053 What You Don’t Know about Your Product Can Kill Your Copy

The Transcript

What You Don’t Know about Your Product Can Kill Your Copy

Voiceover: This is Rainmaker.FM, the digital marketing podcast network. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which empowers you to build your own digital marketing and sales platform. Start your free 14-day trial at RainmakerPlatform.com.

Demian Farnsworth: Hi, and welcome to Rough Draft, the daily podcast that delivers the essential writing advice you need to succeed online as a writer.

I’m your host, Demian Farnworth, the Chief Content Writer for Copyblogger Media. And thank you for sharing the next few minutes of your life with me.

So, once you’ve determined the strongest desire you are going to put in your headline, your next step is to figure out which product performance best satisfies that desire.

Products have two existences:

One, they are Physical: Shape, size, weight, color and so on. The object. This is even true for digital products, even if we are only talking about file size. Or your service, like being a dentist or teacher.

Then the other existence is functional: What the product actually does. Its performance.

Two Clear Examples of People Buying the Product in Action

Keep in mind people don’t buy the physical. When you pay $5,000 for your son’s braces, you aren’t buying a middle aged man to follow you around in a white coat … nor are you buying stainless steel rods to stick in your mouth.

What you are buying are straight teeth. But not even that. You are buying what those straight teeth mean: beauty over bullying.

And I don’t run out to Lowe’s and drop one hundred dollars because I woke up dreaming about cordless drills. I run out to Lowe’s and drop one hundred dollars because I want to finish that backyard patio this weekend, not six months down the road — and enjoy it this weekend.

How to Catch the Eye of Innovators and Early Adopters

So what this means as a copywriter. What this means is you have to emphasize the benefits in your headlines and your copy. And even though this is a long-standing truism, people still ignore it.

Take this copy of the home page for a product called the AR.Drone 2.0, for example.

The copy tells you about the physical object … but people don’t buy three extra sets of colored propellers, two high-density batteries, or a flight recorder using 4 Gb of Flash memory.

Those are features.

People buy the product in action. They buy the performance. For example, in this case, you would list performances and match them to the mass desires it satisfies.

Novelty: Innovators and early adopters want to maintain the image of the cool kid on the block. … neighbors gathering around as you fly this thing down your street. Or the reaction you might get if you release one of your Drone videos on YouTube. You are doing it first.

What a Swedish Car Manufacturer Does to Distinguish Its Cars

Let’s dissect another product — the more common car — say the 2013 Volvo S60 to see these steps played out in action.

What are the performances that satisfy consumer desires when it comes to cars?

• There’s transportation. Cars are perhaps one of the most efficient, affordable, and fastest methods of getting from one place to another. Volvo doesn’t have a lock on this, however. They just promise to do it more safely.
• Speaking of safety: The S60 has one of the highest safety records in a crash test … whether from a front, side, or rollover collision. One of the reasons for this is that there are airbags everywhere in this car. In front of you, above you, beside you. And I don’t know — maybe below you, too. That would be interesting.
• Then there is the turbocharged five-cylinder engine distributes power to four wheels … which means the car goes faster while you maintain superior control. That’s why people actually buy the product.
• This car is, on average, also reliable. The NHTSA hasn’t recalled any cars or parts on the S60, but J.D. Power gives the car a rating of 3.5 stars out of 5, meaning the car is about as reliable as any other car out there.
• What about novelty? Own an S60 and you own a unique Swedish car that costs — on the low-end — around $30,000. Get a souped up version and your pals at the country club will let you play tennis with them (or at least let you fetch their balls). That’s why people buy an S60.

The Two Identities of a Product (and the One You Should Care About If You Want to Sell Anything)

We could go on and talk about other desires that the S60 fulfills. But here’s the deal. After we’ve gone through this exercise, we have to determine which desire we will use in our headline. Because only one desire can dominate in the headline.

And it has to be biggest one.

So here’s a question for you: if you were a copywriter and you were assigned to the S60, what desire would you appeal to in your headline?

Your steps are to find the strongest desire, put that desire into your headline, and then show how the performance of the product satisfies that desire.

Now, naturally, you probably wondering how in the world do you find out the desires of your ideal customer? Good question. I will answer it in the next episode. An episode where I teach you one of my favorite frameworks for creating headlines and hooks.

Until then, take care.