I’ll admit I sometimes have a bit of a snarky streak to me. Different things bring it out. Last week I did a favor for a friend and spoke to a bunch of business owners about website copy and sales letters. I shared with them the advice I’m about to share with you.

At the end of the talk a lot of of them came up to me, and in that uniquely Southern condescending/pious manner (that just makes you want to slap someone) said, “It was nice to have you provide that nice little refresher for us.”

Here’s where the snarky comes in. I decided to look at each of their websites (I even grabbed their sales brochures on the way out). Thought I’d see how they were incorporating “my nice little refresher”. And guess what I found.

Copy that was just basically a bunch of crap. I’m sorry but there’s just not a polite way to put it. Anyway, here’s the advice I gave the group…perhaps you’ll find it more useful than the dweebs I spoke to.
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If you want to write sales letters or website copy that will actually get read and motivate people to take action, here’s an often overlooked step.

I know this is just my option, but I’m a believer the far too much time and effort is spent on writing and far too little is devoted to identifying the facts about your product or service. For example, the more that you develop a detailed list of facts and their corresponding benefits, before you sit down and write, the better the final result will be.

But hardly anyone is willing to do that. Why? Probably because it takes time, it takes thinking, and we’re a society in which patience is in extremely short supply. But I’m a believer that if you’ll take this step, your sales copy will have a richness to it that will enable your readers to visualize the results that your product or service promise.

Marketing mastermind Garry Halbert used to suggest writing down one feature or fact about what you’re selling on a 3X5 index card. He’d make fun of you (an believe me that wasn’t a pleasant experience) if you weren’t able of come up with at least 3-dozen. I always found that the first 5 or 6 were pretty easy to come up with. But by the time I got to 24 I felt the well had run completely dry. But there would be Gary, pushing, pushing, pushing. “Come on you poor excuse for a marketer” he rasped, “Dig, what else do you offer?”

And the interesting thing was this. The most compelling facts, the ones that actually resonated the most with the reader, the ones that hooked their attention and motivated people to take action, were invariably among the last group of facts I came up with.

Everyone thinks that copywriters sit down and just “start writing”, As if they had a magic pen or something. Or they think that “anyone can do it.” A mindset similar to-I can boil water therefore I am a chef. Hardly anyone gets the hard work, that goes into writing sales copy that actually achieves it’s purpose of motivating people to take action.

But I digress.

Now once you have your list of features or facts prepared you need to turn them into something that will interest your reader. Remember the old saying, “Nobody buys grass seeds, they really buy the promise of beautiful lawns”. So for each fact we need to turn them into benefits. Or, as one wag puts it, the answer to, “Why should I care?”

For example I am working with a HR consultant who offers a brand new assessment tool for hiring sales people. Suppose to be a good predictor of sales success. One fact about this assessment tool is that it has been tested (or as they say in psychological terms, “validated”) on over 15,000 sales people. OK, that’s an interesting fact. So now we have to determine what the benefit is, the “why should I care?” factor.

*You should care because this means that you no longer have to rely on your gut instinct.
*You should care because if the big boss wants to hire some jerk but the assessment says you shouldn’t, you’ve got evidence to support your decision.
*You should care because this means that whether you’re hiring one or 100 reps it’s a good predictor of success.
*You should care because it means that the test has been around a while unlike all those other assessment tools that pop up and then disappear into the morning mist.

Validated by 15,000 sales people is a fact. OK, but not a compelling reason to use it. No longer having to rely on your gut instincts (which make most anyone who has to hire someone very uncomfortable) is a real benefit. That’s the stuff you want to emphasize in your sales letters and on your website.

OK, as I said in the beginning…I realize that you’ve heard all this before. But before you dismiss what you just read as a “nice reminder of something I already know”, let me ask you to take a look at your sales letters or website home page. How compelling is it? How chocked full of “why should I care?” benefits does it contain? Remember that there’s a world of difference between knowing something and actually implementing something. So if how you’re presenting your business in print needs a tune up keep these thoughts in mind (or even get someone-like me-to write something great for you.)