Yes yes. I know you’ve spent ages fine-tuning your product to make it a rip-roaring success.

So it’s no surprise that you want to tell everyone — including me — about the fruits of your hard work. About all the brilliant features you’ve spent ages developing.

One problem. I, the reader of your ad, am not the slightest bit interested in you. It’s all about me.

If you want me to buy your product, I want to know what’s in it for me. Don’t give me your features. I want benefits. Cold, hard benefits:

• I don’t buy a camera because it’s got a ‘night-flash-mode’; I buy it because I can take better pictures at parties.
• I don’t buy a coat because it’s got a patented thermo-lining; I buy it because it keeps me warm when others are shivering.
• I don’t stay in a hotel because it’s in the town centre; I stay in a hotel because it’s just a few minutes walk from the many bars and restaurants in the town centre and so I don’t have to pay extortionate taxi fares.

Copywriting that ignores benefits and focuses on features is the advertising equivalent of looking at someone else’s holiday snaps. You know the ones:

This is me with an ice cream, what a lovely ice cream it was. It was worth going holiday just for that ice cream… And here are the kids with their ice creams…

Excruciating.

So don’t do it to your customers — explain to them why parting with their cash for your brilliant new product is going to make their lives better.

They might not thank you for it. But they’ll probably buy it.

Blog Post written by Erika Clegg