Benefits are verbs; features are nouns
Remember Verb, the superhero on “Schoolhouse Rock”? He was great because he could do so many things.
His theme song went like this:
persuasion
Catch a reader: Features and benefits examples
Focus on the reader’s needs
If you were giving away a Hawaiian vacation to people who signed up for your webinar, which would you lead with?… Read the full article
How to find feature, benefit
Ask the right questions in the interview
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?
Features vs. benefits: Avoid fake benefits
No ‘Pat yourself on the back for choosing us’
“Clean your face,” demands a hotel soap wrapper. No, YOU clean YOUR face! I want to respond.… Read the full article
To reach readers, avoid writing in the first person
Stop We-We-ing on the reader
It feels so good to talk about ourselves.
Talking about yourself activates the same pleasure centers in the brain as food, money or sex, according to Harvard neuroscientist Diana Tamir and her colleague Jason Mitchell, whose research on the topic was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.… Read the full article
How to write in first person: Don’t
Avoid Institutional Narcissism
Richard Roll, an economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, studies narcissism in CEOs. Turns out the more narcissistic executives are, the more likely they are to overrate their skills and make bad business moves.… Read the full article
Second person writing works for all audiences
Use you in marketing, employee comms — even PR
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.… Read the full article
How to persuade like Dale Carnegie
Writing tips from the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People
I was coaching a communicator for a California health insurance plan the other day.… Read the full article
Move from event to impact in PR writing
Focus news stories on MOI
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.… Read the full article
Develop a 4-part fear appeal
Avoid losing readers in these hot spots
Fear appeals persuade. But they can also paralyze.
Strong fear appeals persuade … The stronger the fear appeal, the more likely it is to move your readers to act, according to 50 years of research and 100 studies reviewed by researchers Kim Witte and Mike Allen.… Read the full article