Quick! Which would you rather read?

Or:

You probably prefer the second one. And so would your readers.

I coached a group of Public Relations Society of America members last week to help them draw readers in with reader-centric messages. Here’s what we did:

1. Focus on the benefits — not on the features.

The original focuses on grants and the organization:

The revision focuses on what the grants will do for communities:

2. Write about people — not about things.

The original focuses on a program:

The revision focuses on what people can do with the program:

3. Write about the impact, not the event.

The original focuses on the event — an awards announcement:

The revision focuses on the impact — what these awardees did to be honored:

Transform your writing

Would you like training and coaching to transform your messages from meh to mesmerizing? Join us at Wylie’s Writing Lab.

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Front-loading your headlines with your topic word just makes sense if your readers are going to encounter those headlines in online lists — a search engine results page, for instance, or your online newsroom.

That’s because readers look at only the first two or three words of the headline when scanning lists (Rev Up Readership members only; join Rev Up Readership). This technique is so important that usability expert Jakob Nielsen ranks it the No. 1 thing you can do to improve the ROI of your website.

But what’s the topic?

Too many communicators (and, let’s be honest, their reviewers) believe that the company or its product or service is the topic. But the real topic is the reader or what they reader can do, as these Silver Anvil Award-winning headlines demonstrate:

Blood Cancer Patients and Advocates Visit Capitol Hill to Inspire Continued Support for Be the Match

July 18 Legislative Day event aimed at delivering more cures to patients in need

— Be the Match Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Teens Get Opportunity to Celebrate With an Idol

State Farm and Grammy Award Winner Kelly Clarkson team up for teen driver safety

— State Farm Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Parents and teen drivers dangerously disconnected

New State Farm survey reveals an alarming gap between parents’ and teens views on driver safety licensing laws

— State Farm Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Color Your Easter with Eggs

HGTV Interior Designer Sabrina Soto Offers Easter Decorating Tips to “Dye” for

— Edelman and The Egg Board Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Before spring planting, expert says, “Dig a little. Learn a lot.”

— Natural Resources Conservation Service Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Cover Crop Mixes — They Just Work Better

— Natural Resources Conservation Service Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Survey: Cover crops deliver strong harvest amid drought

Agency focuses on helping farmers build resilient farms through soil health

— Natural Resources Conservation Service Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

JOIN THE TEEN DRIVER SAFETY CELEBRATION SUPPORTING NEW DRIVERS

Communities commit to drive safe in support of new drivers during National Teen Driver Safety Week

— State Farm Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Hey! Even the IRS is getting in on this approach. Here’s a recent newsletter headline:

10 Million Taxpayers Face an Estimated Tax Penalty Each Year; Act Now to Reduce or Avoid it for 2017; New Web Page Can Help

Don’t write about us and our stuff. To catch your reader, write about the reader and the reader’s needs.

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Screenwriter Nora Ephron long remembered the first day of her high school journalism class.

Ephron’s teacher announced the first assignment: to write the lead for a story to appear in the student newspaper. He told them the facts:

Ephron and the other budding journalists condensed the who, what, when, where and why of the story into a single sentence:

“Governor Pat Brown, Margaret Mead, and Robert Maynard Hutchins will address the Beverly Hills High School faculty Thursday in Sacramento …”

The teacher reviewed the leads, then paused for a moment.

“The lead for this story,” he said, “is ‘There will be no school next Thursday.’”

Not ‘just the facts, ma’am’

What’s the point of your news story? It’s probably not really the five W’s and the H. Instead of focusing on the event, focus in the impact, or how the news affects your readers.

Covering a:

• Speech? Write about the most valuable thing the speaker said, not the fact that she spoke.
• Event? Focus on what people will be able to see and do at the event, not the time, date and place.
• Meeting? Center the piece on what was decided at the meeting and how it will affect the reader, not on the logistics of the meeting itself.

What would Miss Piggy do?

To reach readers, think like Miss Piggy and write about MOI, counsels management consultant Alan Weiss. That’s “My Own Interests,” from the reader’s perspective.

One way to do that is to shift your focus from event — what occurred, when, where and why — to impact. That will make your copy more interesting, relevant and valuable to your readers.

___

Sources: Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, Random House, 2007, pages 75-76.

Lorraine Glennon and Mary Mohler, Those Who Can…Teach! Celebrating Teachers Who Make a Difference, Wildcat Canyon Press, 1999, 95-96

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Too often, communicators think the topic is the topic. But the topic is never the topic. The reader is always the topic.

Here’s how it works:

Before:

Again, the visual assets for the homepage are due on May 16. 

Assigning colleagues a task? Make it go down easier by focusing on What’s In It For Me:

Make sure your homepage is pixel perfect. Please review it and have visual assets ready before it goes live on May 16. 

Here’s another task for colleagues:

Please review the new name ideas for our transformation framework by EOW to ensure we collect customer feedback during next week’s focus groups.

Move colleagues to act by leading with the WIIFM:

To wrap up your transformation project on time, be sure to review the new name ideas posted in slack by EOW.

Before:

Want to know more about the Predictive Support solution?

Why would I? What’s in it for me?

You can now save time and money by predicting when your print/scan devices will fail with our predictive support solution.

Before:

XYZ’s coordinated addiction-care program can help you manage pain while ending your reliance on opioids.

You’ve got a good benefit there. Why bury it behind the name of your organization and your program? Focus on the WIIFM to readers:

Reduce your pain and end your reliance on opioids with XYZ’s coordinated addiction-care program.

Before:

The new XYZ integration is a smart, compelling solution for your business that will allow you to drive sales productivity and maximize your current technology stack.

Don’t bury the benefits behind an 8-word description of your product. Instead, lead with the WIIFM:

Streamline sales processes and get more value out of your investment with the new XYZ integration.

Before:

Using partners in deals is both beneficial to you and your customers. 

Pro tip: “Benefit” is not a benefit. Focus on what I can do differently by partnering with customers:

Increase your quarterly sales up to three times and cut your customer’s project implementation time in half by using partners in your deals.

Before:

With our updated ABC, you can now measure each engagement and iterate based on actual data.

That sounds helpful. Why not lead with that WIIFM?

Close more deals and find out what’s working with our updated ABC. You can measure results down to the click.

Before:

You should take this survey because it will help our team help you close more deals.

Don’t lead with the task. Focus on how your ask will help me:

Get the tools you need to hit your sales goals. Let us know how we can help you with this survey.

Answer What’s In It For Me (WIIFM).

As a reader, which would you rather read: the befores or afters? About the product or service or about how the product or service will help you?

How can you reframe your message to focus on the reader instead of on your organization and its stuff?

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What’s the difference between benefits and features?

Features

A feature is what it is:

Multitrack recording tools

Documentation repositories

Wearable technology webinars

When you get to the feature, you will have arrived at a noun — tools, repositories, webinars.

Unfortunately, nobody buys features — not in products, services, programs or ideas. So if you’re writing about features, nobody’s going to buy it, or read it.

Advantages

An advantage is what it does:

Creates clear audio

Holds thousands of resources

Makes wearable technology better

When you get to the advantage, you will have arrived at an adjective or adverb — a modifier — like clear, thousands, better. 

Unfortunately, nobody buys advantages — not in products, services, programs or ideas. So if you’re writing about advantages, nobody’s going to buy it, or read it. 

Benefits

An benefit is what you can do with it:

Get your message across

Create your webpage faster 

Design wearable technology faster

When you get to the benefit, you will have arrived at a verb. 

The good news is, everybody buys benefits — in products, services, programs or ideas. So if you’re writing about benefits, your readers are more likely to pay attention to, understand, remember and act on your message. 

Features vs benefits

So how can you turn features into benefits? Show your prospective customers and clients how they can save time, make money, avoid effort or otherwise improve their lives with your product features.

After all, nobody wants a mobile phone. We want what we can do with a mobile phone.

Here’s how it works:

Before:

ABC is a multitrack recording tool.

Don’t write about your stuff. Write about what your readers can do with your stuff. Focus on the benefits of your products:

Get your message heard with professional audio from ABC. 

Before:

Check out the new section in our documentation repository and start learning now!

This verb isn’t a benefit; it’s a task. Don’t tell readers to check out, register for, subscribe to, join you or attend. Tell them what they’ll be able to do differently if they check out, register for, subscribe to, join you or attend.

Create your webpage faster now with our documentation of the new process.

Before:

Designing wearable technology is a unique challenge for engineers of all disciplines. But there are many ways to make it easier.

It’s great to hit readers in their pain points. But the best marketing strategy goes further. What can they do differently with your “many ways”?

Learn to design wearable tech that customers want to buy with these seven tips.

Before:

XYZ, an ABC Community, is co-hosting a webinar with LMNOQ at 11 a.m. on Sept. 28 to give design engineers a brief overview of RF, explore RF applications, and go over the basics of ceramic capacitors, before taking a deep look into ceramic RF capacitors.

Don’t give your readers time, date, place before convincing them that they want to attend your event. Instead, answer the question in your reader’s mind: What’s in it for me? Why should I go? 

Plus, the list of things you’re going to cover sounds like a threat, not a promise. What will I be able to do differently once I learn these things?

Design Engineers: Learn how you can save time and money using RF capacitors in your projects in this webinar. 

Before:

Get FREE 24/7 on-demand, emotional support, and mental health coaching via text, through the Didi app. Sign up here!

Notice that pileup on modifiers — advantages — before the feature: FREE 24/7 on-demand. That’s a lot of words to describe your product. I’m not ready to sign up, because I don’t know what’s in it for me. Solution: Write in verbs about the reader. 

Stressed? Anxious? Feeling down? Are your thoughts, emotions or behavior out of control? Get relief any time, night or day, for free via text with Didi, an emotional and mental health app.

Before:

Get our Small Business Growth Kit — with our 5-step guide and pitching template, growth stories from successful entrepreneurs, and best practices. You’ll also receive a personalized business assessment call from a sales coach to help you take your small business to new heights.

The kit, guide, template, stories, best practices and the call are features. What will I be able to do with this stuff?

Multiply your revenue and slash your expenses with our Small Business Growth Kit.

Before:

XYZ devices and solutions deliver industry-leading security to businesses of every size, while reducing IT burden across the organization.

Devices, solutions and security are features; industry-leading is an advantage. What can I do with this stuff?

Slash IT maintenance times, secure your intellectual property, and keep your private information private with XYZ security features.

Before:

Sign up for our annual event to learn how to streamline your sales & business processes.

Don’t lead with the task. Instead, lead with the benefit and follow up with the task:

Learn to close your sales deals twice as fast at ABC Live on 12 July in Geneva.

Before:

Success plans are a win-win for you and your customers.

Hmmmm … maybe. What does win-win mean? And don’t lead with your sales plans:

Predict risks before they occur, implement faster and reduce downtime with a success plan. 

Before:

Multiple touch points are essential to the sales journey.

Maybe. What will multiple touch points do for me?

Close bigger deals faster by building solid relationships with multiple touch points.

Before:

With all the great features of update 3.0.12B, DataDeluxe makes it even easier to empower everyone in your organization with trusted data.

1. And then what will happen? How will I benefit?

Make more profitable business decisions with more insightful data using DataDeluxe 3.0.12B’s new analytics capabilities.

Before:

This tool will drive your operational and revenue goals.

What can I do with it?

Grow your revenue faster and get the job done more efficiently with this new tool.

Features vs. benefits

It’s one of the best marketing strategies out there — Focus on the benefits, not the features:

• Don’t write about your products or services, write about the benefits of your products or services. Show how readers will save time, boost their bottom line, self-actualize, live healthier longer and otherwise improve their lives with your product features.
• Hit your prospective customers in their pain points. What problems can they solve using your products, services, programs or ideas? Remember, “negative benefits” often outperform positive ones. So Make ’em sick, make ’em well.
• Answer the question, What’s in it for me? After all, nobody wants a mobile phone; we want what the mobile phone can do for us. So stop writing about your tools, webinars, updates, plans, events, archives, tips, apps, kits, solutions and devices. And start writing about the reader and the reader’s needs. 
• Write in verbs, not nouns or adjectives. Remember, features are nouns; advantages are adjectives; benefits are verbs. Focus on the verb. 
• Lead with the benefit, substantiate with the feature. Don’t lead with you and your stuff; lead with the readers and what they can do with your stuff. 

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Having trouble finding reader benefits? Maybe you need to ask different questions.

Ask your subject matter experts:

• What happens if our customers buy this product or service?
• What happens if they don’t?
• What happens if members of the community get behind this public policy?
• What happens if they don’t?

Or take a tip from Kelly Parthen, PR manager at Agilent Technologies. She keeps asking her subject matter experts: “So what?” “So what?” “So what?” Eventually, they get to the benefit.
Keep asking, and you’ll hit benefits like:

They’ll be able to watch twice the TV in half the time.

They’ll ensure that their children’s school buildings aren’t constructed of corrugated cardboard.

They’ll get the body of Kendall Jenner while following an all-Twix-bar diet.

However you find them, benefits will make your products, services and ideas — not to mention your copy — more relevant and valuable to your reader.

That means you will…

Having trouble finding your benefits?

Try prompting your subject matter expert with the line “that means they will …” The end of that sentence is likely to be a benefit.

Your subject matter expert says, “We can handle our client’s internal audit functions.”

You say, “That means our clients will …”

Your subject matter expert says: “That means our clients will free up their own employees for bottom-line projects and better control the costs of producing internal audits.”

Now you’re talking benefits.

Present your benefits, too.

“That means you will …” also makes a great way to present your benefits:

Try it.

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If you were giving away a Hawaiian vacation to people who signed up for your webinar, which would you lead with? The vacation, or the webinar?

From what I’ve seen — from training more than 25,000 communicators in more than 1,000 organizations over 20 years — most folks would choose the webinar.

Sign up for our webinar
and get a dream trip to Hawaii!

But leading with the webinar won’t grab your readers’ attention and move them to act.

Instead, lead with the benefits and substantiate with the features. Focus on your reader’s wants and needs first, then follow up with your organization and its products, services and ideas.

Steal a trick from these Silver Anvil winners.

These benefits leads from PRSA Silver Anvil-winning campaigns are great models of leading with the benefits and substantiating with the features.

Make the switch.

Sometimes, a small switch is all you need to put the benefits first. Check out these before-and-afters:

Next time you write a press release, brochure or newsletter article, put the reader benefits first.

The post How to define features and benefits appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

“Clean your face,” demands a hotel soap wrapper. No, YOU clean YOUR face! I want to respond.

I’ve been seeing a lot of messages like these: messages that sound like benefits but that really are not. Fake benefits.

These fake benefits mirror the structure of benefits messages — Do/this (Save/money) — but not their spirit. Instead, the structure of fake benefits is “Non-benefit-focused verb/feature.”

The structure of benefits messages is:

Do/this

For instance:

Save/money

The structure of fake benefits is:

Non-benefits-focused verb/feature

For instance:

Enjoy/our new product

To move readers to act, avoid these three types of fake benefits.

1. Get our product.

Yesterday, I received an email with this subject line:

“Learn more about New Media Gateway”

While that looks like a benefits statement — it starts with a verb and the implied “you,” after all — it’s actually a fake benefits statement. Its real subject is not the reader, but the communicator’s organization.

Instead of using your verb to point to your product, service, program or idea, write about what readers can do with your product, service, program or idea.

2. ‘Congratulations on choosing us.’

We tend to send these messages out after we win an award: “Pat yourself on the back for choosing us.”

With these benefits, we’re really writing about how great we are:

Get XYZ feature.

Reap many rewards.

Rely on our 75 years of experience.

Value the attention we pay to detail.

Appreciate our dedication to accuracy.

Pat yourself on the back for choosing us.

Instead, write about how the readers’ lives will be different because they chose you.

3. Go to your room.

We learned the imperative voice as the command voice in high school. And it can be a command: Go to your room. Make your bed. Take out the trash.

But you use the imperative voice to move people to act, make it the invitation voice — not the command voice: Save money. Make money. Save time. Avoid effort.

Avoid the command voice. These messages are actually tasks:

Take our class.

Stop by our booth.

Attend our conference.

Subscribe to our ezine.

Sign up for our webinar.

Make it the invitation voice instead. Rather than tell readers what to do, let them know what they’ll get when they do it:

Learn to double your income when you take our class.

Get a chance at a free Apple Watch when you stop by our booth.

Network with peers — maybe even meet your next boss — when you attend our conference.

Nix ‘get our feature.’

The hardest part of crafting a benefits statement is finding the benefit, not writing the line.

So dig in. Think. Don’t be satisfied with a statement like “Get our feature.” Learn enough about the subject you’re writing about and your audience members to figure out what the former will do for the latter.

Remember what you learned in kindergarten: When you cheat, you only hurt yourself. But when you cheat on benefits statements, you hurt yourself, your readers and your organization.

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I once reviewed an article for a company’s sales force with the headline:

Extraordinary customer experience: Be a customer advocate. Be Extraordinary

What followed was a reminder about the company’s guiding principles, an announcement of a new program, a bulleted list of tasks for participating in the program and a reference to a handout with all the rules.

Then, 228 words in, this oh-and-by-the-way aside:

Here’s the best part: Winners are treated to an amazing, all-expenses paid trip for two for four days in Las Vegas.

Here’s a simple tip for getting people to participate in your programs, buy your products and services and read more of your promotion:

Stop writing about your programs, products and services and promotions.

Start writing about what people can do with them.

If they might win a trip to Vegas, that’s your headline. That’s your lead.

It’s the easiest way to draw readers in and move them to act: Lead with the benefits. Substantiate with the features.

How to find the benefits

To lead with the benefits, first you have to find them. And that can be a tough, given that our assignments come to us in the form of features.

So start there.

1. Start with the features.

The feature is What it is. It’s an attribute of the product, service, program or idea.

Take Apple’s new MacBook Air. It includes a:

New Apple battery

Would you drop $1,100 and change for that thing? Me neither.

And that’s how people feel when they read about features in your pieces. Nobody’s looking for features. So you need to translate.

2. Translate into advantages.

The next thing you ask, is “Why is that feature important?” That will lead you to the advantages. If the feature is What it is, the advantage is What it does.

In the case of that MacBook Air, the advantage is:

It’s a long-lasting battery with a 12-hour charge.

One thing I’ve noticed by doing this a million times for my clients: When you get to the feature, you will have landed on a noun: battery.

When you get the advantage, you will have landed on a modifier — an adjective or adverb —  like long-lasting and 12-hour.

I’m starting to get the picture, but it’s not long-lasting or 12-hour that readers and buyers are looking for. So you need to keep translating. The next thing you’ll translate into is the benefits.

3. Land on the benefit.

If the feature is What it is, and the advantage is What it does, the benefit is What it will do for you.

In the case of the MacBook Air, that benefit includes:

Taking a transatlantic flight? Line up the movies, because MacBook Air is ready to play for up to 13 hours — nonstop.

Now we’re talkin’.

Lead with the benefits.

Once you find your features, advantages and benefits, lead with the benefits and substantiate with the features. Features work at the end of a positioning statement, but don’t start your message with them. Sandwich the advantages between the features and benefits:

Play movies for up to 13 hours — nonstop — with our new long-lasting Apple battery.

[Benefit] Play movies for up to 13 hours — nonstop — with our [Advantages] new, long-lasting [Feature] Apple Battery.

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You. It’s a power tool of communications.

The second person increases readability, boosts opens and clickthroughs and is the most retweeted word in the English language.

So lead with you whether you’re writing for clients, employees, reporters or visitors. Indeed, use the Y word when you’re writing:

1. Marketing communications

The second person was, is and always will be the recognized standard for brochures, sales collateral and other marketing pieces. That’s why the best marketing communications are verb-based benefits lists that sound like this:

Grow bigger, lusher plants — and never have to water again — with XYZ’s SuperPlantGro.

2. Employee communications

C’mon. You’re not still referring to employees as employees in employee communications. Right? Overcome the distance between employees and the organization by writing directly to employees, using you or the imperative voice.

So instead of:

Employees must pick up new car stickers by Sept. 25

Write:

Don’t get stuck at security: Get your new car stickers by Sept. 25

3. Public relations

Communicators have long believed that there’s no place for you in media relations. Why? Two reasons:

1. News releases, conventional wisdom goes, require the third person for an objective, journalistic tone. But have you looked at a news outlet lately? Even the stodgiest now often use the second person.
2. Who’s you? Is it the reporter who receives the release or the reporter’s reader who actually reads the story? However, given organizations’ goals for releases today, this seems like a non-problem too.

I’ve seen enough PRSA Silver Anvil Award-winning releases use you that I’ve almost come around to the idea. But I still think there’s a better choice.

If you don’t want to use the second person in media relations pieces, you can still focus on reader benefits by using a placeholder for you in the first position in the release. That’s what makes this lead from a Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign lead so effective:

4. Multiple audiences

Remember back in the day, when Step 2 of the five-step communication planning process was “target your audience”? A whole step — 20% of the process — devoted just to answering the question, “Who’s you?”

But then — and, yes, I am aware of just how old this makes me sound — [read in creaky, old-lady voice] the internet came along, Sonny, and suddenly, our audience was everyone.

So how do you write to you when you’re not sure who you is? You have three options:

• Segment audiences. This remains the best practice. If you’re reaching out to investors, employees and consumers, you have three pieces. The bulk of the piece might be the same, but the top two or three paragraphs will change with the audience.
• Call out to readers. Not possible to segment? Then take David Ogilvy’s advice, and call out to your segment in the headline. Just add, “Mothers of Kindergartners:” or “Asthma sufferers:” or “Kansas City residents:” to the front of your headline.
• Let readers segment themselves. The National Institutes of Health used to have two doors on its home page: Doctors and Patients. That way, NIH could be sure that I never saw my doctor’s content, and that my doctor never saw mine.

Because the minute my doctor gets a high blood pressure article intended for me, she decides the NIH site is not for her. And the minute I get the hypertension piece slanted toward my doctor, I decide the NIH site is not for me.

That’s the problem with failing to segment audiences: Give people information that’s targeted to someone else, and you may lose them altogether.

This also works with social media. I live in Portland, a city divided by the Willamette (rhymes with damn it) river. A dozen bridges connect the east and west sides.

If my bridge is down, I want to receive updates from ODOT every five seconds. If your bridge is down? I never want to get bothered by it at all.

The solution? Let people sign up for the bridge feeds they want to follow.

Then you know who your reader is. Then you have no trouble talking to you.

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