The Copywriting Game Changer You Need To Know
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On this week’s episode, we delve into the world of benefits-driven copywriting, revealing the secrets behind crafting copy that truly resonates with your audience.
You’ll learn how to transform features into benefits, create enticing teaser bullets using the “so you can…” segue, and harness the power of storytelling to evoke emotions and drive conversions.
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(This is transcribed by 🤖 so please excuse the funky sentence breaks, misplaced periods, and typos. The robots are doing their best!)
[00:00:00] One of Schwartz's key ideas is that people don't buy products. They buy what the products can do for them. In other words, they're looking for solutions to their problems, ways to improve their lives, or means to satisfy their desires. That's where focusing on benefits comes in.[00:00:23] Hello and welcome to the Copy Lab podcast. The Marketing and Business podcast that teaches you how to write better, sell more, and ignite your business even if you suck at writing. I'm your host Sara Estes, entrepreneur, copywriter, marketing strategist, and founder of Copy Tiger, where I help change makers disruptors [00:00:42] and Dreamers get their message to the masses. Let's get started.
[00:00:52] Hello. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Copy Lab. I'm super glad to be here with you this week. Today I'm gonna [00:01:00] be talking about features and benefits. We're gonna be picking up where we left off last week and talking about how benefits driven copy can help you connect with your audience and drive conversions.
[00:01:12] But for the first part of this episode, I wanna start off by talking about the latest hot goss in the copywriting world. So I am in a copywriting mastermind that's hosted by Alex Cattoni. She is awesome. The mastermind is called Rain, and it is fantastic. It's basically a group of copywriters and we get together every.
[00:01:34] Couple weeks every month, and we just talk about copywriting and all the latest and greatest news in the marketing sphere. So every month there's a new speaker, and this month's speaker was Stefan Georgi. He came and spoke to us last week, and he absolutely blew my mind with some of the things that he taught.
[00:01:54] Now, if you don't know who Stefan Georgi is, he's a copywriter and a serial entrepreneur. He's [00:02:00] founded or co-founded. Nine different businesses that have scaled to at least seven figures, but many of them to eight and nine figures. Through his copywriting, he sold over a billion dollars worth of products online, which is crazy, and he's one of the biggest names in direct response copywriting.
[00:02:19] And he's pretty much at the cutting edge of AI when it comes to how to use it in marketing and copywriting. He runs an AI mastermind. He runs an AI copywriting agency. He's doing all this stuff and that's why I was really excited for him to come talk to the group. So during his talk, he shared with us some of the crazy templates that him and his crew are working on for chat G B T prompts.
[00:02:46] And these are like multi-step, like 12, 13 step conversations that you have with chatGPT, and it was. Pretty amazing. He called them mega prompts, which [00:03:00] is a term that I love. And so one of the coolest mega prompts that he showed us was basically the solution to psychographic research, meaning like the research that you do on your audience to figure out how they think and feel and what's going on in their like.
[00:03:17] When, what keeps him up at night and what their deepest emotions and dreams and goals and fears are, and the result that it produces is pretty phenomenal. And what was super cool is that he shared the template for that mega promptt with me, and I am so, so, so excited to use that with my clients and to help me write even.
[00:03:40] Better sales pages and better sales copy using chat G P T. I'm really excited about it. Now, is it any substitute for actually serving people and talking to people to see what their dreams and desires are? No. It's always better to talk to real people. But it is a great place to [00:04:00] start if you're just trying to get over that hump of empathizing with your potential buyer.
[00:04:06] So, and for people who maybe don't have the budget to do all these surveys, they just don't have that bandwidth. This is an incredible, incredible way to figure out some of that emotional research that can be really hard to do on your own. All right, so let's pick up where we left off last week and dive into the power of benefits driven copy.
[00:04:31] This idea comes straight from the legendary book, breakthrough Advertising by none other than Eugene Schwartz. We'll break down his theories and classic copywriting techniques, focusing on how to highlight the benefits of a product. Instead of just listing its features. By the end of this episode, you'll be ready to write copy that truly resonates with your audience.
[00:04:53] Let's get started. Let's start by getting to know what benefits driven copywriting is all about. In [00:05:00] a nutshell, it's all about focusing on the benefits of your product or service rather than listing its features. This approach makes your copywriting more persuasive and engaging, which is exactly what you want when you're trying to sell something.
[00:05:13] Right now let's talk about the difference between features and benefits. So features are the factual aspects of your product, like the size, the color, the materials, what the technical specs are, but benefits. Those are the things that your product does for your customers, like saving them time, making them feel good or solving a problem that they've been struggling with.
[00:05:41] Let me give you an example that's gonna make this crystal clear. So remember way back in the day when Apple had just launched its iPod, And it's so funny cause I remember I was in, I think I was in high school and this was the biggest deal at the time because we used to carry around like giant heavy [00:06:00] ass books of CDs.
[00:06:02] So when iPod came out, it was weird and no one understood like what it. Was about like how it could help them because we all, I think we all had a, some kind of odd love for our giant zip up booklets of CDs. So the iPod came out and. They had a little bit of work to do in terms of the advertising because just nobody really knew what it was.
[00:06:27] It was a weird looking thing. So instead of saying that the iPod had five gigabytes of hard drive, which is hilarious now, but instead of saying that there was five gigabytes of hard drive in their ads, they said there's a thousand songs in your pocket, and that's. Genius, right? That's because they focused on the benefit of having all those songs on the go instead of just talking about the technical feature of how much could fit into this little device.
[00:06:58] Because five [00:07:00] gigabytes of hard drive, like I still don't know what that means, honestly. So, You those numbers mean something to somebody, but not the vast majority of people. And even for the people who it matters to, reminding them of the benefit is still always a winning technique. So the key takeaway here is that by emphasizing the benefits of your product, you're showing your audience how their lives will be better or easier with.
[00:07:26] Whatever you're offering, and that my friends, is how you write copy that truly connects with people. All right, let's dive deeper into why benefits sell better than features and how to make your copy more persuasive and engaging using this fact. One of Schwartz's key ideas is that people don't buy products.
[00:07:49] They buy what the products can do for them. In other words, they're looking for solutions to their problems. Ways to improve their lives or means to [00:08:00] satisfy their desires. That's where focusing on benefits comes in. It speaks directly to the emotions and desires of your audience, which is way, way, way more powerful than just listing what's included.
[00:08:12] Schwartz also believed the great copy should tap into the existing desires of the audience, which we talked about in last week's episode. If you haven't listed that, it's all about desires and why they're important. So instead of trying to create new desires, Good copywriters and marketers and entrepreneurs should identify and understand the desires that already exist within their target market.
[00:08:37] And by doing this, you can craft copy that resonates with your audience on a deeper level, making your product more appealing, and just generally increasing the chances of conversion. Now let's look at some real life examples of benefits driven copy from successful ad campaigns and businesses. Okay, now here's one that I know you know, [00:09:00] it is the Eminem slogan, which is melts in your mouth, not in your hand.
[00:09:04] We all remember that one. So instead of talking about the chocolate or the candy coating or whatever chemicals exist in there, they focus on the benefit of enjoying a mess free treat, which is genius. That's a great way to market a piece of candy that is probably very unhealthy for you. It is. I don't know why I'm, why I'm saying probably it's chocolate, it's candy.
[00:09:29] But anyways. Okay. What about Nike's? Just do It campaign, so that slogan. Is super popular. It's probably one of the most popular slogans that I can think of, and there's a reason for it. It's because it doesn't mention anything about shoes or clothing. Instead, it taps into the desire and motivation for self-improvement.
[00:09:51] It encourages people to push themselves and achieve their goals, so there's no much enough rubber or laces or how good they squeak on the basketball floor. [00:10:00] All it is is it taps into the deeper goals of. The people who are buying the shoes, and that is genius. Okay, let's not forget about Airbnb's tagline, belong anywhere.
[00:10:14] This line doesn't mention anything about booking accommodations or renting homes, or crazy cleaning fees that they now have that I will not rent about here. That's for another time. Instead, it speaks to the emotional benefit of feeling welcomed and connected. No matter where you are in the world, and that is why those two words can be so powerful.
[00:10:39] So if you look at all of those slogans, it's not many words. They're not complex words. They just speak to the benefit that you get from using that product or service, and that is what you want to do. That is a powerful tagline. So keep that in mind. The lesson here is to take inspiration from Schwartz's theories and focus on the [00:11:00] benefits your product provides.
[00:11:03] Okay. Now that we've learned from the legend himself, it's time to put those theories into action and start crafting your own benefits driven copy. Let's walk through some steps to help you identify the benefits of your product or service and translate those features into benefits that will truly resonate with your audience.
[00:11:21] Okay. Step one, you wanna start by making a list of all the features of your product. Then I want you to think about how each of those features can benefit your customers. So you're gonna ask yourself questions like, how does this feature solve a problem or make their lives easier? What positive emotions does this feature bring about?
[00:11:44] Or how does this feature align with their desires and goals? So go through each feature that you can think of and really list everything, even if it seems obvious or mundane or not important. Go ahead and list it because you'll be su, you'd be surprised. [00:12:00] What kind of benefits you can come up with for your products.
[00:12:02] That can be really, really powerful. Now that you've identified those benefits, it's time to transform those features into compelling benefits driven statements. Remember, you wanna focus on what your product can do for your customers, not just what it is. A great way to do this is by using the so what test for each feature.
[00:12:23] Ask yourself, so what? Why should my audience care about this? The answer to that question will help you craft a benefits driven statement. And I'm gonna talk about another good mechanism for this in just a minute. But the So what test is an excellent place to start. Step three with your benefits driven statements in hand.
[00:12:43] Now it's time to incorporate those into your copy. So make sure to highlight those benefits that you just came up with throughout your copy. From the headlines to the sub-headlines, to the body text, to the calls to action. You wanna be consistently emphasizing the benefits so that you [00:13:00] can create some more persuasive and engaging copy.
[00:13:03] Okay. Now I want to walk you through step by step of doing this with, uh, random products. I'm gonna pick a, let's say you're selling a blender, a really high quality blender. Now here's how you can transform a feature heavy piece of copy into a benefits driven moneymaking Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece.
[00:13:24] Okay. I'm exaggerating a little bit. But here we go. So let's say the features of your blender. We're just gonna do three. We're not gonna list all of 'em. All right. Let's say there, it's got a powerful motor, it's got a large capacity, and it's easy to clean. So we'll stick with those three features. So with the powerful motor, the benefit of that is that it crushes ice and blends ingredients in seconds.
[00:13:49] Saving you time and effort in the kitchen. See how we did that? All right. With the large capacity, you'll be able to make enough [00:14:00] smoothies and soups for the whole family in one go without the hassle of multiple batches. The third feature, easy to clean. Now the benefit might be something like spend less time cleaning up and more time enjoying your delicious, your delicious creations with your loved ones.
[00:14:18] So there you have it. That's how you take a feature that is boring and neutral and doesn't inspire anybody into a benefit. So then when you start talking about each of those features, you tack on that benefit every time so that you're always emphasizing why that feature is important. Now, I wanna actually go into how to showcase these benefits and incorporate them into your copy.
[00:14:40] Like, like how do you actually do it? And the way we're gonna do it is with teaser bullets. So let's explore how we can write enticing, teaser bullets that showcase the benefits of your product using the, so you can segue. So if you don't know what teaser bullets are, teaser bullets are those short, [00:15:00] punchy statements that highlight the most appealing aspects of your product or service.
[00:15:03] Oftentimes, you'll see them with little green check marks or even sometimes an X if it's like kind of negative teaser bullets, but you see them in almost every landing page. And if you aren't sure what I'm talking about, It's what is the effect where once you hear about something, you start to see it all the time everywhere.
[00:15:21] I think it's called recency bias, but I, I know there's like a fancy, um, scientific name for it. I think it's like beter, Meinhof or phenomenon or something. Something like that. Um, so once you hear about, These teaser bullets. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you will see them everywhere on the internet.
[00:15:40] A lot of times people will incorporate them into landing pages or sales pages. So let's explore how to write enticing, teaser bullets that showcase your products benefits. Using the, so you can segue the So you can segue is a powerful way to emphasize the benefits by [00:16:00] connecting features with the outcomes your audience desires.
[00:16:04] So here's the formula. It's feature plus, so you can plus benefit. Simple, right? For example, our noise canceling headphones block out distractions so you can focus on what matters most. Here's another example. Our meal delivery service provides healthy pre-portioned meals so you can save time and eat better.
[00:16:31] See how that works? It's a very simple mechanism to extract the benefit out of a feature. So every time that you're listing that feature, you're going to be tacking on that benefit right after it. So that way your audience is really going to understand why that feature matters most. By using the, so you can segue, you create a clear connection between the.
[00:16:54] Features of your products and the benefits they provide, and that makes your teaser bullets more compelling [00:17:00] and persuasive. I wanna give you a few more tips on incorporating benefits into your landing pages and sales pages and ads. So you wanna grab your audience's attention from the start by emphasizing the most important benefits in your headlines and sub-headlines.
[00:17:17] This sets the tone for the rest of your copy and encourages readers to keep reading. You also wanna share real life examples of how your product has benefited others to build your credibility and demonstrate the value of your product. You want to make sure, and this is key, you want to make sure that your testimonials or case studies, whatever you're doing, highlight these specific benefits that are going that will resonate with your target audience.
[00:17:45] So you don't want. I mean, any testimonial is a great testimonial. Let me be clear about that. But if you can get a testimonial that talks about the benefit of your product, that is going to be much more powerful. [00:18:00] So let's take the blender example that we used earlier. So, A testimonial about how powerful the motor is is not going to be as powerful as a testimonial about how it transformed someone's morning routine, or how it helped them achieve the weight loss that they wanted because they were able to make healthier smoothies quicker and incorporate it into their day easier.
[00:18:24] Stuff like that, that is going to resonate with your audience a lot more than just talking about a powerful motor. And another quick tip is think about your calls to action. Your call to action, which is the little button that is anywhere on your page or whatever you're asking people to do, but typical right now we're gonna refer to the button that they're actually clicking to take the action.
[00:18:51] You can add your benefit into that button. So for example, instead of saying buy now or get started, you can try [00:19:00] start saving time today. That can be your button text or try something like get instant access to stress relief, right? So you can include your benefit in that C T A. And as always, remember that less is more.
[00:19:16] So you wanna be clear and concise and focus on the most compelling benefits that resonate with your audience. So you want to avoid overwhelming them with way too much information or claiming way too many benefits all over the place. If you have like a thousand benefits, that's not really as powerful as just picking one or two and kind of devoting your copy to that.
[00:19:39] Now I wanna switch gears to storytelling stories have a unique ability to connect with audiences on an emotional level, making them a crucial component to great benefits. Driven copy storytelling has many, many, many advantages when it comes to writing [00:20:00] persuasive copy. Like stories evoke emotions. They help your audience relate to your message on a deeper level, and this emotional connection can encourage action and drive connections.
[00:20:12] It's incredibly powerful stories also simplify complex ideas and, and it makes them more accessible and relatable to your audience. And don't forget, people are more likely to remember stories than a list of facts or features. And so that makes your copy more memorable. And shareable. So how do you create a compelling story to use in your copy?
[00:20:41] Now, I wanna give you a fun exercise to help you create compelling stories to use because it can be kind of hard to get a start on this. So, Here's what you're gonna do. First, you need to understand the problems that your audience is facing and the solutions that they're trying to get. So you wanna [00:21:00] identify those pain points and the desires.
[00:21:03] So once you have those in hand, I want you to develop a character that represents your ideal customer. So the customer that you wish you could clone a bajillion times, and have that be your entire demographic. You wanna pick your ideal customer. And that character is going to be facing the same challenges as your target audience.
[00:21:24] So you're gonna create, we can consider it a very relatable protagonist, and that's gonna be your customer. And then you're gonna introduce conflict. So, and you can write all this, you can just write a little story before you write your, you actually go into writing your copy and this can really help. So now you're going to describe the struggle.
[00:21:46] That your character is facing and that is going to reflect the pain points of your audience. And once you do that, then you're going to present your product as the solution highlighting its [00:22:00] benefits, of course. So you're gonna show how your product helps your character overcome their challenges. And you're going to do that by emphasizing the benefits.
[00:22:10] And then finally, you want to show the transformation. So you wanna show how your product or service helped transform your character's life. And so when you demonstrate the positive impact that your product has had on their life, that is going to illustrate the potential transformation for your audience.
[00:22:31] So write the story, do this exercise. It can really help you get into that storytelling mode when it comes. To your product or service who has done this well? I want to dive into a couple of businesses that have used storytelling in a brilliant way to highlight the benefits of their product. First off is one that I remember really well, and I think it was back in 2000 or 2021.
[00:22:58] It was Headspace. [00:23:00] They, it's like a mindfulness and meditation app. They had a campaign that was called Be Kind To Your Mind, and it was all these little animated stories of people struggling with stress and anxiety and all kinds of mental health challenges. And it illustrated how the. App helped them find like peace and balance in their lives.
[00:23:23] And by doing that, by telling these little animated stories, they highlighted the benefit of the app, which was mental wellbeing. So instead of. Having the ad campaign be all about the app itself and how user-friendly it was and you know, all the things that were, that you could find inside the app and talking about all of its features.
[00:23:44] Instead, it just told stories of characters who were struggling with very relatable pain points like stress and anxiety, and how they achieved the desire that they wanted, which of course is mental [00:24:00] health and mental wellbeing. Now another one that I hear all the time, I even heard it today, is a, an ad for the New York Times subscription and they talk about Wordle and Spelling Bee.
[00:24:12] It's all of these people who are being interviewed about how much wordle and the spelling bee features of the New York Times subscription brings them closer to their family and. Affects their relationships with their like husband or wife, that they play wordle all the time, or they do the spelling bee together and it's something that they look forward to.
[00:24:30] But what this ad does is it just shows the benefit of how these little games and puzzles can seriously impact someone's life for the better, even if it's just the highlight of their day or a really fun part of their routine. And I, I love that ad because I think it's such a unique approach to a digital magazine subscription.
[00:24:52] And another one that I want to mention is, do you guys remember Google's Loretta ad? It was like a Super Bowl [00:25:00] commercial in, I think it was 2020. Um, but. The, it was a commercial that was for Google Assistant and there was this elderly man and he was using Google Assistant to help him remember the details of his late wife, and her name was Loretta.
[00:25:16] And it was just a precious ad that was super touching and relatable and, It basically emphasized the benefit of Google Assistant by talking about how it helped with memory and organization and companionship, and it was just precious. That was a great use of storytelling to highlight the benefits rather than talking about all the technical specs and you know, you could go.
[00:25:42] Miles deep into the technical features of something like Google Assistant. So this tapped into more of the human element of storytelling, and it was super effective. All right, so to wrap this lesson up, I wanna quickly recap the key takeaways. So [00:26:00] first, we've got the benefits driven copy and that focuses on your product, on how your product or service can improve your audience's lives.
[00:26:10] Rather than just merely listing the features. Second is to write benefits driven copy. You need to first identify the benefits of your product and then translate. The features into those benefits, and then weave that all throughout your copy. And you can do that by using the, so you can segue to create compelling teaser bullets that showcase your product's benefits.
[00:26:36] And last but not least, incorporate storytelling into your copy to engage your audience emotionally and make your message more persuasive and memorable. All right. Now it is time for a challenge. I encourage you to take a piece of your existing copy, whether it's a sales page, landing page, social media, post, email, whatever you're working on, and rewrite [00:27:00] it using the techniques that we discussed in this episode.
[00:27:03] So I want you to focus on highlighting the benefits and crafting those teaser bullets with the, so you can segue and incorporating storytelling. Once you've written it, I would absolutely love to see the results. So share your newly crafted copy on socials and tag me @CopyLabPodcast. I am super excited to see how these techniques transform your copy and help you connect more with your audience on a deeper level.
[00:27:32] And that's a wrap on today's episode of Copy Lab. Thank you so much for joining me here. I hope you've gained some valuable insights on your approach to writing. Now head over to copytiger.com/newsletter and sign up for my weekly updates. That way you'll never miss an episode and you'll get exclusive content and tips that are only shared through my email list.
[00:27:57] It's an inbox party you do not want to miss. [00:28:00] Also, be sure to. Follow and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcast. And remember, the right words can help you make a huge difference in the world. So keep writing. I'll see you in the next episode.