No, not YOU.
Them.
Your clients. The people reading your website, email signature, cover letter, brochure. In other words, your marketing materials.
What exactly is this “benefits” based writing we keep hearing about? Benefits, not features, benefits, not features: it’s like a mantra spouted by marketing experts the world over.
But what does that actually mean and what, exactly, is so terrible about features and so wonderful about benefits?
Well, features focus on the seller. Benefits focus on the buyer – the person you are writing to. The YOU. Features shout “look at ME”!
There is nothing terrible about features, but features by themselves don’t get your client’s attention. They don’t speak directly to that part of their brain that is hardwired to jump to attention when they think something is being said that directly affects them. Spending all your time talking (or writing) about yourself is a surefire way of sending your clients to sleep.
But the fact is, that buyers – of products or services – don’t care about features. All buyers think about is “What’s In It For Me” (often referred to in marketing circles as WIIFM).
Translating features into benefits
On an assignment one day a few years ago, I was interpreting and consulting for a British buyer of real estate in Italy. We had had a long day looking at apartments for sale, and one visit stuck out in my mind.
The builder of the complex had insisted on accompanying the estate agent to the viewing, and spent the best part of an hour pointing out all the jazzy widgets he had installed in the building.
“Each pane of glass in the double glazing is separated by a hermetically sealed 20mm argon gas filled space”, the builder announced proudly, then waited for me to translate. He watched my lips carefully, and when I seemed to utter fewer words than expected, he pounced on me.
“Did you mention that the cavity incorporates dessicants? Tell him!”, he urged me.
So I dutifully interpreted, word for word, only to met with a blank stare from my client.
So I quickly tried another tack. “The hermetically sealed double glazing means you’ll save money on heating”, I explained. My client brightened up.
“The dessicants in the cavity means it will stay dry and you won’t get that annoying condensation in between the panes of glass that are impossible to get rid of”. My client was nodding in recognition.
Get the picture?
Hermetically sealed double glazing = feature
Save money on heating = benefit
Dessicants in the cavity = feature
No annoying condensation = benefit.
Going back to the title of this article, the reason this approach works so well is that it focuses on YOU rather than ME (you being the client, not YOU, and me being, well, you. If you get my meaning).
A quick way to see whether your marketing materials focus on yourself or your client is to simply count the number of times you use the words I, Me, We, versus the number of times you use the word You. It’s a simple trick, but the brain really does wake up when it sees the word YOU. “Me?” the brain says, stretching and yawning. “Did someone mention my name? What’s in this for me…?”
But isn’t it a bit condescending to assume the client will only pay attention if something is about them?
My clients aren’t like your property-buying client, I hear you say. They don’t need things spelled out for them.
No. Probably not. But they are busy people, and busy people don’t have time to plough through the rhetoric to find out What’s In It For Them. Look at it this way: you’ve got about 2 seconds to stop them from hitting the delete button, so you need to use every trick in the book to make them pay attention to your email and not the other 213 CVs, emails or proposals they received that morning.
But I work for translation agencies, I hear you say, I don’t have marketing materials.
Yes, you do. If you’ve ever written an email, you have marketing materials. And with more of the YOU and less of the I, WE, and ME, your marketing message will reach its target: your potential client’s brain.
No, not you. THEM!
If you haven't already, subscribe to our email updates. Just enter your name and email here.