Don’t sell the mattress, sell a good night’s sleep
Posted on 3rd October 2017
When it comes to content marketing, it’s all too easy to wax lyrical about the nuts and bolts of your business. Take a cabinet-making company that makes beautiful kitchens. Imagine you’re looking for a new kitchen with a real ‘wow’ factor and you visit their website – only to find that product descriptions are all based around bare facts or technical specifications. Corian worktops, 1,000mm Rangemaster cookers, handmade kitchen islands and so on…
Features versus benefits
OK, so the images on the kitchen website are glossy and look great, but there’s something missing. After all, what do you really want from a new kitchen? You’re not just looking for features, you’re looking for real, tangible benefits. Using the above three products as examples, let’s rework them so they can start selling themselves:
Corian worktops are non-porous, so they’re highly stain resistant and can’t be damaged by water ingress. That means they’ll stay looking good for longer, offering fantastic value for money.
Be the envy of your friends with a gorgeous 1,000mm Rangemaster! With two ovens, a grill and a warming drawer, cooking for friends and family has never been easier or more enjoyable.
Create a beautiful centrepiece with a handmade kitchen island. Available in a choice of solid woods and finishes to complement your décor, an island is the perfect focal point for you to relax and feel at home in your kitchen.
See the difference?
These examples are genuine benefits that appeal to the kitchen buyer’s actual wants and desires, instead of just reeling off a list of boring features. The clue to great content marketing is to recognise what makes your customers tick. Find out what they want to achieve and what they dream of. Then explain how your product or service will make that happen.
The ‘So what?’ test
A good way to identify benefits is to apply the ‘So what?’ test. Start with a feature and keep asking ‘So what?’ until you uncover the benefit that will appeal to your customer base. For example, an IT company might take this approach when writing about their remote monitoring service:
We monitor your servers remotely using our advanced software, 24/7.
So what?
This enables us to pick up on any problems at the earliest possible stage.
So what?
That means any server downtime will be minimised, which means that your productivity levels are maintained as well as your profit margin. You’ll avoid costly repairs bills too, as your servers will be kept in good shape.
Pleasure or pain?
Depending on the nature of your business, the benefits you offer could be positive, such as helping people save money, feel more confident or impress their friends. Or it could be more about ‘pain relief’ – reducing hassle and avoiding problems. If you’re not sure which approach is right for your product or service, try testing both and see which works best.
Returning to the kitchen company, here’s an example:
Corian worktops have no visible joints, creating a beautiful seamless finish that’s easy to clean and maintain.
Corian worktops are completely seamless – avoiding the unsightly cracks or hygiene issues that can happen with visible joints.
Not sure where to start?
It’seeze can help! Our professional copywriters can produce high quality content that’s focused on selling the true benefits of your business. As well as website copy, we can also help with blog posts, email marketing campaigns and much more. Contact us today to find out more.
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