The Copy Mistake That Often Costs Business Owners the Sale

10,000 watts of power.

Double-paned.

Flexible.

These are features. But they often get used in the copy where benefits should be used.

The problem is features don’t sell.

You don’t buy a car just because it has power windows. Or even just because it has 710 horses under the hood.

You buy a car because you crave the freedom/strength/etc that car heralds for you.

That’s the benefit.

But really? You don’t even buy the benefit.

You buy the benefit of the benefit.

You buy the car because of the freedom of the open road and the wind in your hair that sends surges of electricity pulsing through you as the bass vibrates the mirrors and the rubber eats the road.

That’s the benefit of the benefit.

And those are usually the parts that are left out of the copy because it requires you to dig deep. Not to stop at freedom. Not to stop at status. Not to stop at strength. To know there’s so much more to what you buy than just what you see on the surface.

Feel the experience

You have to really allow yourself to play in the mind of your ideal client long enough to FEEL what they want so that you can point it out in ways that they didn’t even realize that’s what they wanted!

Because most will tell you that they want the fast horses. And yes, they do...but WHYYYYYY???

So they can feel that electricity coursing through them as the rubber eats the road.

But that’s a correlation they have to experience in the copy, in order to articulate it for themselves, even. Remember, Jobs didn’t make the iPod because people said they wanted to walk around with all of their music in their pockets...but that’s exactly what they wanted.

Don’t sell the mattress. Sell the good night’s sleep.

But then...sell the newfound lease on life when they get to feel like a human as soon as the get out of the bed and not spend the first hour of their days trying to work out the stiffness and soreness they have to fight every morning.

Sell getting out of the bed and having the energy to approach the day like the Energizer Bunny.

Sell having the patience to deal with a day full of, “Dad! Play with me!” and actually ENJOYING it before they grow up and don’t even want to spend time with them anymore.

Yes. A solid night’s sleep has that power. And a solid night’s sleep starts with the perfect-for-them mattress.

Now, you take this and do it for your readers.

Think. FEEL. PAINT the images of life after your product or service.

That’s the benefit of the benefit.

And that’s how you sell.

Three precautions:

Don’t fake it. They’ll not connect with it if it doesn’t feel like theirs. So when you “dream”, dream based on the data you have of your ideal customers’ personas, not your own bias.
Don’t oversell it. They’ll smell a rat and take off running because, hey! If it’s too good to be true, it probably is, amirite?
Don’t be overly verbose. Don’t ramble. Get to the point without all the flowery words. So paint, but don’t use more colors than you need to make it magic.

And when in doubt, pop it onto a ticket in the Copy Edge help desk and get feedback from someone who’s been doing this for clients for years. ;) You’ll not only learn how to fix that piece of copy, but you’ll be stockpiling lessons for future copy you write!

Or come play free in the Copy Arena and learn as we go!

Tania Dakka Sales Copywriter Bio (1).png — Tania Dakka, Expert Sales Copywriter

Author of the Art of Sass, crafted to help readers find their true voice. And founder of the most potent copy help desk on the net, the Copy Edge, where participants learn to elicit more emotion so their sales copy generates more profit.