Product Benefits – The Secret Ingredient of Profitable Sales Copy Writing

There is a clear distinction between features and benefits. Discovering the direct benefits, indirect benefits and deeper inner benefits is the key to writing outstanding copy. Learn how you can get top notch copy by placing your focus on benefits.
Features talk about the products and benefits talk about the advantages of the features and the products. While features tell, benefits sell. The most important difference between features and benefits is as follows:
Features – what the products have or do.
Benefits – what the users get.
Examples:
Feature: 1GB storage.
Benefit: can store 2000 songs, 3 movies and hundreds of documents.
Feature: 42″ screen.
Benefit: theater-like movie experience at home.
Feature: Weighs less than a pound.
Benefit: Can carry everywhere in your hands.
Before you start writing a promo, sit down and identify every benefit possible with the product hand. You will need to research a lot, finding people who have used the product and discovering how they have used it.
You can find dozens of benefits, even if the product is something mundane like a pencil. The only thing is to discover the benefits.
Write down every benefit. Then is time to sort and sift through your list of benefits. In any case, you will discover at least half a dozen benefits that you can use in your copy.
If you can’t find the benefits straight away, sit down and write down the features. Features are technical specifications of the products.
When the feature of a hard disk says it has 500 GB storage capacity, explain to your readers they can store any number of songs, movies, games, photos, or everything they want.
When the feature of a skin cream says it contains aloe vera, tell your readers it keeps the skin moisturized, supple and hygienic.
Well, they are direct benefits of the features. Dig a little deeper to discover the indirect benefits or ‘benefits of the benefits’. Some of them are:
Get a trimmed body that you can flash at the beach.
Get your ex begging you to take him back.
Make your friends wonder about the special movie experience you get at home.
Easily write hundreds of sales letters that reel customers in, selling your products like crazy.
Then you tap the deeper benefits.
Feel the unmistakable confidence of owning a healthy, beautiful body.
Never feel down again.
You command great respect, power and profits with your copy that moves people.
Discovering benefits at deeper level is extremely difficult. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it and there won’t be a reason for businesses to hire you to write their promos.
Keep this point in mind. Ability to discover the benefits, at deep inner levels, is one of the most important skills you need to develop as a copy writer.