Learn2Success.com » Copywriting

Writing All About Buyer Benefits in Sales Letter Is The Key to Success?

Mr Success — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:16:58 +0000

Anyway, What Exactly Are Benefits ?

Think of benefits as advantages to the customer. It’s what your product ‘does’ for buyers… rather than what it ‘is’. Benefits give value to a product — value that exceeds the cost of the product itself. Benefits make your product appealing, causing others to willingly shell out their hard earned cash in order to get the perceived benefits.

Benefits are the real reason your product exists and has a chance in the marketplace. Without major benefits, you have nothing to sell and will not success.

Benefits are what prospects get as a result of buying your product. They’re all about prospects and answer the foremost question on every visitor’s mind

Benefits give meaning, significance, and value to a feature and make the product more appealing in the prospect’s eyes. For example, a desktop widget that’s available in 43 different colors enables buyers to suit any imaginable office design and décor.

What About Features?

Features on the other hand, are actual product details. It’s all about your product and what it is and may include details about the product color, size, shape, and materials used among many other things. Features are facts and characteristics.

Used alone, they offer little in terms of selling power. But when employed as the reasoning behind a benefit, features can act as effective supplemental sales tools.

The most effective way to use a feature is to align it with a compelling benefit where the exclusive feature creates in essence, an exclusive benefit. Make the feature a valuable characteristic because of what it does.

Always use benefits first and foremost. Benefits influence, persuade, and sell prospects on your product or offer.

Features play a secondary role, if they play one at all in your sales letter.

Every feature has at least one corresponding benefit and it’s up to you as marketer to uncover it, dust it off, and present it in a way that gives the product added value. The idea is to build a credible and realistic bridge from a product’s feature to an appealing benefit.

Which Benefits Should Be Included?

Everything that represents a genuine helpful advantage or benefit to your prospect should be included in your sales letter. List every conceivable benefit. Prioritize and deliver your benefits in the order from the most relevant and important to the least. Omit any single benefit and you might be leaving out the one advantage that could sway an undecided shopper.

The more benefits you stress in your copy, the more opportunities you have to sell others and the better will be your response. In fact, your sales letter should consist of one benefit on top of another.

Launch your sales letter with a big benefit in your headline. Expand on this major benefit in your subheading. Continue along with a string of benefits throughout the body copy of your message. Repeat your main benefit in your close or on the order form. The more benefits you present, the more convincing, persuasive and effective your sales copy is as a decision-making tool in the hands of prospects.

The Easiest Way To Turn Features Into Benefits

Simply take any feature and ask yourself what it means to customers or prospects.

Since features are about products, you need to give it a new twist, making it about the prospect.

Here’s an easy way to convert any ‘fact’ about your product into a prospect benefit. Simply take a feature and add the words “You get”. When you think in terms of ‘You get’ — you’re thinking about how the prospect/customer is greater advantaged by having or using the product.

Here’s an example…

Fact or Feature: Fax machine prints on regular paper
Benefit: As a result, you get clearer printouts on standard size paper. No need to buy costly fax rolls again. In addition, there’s no cutting required. Plus, never again will you ever have to deal with unsightly oversized pages that jam your filing cabinet and make a mess of your files.

Another way to phrase it is “so that you get”. State the feature and follow it up with “So that you get…”

“How To Get More Done In Less Time is a concise, 21-page tips booklet so that you get only the most crucial, hard-hitting, time saving information — without any filler. Read it all in a single sitting and put these time saving ideas into practice immediately. No need to read hundreds or thousands of pages to uncover the key ideas – you get it all in just minutes!”

Think the answer through from your prospect’s point of view. See it how he’s likely to see it. What’s the advantage from their perspective? What is it about that particular feature that makes it valuable and advantageous to the audience? That’s what you need to think about… and that’s what you need to communicate to your prospect.

Why Benefits Are So Important

Meaningful advantages sustain and build reader interest. Lose interest and you’ve lost any chance for a sale. Benefits focus on prospects and address human wants, so they naturally attract and hold the interest of readers.

Your prospect has a problem he’d dearly like to solve, or a goal he desperately wants to reach. He wants less pain in his life and more pleasure. Suddenly, he discovers your product. But it’s not the product itself he’s most interested in; it’s the perceived benefit he’ll get to experience as a result of buying.

But how does your prospect know if your product is the ideal answer he’s been searching for?

If you merely reveal descriptive details about your product in your sales copy, it won’t have much appeal. You can’t simply present your goods in a ‘here it is’ approach and expect prospects to figure out the advantages for themselves. That’s lunacy. Yet, many do try this approach. A much more effective strategy is to paint a glorious picture of the kind of results that are possible with your product. Make it absolutely clear and utterly obvious.

If you don’t unveil all the benefits, they’ll never figure it out for themselves, nor will they waste a minute of their precious time in trying to do so. If your message doesn’t reach out and grab them because of its magical appeal – due to the benefits expressed – you don’t stand much of a chance in an increasingly competitive online marketplace. Benefits tell prospects where to go in search of the answers.

They have magical, emotional appeal and offer hope and promise to those in want and need. Benefits are solutions to problems, cures to symptoms. Few purchases are made without a strong reason. The reason prospects are even remotely interested in your sales message is because they have a problem they’d like to solve, a symptom they’d like to cure, or a desire they’d like to attain.

When you communicate benefit on top of benefit, your words cut through the noise and directly trigger your prospect’s hot buttons.

Features are about things – specifically your product. Benefits are about feelings and it’s these feelings that control human actions. If you want to communicate effectively, you’ve got to arouse feelings consistently throughout your body copy. Emotions give life and passion to your words.

Since benefits are explained in self-serving terms (self-serving to the prospective customer, not the marketer) they immediately strike a chord with the audience. To prospects, perceived benefits are reasons for paying attention ultimately buying.

Without appealing benefits your product or offer has little value in the minds of consumers. They haven’t yet been ‘sold’. But stack up a huge list of benefits and suddenly the perceived value of the same product goes sky high.

It’s the relative value that ultimately determines the prospects decision to buy. Benefits build value and make the purchase decision an easier one. Prospects add up the perceived value of your offer – the sum total of all the benefits. Mentally, either consciously or subconsciously, they attach a figure to the list. At the same time, they look at the real cost – the actual dollars and cents required to purchase.

So, successful your sales copy is all about product’s benefits. And if you write of sales copy must included all benefits, not only features.

6 Ways How to Build Your Content

Mr Success — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:00:01 +0000

I write almost all the content for my own sites – only because I’m a control freak. If I were smarter, I would outsource most of my writing and take more holidays! ? So, don’t worry if you are not a writer. There are 6 options for content development, 4 that don’t involve writing. Each is discussed in greater detail in this section.

1. Create Your Own Content

I like to write. Actually, I really enjoy writing. When people ask me what I do for a living, I don’t say that I’m an affiliate marketer. I tell them that I’m a writer (or a blogger), and then I explain how I make money from my writing as an affiliate marketer.

The best thing about writing your own site content is that you can inject your personality and create your own brand. You can portray yourself as funny, curmudgeonly or sweet – it’s up to you. In time, your visitors start to recognize your ‘voice.’ If they like you, they look forward to hearing more of what you have to say.

Eventually you build rapport with your readers and develop friendships through your correspondence. That, more than commissions, is what makes this business so sweet.

2. Hire a Ghostwriter

If you are allergic to writing, then hire a ghostwriter through Elance or Rentacoder as so many webmasters do. The screenshot below shows 356 job postings returned on Elance when I searched for “articles”. Note some of the subjects include time management, fitness, relationship, etc.

3. Buy Resale & Private Label Rights

You can buy articles, ebooks, and reports, etc. with private label rights – meaning you buy the right to use the content in almost any manner you choose.

Note: Most PLR sites specify that they do not want the content re-posted on article directories, so check the terms and conditions carefully before you purchase.

Typically content is supplied as unformatted text files or Word documents, to which you can add or modify content, including the title and authors name… meaning you can put your own name on the article.

PLR packages are quite inexpensive compared to ghostwritten articles, with most articles averaging 10 to 20 cents a piece.

Consider using the first paragraph or two of each article in your autoresponder series and include a link to the complete article on your site to bring your visitors back to your site.

4. Obtain Works in the Public Domain

Public domain works are books, poems and articles for which the copyright has expired and therefore have NO copyright protection, meaning that anyone can copy, modify and use or sell them.

Once you modify a public domain work it becomes your property. The modified work receives an automatic copyright just like it would if it were an original work.

5. Use Other Authors’ Content

GoArticles.com, EzineArticles.com and a number of other article directories allow you to use the material that authors post to those sites, free of charge. The stipulation is that you will respect authors’ guidelines and those of the article directory managers. In almost all cases, authors require that you place their resource box at the bottom of the article, which invariably includes a link back to their site.

Therein lies the drawback, however. That link out of your site is not usually an affiliate link, and I don’t recommend that you post any ‘leaky’ links (links that don’t make you money) on your site.

You’re much better off using PLR articles which you can claim as your own and have no linking requirements.

6. Repurpose Your Content

Repurposing content means taking content that you have created – or paid to have developed for you – and using it in a different way.

By repurposing your content and creating new formats for your material, you can extend your reach and increase the size of your audience. Those who read your newsletter but not the articles on your site will derive the benefit of the information in that article which before resided only on your site.

Here are 6 ideas for ways to reuse your content:

2. Articles can be recorded to audio files and uploaded to your site for those who would rather listen than read.

3. Articles can be combined into a report, booklet or full-scale ebook and offered as incentive to sign up for your newsletter. You could also turn them into paid content!

4. Turn your autoresponder series into a downloadable report.

5. Interview experts in your field and upload the audio to your site. Have the audio transcribed and turned into an ebook or a series of articles. Use quotes from the transcripts in a variety of different articles.

6. Modify your content to suit different audiences. For example, an article entitled “6 Strategies for Successful Online Dating” could easily be re-written as “6 Online Dating Mistakes to Avoid.”

Use your imagination to find new and different ways to reuse your existing material.

Not only will you increase your reach and your profits, but you’ll also save time in the process!

How to Optimize Your Blog Content

Learn How to Write Effective Ads “The A.I.D.A. Formula”

Mr Success — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:53:21 +0000

A formula is a general guideline – not a ‘paint-by-numbers’ process to an instant sales letter. It’s a roadmap designed to help you get to your desired destination in the most direct way possible. Formulas are established methods or formats that have worked for others to produce results.

Essentially, a formula is a way of organizing and presenting your material in a way that generates sales. Successful formulas are founded upon an understanding of human behavior. It’s not merely a matter of extolling all the virtues of your product – it’s about adapting a strategy that attracts an audience, addressing already existing ‘wants’, and then serving up an appealing offer that’s crafted in a way to push the emotional hot buttons of targeted prospects.

Sound sales letter formulas work well both in the online and offline markets. It’s a planned presentation, the same kind of sales pitch an effective salesperson would use to persuade interested prospects.

The A.I.D.A. Method For Writing Effective Ads

Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

Grab your prospect’s ATTENTION. Expand his INTEREST. Build the DESIRE to a feverish pitch, and move your prospect along towards taking ACTION. Essentially, the AIDA Formula is about converting a passing interest into an intense desire for ownership to the point where action is taken immediately.

Attention

The attention-getting task is primarily left to your headline. You’ve got to hit their sweet spot – quickly and definitively — with a headline that catches their attention and grabs their interest. The best headlines draw the eye and generate excitement. They mesmerize and captivate prospects, compelling them to read on.

2. Interest – You can’t begin to build serious interest if you don’t first have your prospect’s undivided attention. With the prospect’s attention, it’s crucial that you fuel his interest. Intensify his interest and curiosity. Clearly the best way to do this is to pile on the benefits. Give him benefits of value and significance. Make it clear how your product will enhance his life in some way. Tailor your benefits to the audience.

3. Desire – Continually build prospect interest to the point where that interest gets converted into desire. Desires drive people – it’s a force that comes from within. Once your prospect’s interest becomes a desire to won, the sale is almost a sure thing. Make them an offer they can’t refuse. Add irresistibility by providing far more value in terms of products, than you ask in price. Pile on helpful and in-demand bonus items, a strong guarantee and limit your offer.

Converting interest into desire is all about salesmanship. You want to make your offer sound so advantageous… so easy… so affordable… and the perfect solution to your prospect’s problem.

4. Action – This is where you either close the sale or lose the prospect. You want positive action NOW. That’s the target and that’s the mindset you must adopt if you want to make your sales letter a direct-response tool. Close your letter by asking for action. It’s an important final step in the process… but one that many seem to miss.

It’s not enough to grab the attention of target prospects, stack multiple benefits sky-high, and generate a burning desire with a superb offer and guarantee – you also need to lead to buy. Make it easy to buy with multiple payment and ordering options. Make the action phase a logical and reasonable conclusion to your benefit-laden presentation. That’s it… short and sweet. Easy to learn and recall at will. The AIDA formula can be tremendously effective on it’s own. You can also take its basic framework and adapt it into your own formula, method, or system.

The AIDA formula is the best known and probably the oldest advertising formula ever developed. This one is clearly time-tested and proven effective beyond any shadow of a doubt. With just 4 basic elements, it’s also very easy to remember.

AIDA provides a solid foundation for any type of advertising – including sales letters. If you used nothing but the AIDA method, you could, with a little practice develop powerful, persuasive sales letters.

How To Take A Basic Product And Create An Irresistible Offer

Mr Success — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:17:05 +0000

Start with your product and the benefits it provides. Survey prospects and customers. Solicit feedback on what it would take to provide a near ‘perfect’ product and buying experience. Find out what would make buyers happier. Then turn the most promising ideas into bonus items and include them in your offer.

Brainstorm ideas for bonus products. You can do this alone or in a small group. Allow for a set period of ‘creative’ time where you simply let the ideas come to mind and you capture them on tape or paper. It’s important to silence the editor within and just let the miracle of your innate creativity do its work.

Let the ideas flow fast and furious for 5 minutes. Afterwards you can go back and rework the most promising possibilities and polish them up into complete titles. This is a great way to come up with riveting, emotionally appealing titles for special reports, booklets or other bonus items.

Think about all the incentives you’re going to include and how you can make each truly irresistible. Extend your guarantee and make redemption absolutely hassle-free, should the buyer need to exercise this option for whatever reason.

Simplify your ordering procedures. Improve your price. Provide easy options and make it less tiring to complete the order.

Great offers provide:

Low cost – but great high-priced merchandise (Great Value)
So appealing that prospect would be foolish to refuse
A package of numerous items in addition to the main product
Extra bonuses like gift certificates or free shipping

The key to a great offer is to deliver solid value – more value than any sane prospect could reasonably expect to get – and to do so without it costing you excessively. A package that’s perceived to offer outstanding value while containing evocative ‘must have’ elements obtained at a low production cost – is a surefire formula for a winning offer.

Following is a sample of a powerful offer…

“Here’s what’s included in your huge — 5½ pound Blueprint To Profits
package:

What You Get:	Actual Market Value:
1. How To Get Rich With Your Website (8 tapes & manual)	$247.00
2. Unlimited Duplication/Marketing License to: How To Get Rich With Your Website	$2,500.00
3. How To Get A Million Dollars In Free Advertising On The Internet (8 tapes & manual)	$195.00
4. Unlimited Duplication/Marketing License to: How To Get A Million Dollars In Free Advertising On The Internet	$2,500.00
5. 42 Ultimate Secrets To Making Money Online (8 tapes & manual)	$195.00
6. Unlimited Duplication/Marketing License to: 42 Ultimate Secrets To Making Money Online	$2500.00
7. Surefire Success Marketing Tool Kit	$997.00
8. Turn-Key Web Sites For Items #1, #3, & #5	$1,997.00
9. Guaranteed Merchant Account Package	$195.00
*Special BONUS Product – Internet Wealth Secrets CD Rom — Complete with Unlimited Duplication/ Marketing License*	$997.00
*TOTAL PACKAGE VALUE:*	$12,323.00

But with this special offer, you don’t have to pay $12,323.00… not $10,000.00… not even $5,000.00, either! Though… at $5,000.00 you’d be getting an awesome deal – considering the incredible profit-pulling power of this full package!

Are you ready for this?

Order today and you get the full Blueprint To Profits package for only — $1,497!

I think you’ll agree – this is an unbeatable value! It’s a whopping discount of almost 88%! Put another way, you save over $10,000! And you still get everything you could possibly need to launch your own multiple streams of Internet income – within just hours!

But wait… there’s even more…

I wanted to go one step further.

And that’s how the Internet Millionaire’s Library came about. Order oday and you get the complete multiple-volume library — FREE as an extra bonus! This rich resource of wealth ideas has a value of $997 – but it’s all yours – absolutely FREE!

Your Internet Millionaire’s Library contains a boatload of valuable books, manuals, and software package from other highly successful Internet marketers! Many of these products come with reprint or resell rights as well! This means that you can turn each of these bonus products into an additional cash flow – if you so desire!

There you have it — the whole enchilada. And I’m sure you’ll agree — it’s one heck of a deal!”