It’s time for marketers to retire “features and benefits.”

It was a good idea once upon a time, when marketing was quaint and a small part of our lives. But now marketing is everywhere. Now even your clothing has someone’s logo on it, and your email inbox is crammed with every sales pitch known to humankind.

You are not selling to people who read your ad and think, “Wow! This is really cool! I gotta have one of these, right now!” You are selling to people who have seen it all before, over and over again. They’ve been promised the same things many times, and they feel as though they’ve always been disappointed.

In fact, you are selling to people who have one basic question. Answer this question, honestly and forthrightly, and you will start to earn their trust.

Here’s the question: “What’s going to happen to me after I buy?”

When you think about it, this is what car manufacturers do. They sell the experience of suddenly becoming sexy and satisfied—right after you buy the car. Sellers of technical and business products have been slow to grasp this idea, and yet it’s even more important to answer this question when you’re selling something that has to interact with other systems. Promises of “seamless integration” are completely meaningless because they’ve been made—and broken—by hundreds of manufacturers since the beginning, when nothing worked with anything else.

The buyer of business products wants you to say, in clear, honest, “visual” copy, what is going to happen, starting from the moment the buyer says “Yes.” For example, here’s a partial list of what a buyer of business software wants to know:


- Will I be assigned a technical support person or team?

- How much documentation comes with the product? Can I see an example ahead of time?
- How does the product work? Give me specific, real-world examples.

- What will happen if—or rather when—something goes wrong?

- How long will it take to install and what steps are involved?

- How will it interact with my existing systems? (This is a biggie.)

- How much money do you expect to make from consulting—and do you make a lot on
  consulting because the product integrates so poorly with my other systems?

- Are there situations where this product/software will not work optimally? If so, are there workarounds
  Who can I talk to who is already using the software—so I can learn what their experiences have been?

Let’s put this in perspective with an example. Let’s say you’re a marketer evaluating tradeshow management companies. The typical ad for a tradeshow company, following the “features and benefits” formula, would have a headline saying: “The leader in tradeshow service!” The copy would say things like, “Our years of experience…our talented crew…our award-winning booth designs…” Note that this is all about THEM, not you.

But imagine running across an ad or banner that said: “It’s 10:00 AM. The show opens in an hour. Your CEO just walked up to your booth and asked, ‘Why is our whole booth black?’ What do you do now?” The copy would continue: “If you were our client and this happened to you, our guy would be out there in two seconds. In five minutes, seven people would be putting your new, colorful booth up…” Or, “In five minutes, three people would arrive with colored lights, fans, and streamers.” And so on. These are really all different ways of saying, “We will be there for you.”

This is compelling, visual, memorable copy. This is copy that will bring buyers to you.

Call your customers and ask them what questions they had about your product as they were buying it, and then make sure your marketing answers those questions.

You will end up spending the same amount on marketing, but your sales will go up.


Kristin Zhivago is the editor of Marketing Technology and president of Zhivago Marketing Partners, Inc. She helps companies increase their revenues through more effective marketing, selling and management. And yes, she conducts copywriting workshops for marketing teams. She can be reached at kristin@zhivago.com, 401-423-2400, or visit her website www.zhivago.com