should immediately know you are speaking to them. For example if you are selling a cure for a Bad Back it’s a good idea to use the words “Bad Back” in your headline as anyone who suffers from one will be immediately drawn to it.

I think it’s important at this stage to point out the dangers of excluding readers who may be prospects. For example if your product can be used equally well by men and women don’t slant your headline purely towards women or you will lose the attention of the men.

We know that copy has to appeal to the self interest of the reader and nowhere is that more vital than in the headline. The headline should always include a benefit for your prospect, after all people act 90 percent on their emotions. Benefits help to bring out those emotions.

Don’t forget the all important question “What’s In It For Me?”

The type of words you use in your headline will also influence it’s effectiveness. People are always on the look out for new products or the latest model. Two of the most powerful words you can use in your headline are Free and New. Now it’s not very often you can use the word Free because the aim is to sell your product not give it away! You can however use the word New quite effectively along with other powerful words such as introducing, it’s here, just arrived, amazing, remarkable, revolutionary, sensational and so on. There are a lot of powerful words you can use so just experiment with a few.

Don’t fall into the trap that some copywriters do of writing tricky headlines. If your reader has to decipher the meaning of an obscure headline you have lost them forever. Your headline has to telegraph what you want to say in plain language.

One more thing to avoid in headlines is negatives. These can be dangerous as many readers will miss the negative as they read for example…“Our pies contain No Dog Meat”   Most readers will go away with the impression that you wrote…"Our Pies Contain Dog Meat"

So you can see how damaging that could be!

 

Anne Pearson
Compelling Copywriter

http://www.mapcopywriting.com
anne@mapcopywriting.com
Skype – mapcopywriting
Tel / Fax – 01772 468979

Please feel free to use this article. All I ask in return is that you include the above signature and URL.

At Last The Secret Of A Little Known Technique Proven To Explode Your Sales

I am about to reveal to you a little known but very powerful technique that nobody teaches for writing compelling headlines.
It was originated by the highly acclaimed Ted Nicholas and he calls it finding the Hidden Benefit. He has created some of the most successful headlines in direct marketing history by using this self same method.

For this to be successful you really have to know…not your product but your prospective customer. You have to imagine what the single biggest benefit your prospect could ever dream of obtaining from your product is. What would be their ideal…their utopia? Write it down.

How successful is this technique? Well how about 24.5 million dollars worth! This is one example taken from the great man himself. He had written a book of forms called “The Complete Book of Corporate Forms”. Not the most exciting of products I’m sure you’ll agree. So the task then was how to differentiate his book from the numerous other books of that type available at the time. How could he make such a dull sounding product enticing?

By asking himself that question he quickly realised that entrepreneurs hate forms and paperwork so they need a benefit from using the forms. Everyone hates paying taxes…perhaps entrepreneurs more than most. No one wants to lose any tax shelter they may have. So the following headline came to him by following this thought process.

“What Will You Do When The IRS Suddenly Wipes Out Your Corporation’s Tax Shelter Benefits?” You might have noticed there is no mention of forms in the headline. That’s because it’s a feature…and not a very exciting one at that. The book does contain information about the importance of keeping good records to maintain the corporate protection. There is no mention in the book at all about the IRS (American Inland Revenue) taking away benefits, although that is always a possibility.

Hence the title of Hidden Benefit.

The book sold 350,000 copies from 1979 to 1995 and can still be found selling on Amazon today. That’s 24.5million dollars from a book of very dull and boring forms. A word of warning though, when using this technique makes sure that your product does in fact deliver on the headline’s promise.

When used correctly this technique really can explode your sales!

 

Anne Pearson
Compelling Copywriter

http://www.mapcopywriting.com
anne@mapcopywriting.com
Skype – mapcopywriting
Tel / Fax – 01772 468979

Please feel free to use this article. All I ask in return is that you include the above signature and URL.

Feeding The Mind

People buy because they want something…not because they need it. 
What you have to do as a copywriter is to persuade them that they want what you’re selling so badly that they simply must have it. To do that you have to paint vivid pictures for them so they can actually see and experience it in their minds eye.

The human brain can picture something easily when you have experienced it with your five senses. For example if I say the word “water” you will immediately know what it’s like. You know how it looks, feels, tastes, smells and sounds. Your mind can go further than that. If the words are descriptive enough you can actually live the experience. When you are trying to sell something you have to help your reader to picture the situation.

Setting The Scene.
Imagine this for a moment. You are in a warmly lit room next to an open fire. You are sitting on a big sumptuous chair with your legs curled up underneath you. You know the sort of chair with big soft cushions that you really snuggle into. Outside it is dark and you can hear the rain beating on the windows and the wind blowing wildly through the trees. The curtains are drawn closed to block out the dreariness of the winter evening. You have cupped in your hands a big mug of the most deliciously rich hot chocolate that you are sipping through the creamy top. Every so often you have to lick the white cream from your lips. The log fire is roaring beside you and you can feel the glow of your cheeks as you sink further into your chair.

Not only can you feel the warmth of the fire and cosiness of the room against the wild weather outside. Chances are you can even taste the chocolate!

You have to tell stories and paint pictures for your readers to experience. It has been proven that when a reader has experienced something vividly they get emotionally involved with it. As we know people buy with emotions so this increases sales.

 

Anne Pearson
Compelling Copywriter

http://www.mapcopywriting.com
anne@mapcopywriting.com
Skype – mapcopywriting
Tel / Fax – 01772 468979

Please feel free to use this article. All I ask in return is that you include the above signature and URL.

How to Write Irresistible Copy

How can you make your copywriting so persuasive that your target market simply can’t resist?
Well a lot of this is down to the research you have done first, so how do you do this research? One way is to hang out in the same places as they do, for example there are forums and groups online for just about anything you can think of. Read what they are talking about and just as important how they are saying it. It’s no good using highfalutin language if the people you’re trying to sell to can’t understand it. Use the same language they do. Your copy has to be conversational, imagine you are talking to a close friend.

Tick the right boxes.
You have to know how your reader thinks and how to tick the right boxes to keep him or her reading your copy. Copywriting has to be very self driven, people are only interested in themselves. That might sound a bit controversial but it’s true. You have to be able to appeal to their self interest. All the time they are reading they will be thinking WIIFM (what’s in it for me). Nobody really cares about your problems, dreams or goals. Only their own.

Make them want it.
So how do you appeal to their self interest?
Think what it is they want, not the actual physical object you are selling but what they will get from it. Don’t forget it’s the benefits that sell, not the features. A feature is simply a component of your product or service, a benefit is what the user of your product or service will get from that feature.

Think about the pleasure they will get when they finally have it. Don’t think about selling an object think about selling an image…a dream. Imagine the scene then paint pictures with your words.  People don’t buy something because they need it, they buy it because they want it…must have it. People buy with their emotions. You have to appeal to those emotions whether they are greed, fear, flattery or guilt.

All you have to do is decide which emotion you need to appeal to, for example a weight loss programme aimed at women might be flattery. Because every woman wants to look and feel good. By describing the compliments she will receive on her figure, and helping her to picture how she will look, you can trigger an emotional response for something she will receive rather than something she currently has.

 

Anne Pearson
Compelling Copywriter

http://www.mapcopywriting.com
anne@mapcopywriting.com
Skype – mapcopywriting
Tel / Fax – 01772 468979

Please feel free to use this article. All I ask in return is that you include the above signature and URL.

Where To Start Your Copywriting

How do you start copywriting?
What are the first things you must do…before putting pen to paper?
Have you ever heard people say that you should smile when speaking on the phone, as it comes across to the person at the other end of the call?
Well it’s a similar thing when you write. If you are not in the right frame of mind your reader will pick up on it. It makes sense when you think about it. If you’re feeling down because of a row you’ve just had, or stressed after a difficult day, how can you sit down and be enthusiastic about your subject?

Everyone has their own approach to this. Some people, like the highly acclaimed Ted Nicholas, like to do some light exercise before sitting down to write. I always have to make sure I’ve had a good nights sleep, and I think it’s essential to unplug your phone and make sure you won’t be disturbed.

Homework First.
So there you are, you’re wide awake, you’re in a great mood, your phone is unplugged and you’re raring to go.

So what now? Have you researched your product? Sorry, did I forget to mention that?

Before you even think about sitting down to write you have to research your product. You need to know all the benefits so you can answer all of your readers questions. The main question they will be asking is…

 “What’s in it for me?”

There is no substitute for studying your product…tedious though this may be. Quite often you stumble across the best way to sell it hidden in the benefits. One such instance was when David Ogilvy wrote his most famous advert for Rolls-Royce. He spent three weeks reading about the car when he came across a statement that ‘at sixty miles an hour, the loudest noise comes from the electric clock’. This became the headline followed by 607 words of factual copy.

Talk the Same Language. As well as researching your product you need to know about the competition, what are they doing and what sets your product apart from the rest.

Of course all of the above are useless if you don’t know who will buy your product. You have to know your target market, who are they, how do they think, what sort of language do they use. I don’t mean do they speak English, I mean what sort of words do they use when talking about whatever it is you’re selling. You really need to get inside their head and understand what is important to them and what promise would make them buy your product.

When you have done all of this, and only then, you will almost be ready to start writing.

 

Anne Pearson
Compelling Copywriter

http://www.mapcopywriting.com
anne@mapcopywriting.com
Skype – mapcopywriting
Tel / Fax – 01772 468979

Please feel free to use this article. All I ask in return is that you include the above signature and URL.

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