For me, the most difficult part of writing ad copy has been to come up with great benefit statements. But, other than a good headline, to sell visitors to your service, product and ideas you need great benefit statements.
In comparison, the other parts of copywriting that people might find challenging, such as stories, headlines, and great price offers were easy. But creating a benefits list drove me crazy; that is until I learned how to come up with one or more benefits every minute.
You might remember from any basic sales course that people do not care about features nearly as much as they want to know the benefits. Knowing that, I started to try to get to the bottom of what benefits actually are. They’re action items, right? As an example, you “build” muscles or “create” more time. So, what do you think about starting out each benefit statement with a verb that takes action? This is the process to take:
1. Get a long list of alphabetized action verbs.
2. Put the list on your desk or computer screen where you can see the entire list
.
3. Beginning with the letter A, read each verb aloud and come up with a descriptive sentence about your product or service that includes the verb.
As an example, “Accelerate” is the first verb on my list.
Then, my descriptive sentence might be that my service helps “accelerate” the time it takes to learn to read Spanish.
4. Keep writing benefits as long as you are able and don’t quit! You can cut out those that don’t have as much impact later. Don’t worry about duplicates right now either. Just keep an open mind and write down any benefit statements that come to mind about your product or service.
5. Prioritize your list with the most important benefit statements first and the least important last.
This process has worked for me to write great benefits statements, as well as when coming up with article ideas for my blog, such as “35 Reasons Why a Blog is Better than a Traditional Web Site for Your Business,” or “50 Ways to Kill a Perfectly Good Seminar”.
Use my list of verbs or create your own and start creating your killer benefit statements in just 20 minutes. In most cases, a good list of 20 benefits is all you will need for your sales page.
Marty Dickinson is an entrepreneur and the founder of HereNextYear, Inc., a full service Internet marketing company in business for 15 years. He specializes in Internet marketing solutions for the small business owner, speakers and authors. Visit to see what HereNextYear has to offer and to learn more about their innovative new website packages fully integrated for ease with social networking and other Internet marketing strategies.
Comment