Email: What Problem Are You Solving??

Sitting down and coming up with copy for anything can be a daunting task right? Even if you're writing about something you know pretty well. One of the things I've been wrestling with is that fact that so many companies are so enamored with their "features" they fail to talk about the benefits, that is, what problems the features are going to solve.

Not surprisingly, this is the same thing that many people overlook when constructing a one-sheet, a business proposal, or a capital raising campaign.

But let's focus on email marketing for a second....and some nice tips from VerticalResponse..one of the leading vendors in the email marketing space.

BENEFITS-BENEFITS-BENEFITS

Make your copy more benefit-oriented and tell your recipients why they'd want your widget, not just how cool your widget is. People are emotional, they buy because they want to know how your product or service will benefit them first, features are secondary.

When you're writing your copy and you list a feature, always pay off the feature with what goes after "...so now you can..." or "...for better..." in your copy.

I went through my inbox and found a few emails that outlined both the need for and good use of benefit-oriented copy.

Toysrus.com - In the excerpt from their latest email, we're never told "why" it's going to be better for us to shop using our existing account information.

We might have said,

"... so now you won't have to create another new account and manage yet another user name and password! More time for shopping and saving!"

... or something like that.

The Sport Tec jacket - What an amazing invention. So many pockets and zippers. But what are they all good for? You wouldn't know with their email, and we can only guess whether anyone else can figure out what makes Sport Tec great.