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The Key to Creating Landing Page Copy that Converts: A Features-Benefits Chart

January 12, 2017 By Carson Speight 2 Comments

Without question, your product or service has some remarkable features. Otherwise, why would you be in business?

There’s one small problem, though. It’s highly likely that no one cares about your features.

I know I didn’t when I went to buy a car last month. It had been almost ten years since I bought my last car, which meant there were a few thousand features on new models that I didn’t know existed.

Lane departure warning indicators. 

Rear bumper radar sensors. 

A driving position memory system. 

I’d been driving a car whose top feature was an expansive coin hole.

So when I went to the dealership, selling me on features wasn’t going to work. It would all sound like Tom-Brady-pre-snap gobbledygook to me.

But what I understood was benefits. 

I don’t care the least about lane departure warning indicators. I do care about not drifting head-on into a Mack truck. 

Who needs a smart key locking indicator? Well, this bozo does when he tries to lock his keys in his car.

And does anyone care about a push button keyless start? Yeah I do, now that I know I won’t get my keys stuck in the ignition like my repeat-offender ’03 Saturn Ion. 

Why Uncovering Benefits Matters

Just like me at the dealership, people won’t buy something because of its features. They’ll buy it because it benefits them in some way.

On your landing page, nearly every visitor is skimming your content asking, “What’s in it for me?” And a feature is not what they’re looking for, and won’t persuade them to accept your call to action.

Instead, as Brian Clark of Copyblogger mentions in his post Does Your Copy Pass the ‘Forehead Slap’ Test?, “Identify the underlying benefit that each feature of a product or service provides to the prospect, because that’s what will prompt the purchase.”

Or to put it another way, Joanna Wiebe of Copyhackers instructs, “Explaining the benefit takes the feature and asks ‘so what?'”

Put simply, you won’t have an effective landing page if your copy focuses solely on the features and not their benefits.

The Key to Writing Effective Features/Benefits Descriptions

To write effective features/benefits descriptions for your product, it’s easiest to first lay them out in a chart format.

Copywriter extraordinaire Amy Harrison uses a simple tool called The Headline Shaker Maker to “shake out” all of the selling points of a product or service so you can see its benefits at-a-glance. While Amy uses the method to create great headlines, it’s a good practice for anyone who wants to link their product’s best features to its greatest benefits.

Of course, there’s much more to your landing page copy than just a headline. It’s paramount that you have a value proposition for every section of content on the page. A value proposition involves you taking a feature and translating it into a benefit statement that’s meaningful to the user. So if you sell a product with eight notable features, you should have eight compelling benefit statements that resonate with the user.

And to create compelling benefit statements, you need to lay out the major variables that will form them. To do this, I’m going to show you an effective method I use with clients to create compelling copy for their landing page. It’s called the Features-Benefits chart, and you can create one in just three steps.

3 Steps to Creating a Features-Benefits Chart

1. Set up the format

Open a blank Excel or Sheets file and set up the chart with four major columns:

  1. Feature
  2. Feature Explanation
  3. Pain Points w/out Feature
  4. Customer Benefit(s)

It should look like this:

 

A few things about each of these:

  • Feature – This is simply one offering of your product or service. A feature is something that makes the product or service attractive or useful.
  • Feature Explanation – This should describe the feature in detail regarding what it does.
  • Pain Points w/out Feature – What would life be like for your customer if they did not have this feature? You should having an understanding of your customer’s deepest frustrations and how your product or service will solve them.
  • Customer Benefit(s) – Here the main benefits should be listed, following an evaluation of the feature and pain points without it.

2. Build out chart with subject-matter experts (SMEs)

Unless you’re selling thumbtacks (a product everyone understands), your features/benefits content must be informed by an expert of the product or service. Content pros can only help as much as they know the business.

For small businesses and startups, it’s not difficult to find the subject-matter experts (SMEs). SMEs may be the owner, CEO, or salesperson. Whomever it is, those people must be consulted heavily to inform a value-rich features-benefits chart.

That’s because the SME knows the business like no one else. They built the business because there was a problem or gap in the market. Maybe they experienced the pain points firsthand, and came up with features on their own to solve the problem. Perhaps they magically made a safe tack after years of suffering puncture wounds.

The landing page must address features, pain points, and benefits in a compelling way in order to convert visitors. But landing page content will only resonate and convert if its benefit statements are precise to the visitor’s need. And the foundation of that is the thorough work you’ll do filling out the Features-Benefits chart with the SME.

And if you’re the SME, well there’s nothing stopping you from creating an amazing chart on your own. Just remember the spreadsheet can only take you so far. It may be a fantastic business decision to enlist a talented copywriter to make some content magic for a reasonable fee. *wink*

Here’s how a couple of rows on the chart might look once some good, lengthy conversations have been had to fill it out. We’ll stick to the features and benefits of a minivan, because that’s what I’m into these days. (Pay close attention to the pain points column; that’s where you’ll relate to your visitor.)

3. Use the Features-Benefits chart to write benefit statements

Now that you’ve developed a comprehensive Features-Benefits chart with the SMEs, it’s time to use it to inform the benefit statements you’ll write for your landing page.

But first, why does a benefit statement matter? It matters because there is no other way to answer your visitors’ number one question: “What’s in it for me?”

The design may be beautiful and the user experience spot on, but only the words can convey the benefit.

And on a landing page, visitors are processing words and images at a rapid pace to see what’s in it for them. Essentially, they are skimming for the meat but don’t have time to carve it into pieces. You must do it for them.

That’s what a benefit statement does. It gives your visitor something compelling and digestible to chew on.

So back to our Features-Benefits chart. As you can see from our last example, there are tons of words with way too many details to be useful for your visitor needing the quick hits.

The key to creating a benefit statement is taking the pain point (problem) and revealing the benefit (solution), in a concise, compelling blurb.

Feature 1 – Heated Seats:  Heated seats, in and of themselves, are not so great. In fact, I won’t even use them for 8 months of the year in my minivan. But for those four, cold, uncomfortable months, I’m expecting my butt to be hot fast.

Benefit Statement #1: Instant comfort from the cold with seats that fully heat in a minute.

Feature 2 – Rear Bumper Sensors: Rear bumper sensors aren’t special. So my car can sense stuff. I’m sure that’d be nice for those lonely road trips where my car and I discuss our feelings. Otherwise, not useful.

But when my car can sense that I’m about to back into a column of concrete, I’m grateful to be alerted.

Benefit Statement #2: No more “reverse anxiety.” Our sensors alert you to obstacles when backing up.

Build the Statements, and the Conversions Will Come

Crafting a landing page full of rich benefit statements won’t guarantee conversion success. But if you’ve done your research to deeply understand what bothers your customer, and your business actually solves it, then these statements have the guts to resonate.

But they must be conveyed clearly and seamlessly to be effective. When you combine the knowledge of a subject-matter expert, the organization of a Features-Benefits chart, and the skill of a digital copywriter, you will create powerful benefit statements capable of driving significant conversions on your landing page.

Filed Under: Content Strategy, Landing Pages Tagged With: benefits, copywriting

3 Quick Wins to Solidify Your Brand’s Messaging

November 13, 2016 By Carson Speight Leave a Comment

weld-4I want you to picture Thanksgiving dinner with your family this year. (Don’t worry, I won’t make you picture it long.)

Imagine your crazy uncle sitting there, spouting off inappropriate and cliched soundbites about our world, making everyone squirm in their seats. Then picture your other uncle, the one who often serves as the voice of reason, sitting there patiently.

When crazy uncle finally censors himself and goes for another spoonful of yams, normal uncle finally speaks up. And instead of saying what everyone else is thinking, he looks at crazy uncle and says, “I couldn’t agree more. That’s what I’ve been saying for years.”

Talk about uncomfortable. All this time you thought you had a normal uncle, but now you wonder if he’s just as crazy as the other uncle. You see, you didn’t recognize your normal uncle’s voice. You thought you knew what he was about, and then he spoke in a way that completely confused you.

Brands can be guilty of this. If your messaging doesn’t display a consistent voice, tone, and level of professionalism, you’ll alienate your audience and miss out on the wonderful things good content has to offer. 

Of course, no matter how solid your voice, tone and professionalism come through in your content, not every piece of content you publish will be a raging success. Your messaging will also change over time with your business and understanding of your customer.

But, is it at least possible to produce clear, consistent content that always represents your business like it should? The answer is yes.

And the best way to do this is to ensure you nail your voice, tone and professionalism. Let’s take a look at why each of these matter and what you can do to improve them today.

1. Voice

What does your brand sound like? Finding your voice involves understanding your audience and determining how you want them to perceive your brand.

If you sell hot pink, super-speedy jet skis, you better not sound stuffy. If you sell surgical tools to hospitals, you’d be wise to not use a ton of excitable verbiage.

If your voice isn’t appropriate, you won’t be trusted. If it isn’t consistent, people will be confused. And if it isn’t relatable, no one will listen.

What You Can Do:

Determine your voice characteristics. Try this exercise: Write down 5-10 words that describe how you want to sound in your communications. Poll employees as well and gather a list of their words.

Then, place all of the words on a board and circle 3-5 that best describe your voice. If you sell zombie bumper stickers, you might go for dark, edgy and sarcastic. If you sell bubble gum to teenagers, you might choose fun, cute, and—well—bubbly.

As you create content, make sure your voice matches the characteristics you’ve chosen, and you’ll develop a consistent voice that resonates with your audience.

2. Tone

Your tone is the mood of your voice. In your communications with customers, your voice must adapt to the situation.

If you’re promoting something, do you sound excited, or just ho-hum-business-as-usual? If you made a mistake, are you contrite and sympathetic? Your audience expects your communications to sound like they’re coming from a person who has emotions and knows you do, too.

If your tone is off, your audience will be confused or frustrated. If your tone is on point, your audience will feel understood and trust that you care about their experience.

What You Can Do:

Humanize your error messages. Review your site or app’s error messages and see if your tone is appropriate. Though necessary, error messages cause friction and momentarily annoy the user. A message in the right tone can placate them and encourage them toward success.

Use words like “please” and “unfortunately.” Be passive instead of accusatory. Instead of saying “you entered the wrong code,” say “please enter a valid code.” Sure up the way your users experience errors and they’ll have a more fond perception of your brand.

3. Professionalism

Professionals look, sound and act like experts. Your audience must trust that you know what you’re doing to do business with you. If your content isn’t sharp, if it lacks solid grammar, if it is mistake-and-typo ridden, then you will come off as unprofessional.

Have you ever started to read a blog post and noticed multiple errors in the first few paragraphs? At best, you don’t want to read it anymore, and at worst you perceive that the company either isn’t competent or doesn’t care about their work. Both bad.

What You Can Do:

Establish an editorial process. Consistent editing can ensure that your content doesn’t go out until it is completely sharp and ready for a customer to see.

First, determine who should review content before it’s published. Are you writing content yourself? If you’re not a grammar wizard, is there someone on your team who is? Be sure that person is included in the review process.

Then, evaluate how long it takes to review certain types of content (e.g., blog posts vs. newsletters), and allow for appropriate editing time. When content is rushed, it gets delivered with errors.

Wrapping It Up

By solidifying your voice, tone and professionalism, your audience will be able to consistently recognize and identify with the content you deliver. You can start to find your content groove by employing the voice, tone, and professionalism exercises with your team. After a time of producing consistently on-brand content, you’ll establish a relationship of trust with your audience who won’t give a second thought of whether to do business with you.

If I can help you with any of your content needs, please let me know.

Filed Under: Content Strategy Tagged With: branding, tone, voice

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