Copywriting For the Web, Create 20 Killer Benefit Statements in 20 Minutes

- Image by ImipolexG via Flickr
Thinking up great benefit statements has always been the most challenging part of copywriting for the web. And benefit statements are critical to selling your readers to try your products, services, and ideas, second only to the headline.
All of the other parts of copywriting such as good headlines, price offers and stories were much easier for me than finding good benefit statements. The benefits list always drove me crazy; until I discovered the secret to creating one benefit or more per minute.
You may recall from Sales 101 that benefits are what sells your product or service, not features. Knowing that, I started to try to get to the bottom of what benefits actually are. They are just things that help you take (or not take action), right? As an example, you “build” muscles or “create” more time. So, what do you think about starting out each benefit statement with a verb that takes action? This is the process to take:
1. Get a long list of alphabetized action verbs.
2. Display the alphabetized list of action verbs on your desk or, even better, view them on your computer screen so that you can see the list in its entirety
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3. Begin with the first verb in your list that begins with the letter A and read the verb out loud and make a sentence out of it that describes one benefit of your product.
”Accelerate” is the first word on my list of verbs, for example.
Then, my descriptive sentence might be that my service helps “accelerate” the time it takes to learn to read Spanish.
4. Keep writing benefits as long as you are able and don’t quit! You can cut out those that don’t have as much impact later. Now is not the time either to worry if you are writing duplicative statements down. Just keep an open mind and write down any benefit statements that come to mind about your product or service.
5. Prioritize your list with the most important benefit statements first and the least important last.
This process has worked for me not only to create great benefits lists, but also for writing articles for my website like “35 Reasons Why a Blog is Better than a Traditional Web Site for Your Business,” or “50 Ways to Kill a Perfectly Good Seminar”.
Use my list of verbs or create your own and start creating your killer benefit statements in just 20 minutes. Most of the time, you won’t need more than a great list of 20 benefits.
Marty Dickinson is an entrepreneur and the founder of HereNextYear, Inc., a full service Internet marketing company in business for 15 years. He specializes in Internet marketing solutions for the small business owner, speakers and authors. Visit to see what HereNextYear has to offer and to learn more about their innovative new website packages fully integrated for ease with social networking and other Internet marketing strategies.
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