8-16-2013
One of your biggest challenges as a creator of advertising is to fish out the benefits from a sea of features. You need to harvest the most powerful ones to resonate with your target audience.
Here?s a technique I stole?uh, borrowed, from Steve Kopcha (DMB&B, McCann-Erickson) now Advertising Department Chair, Missouri School of Journalism, University of Missouri. It?s called the ?What/So What? technique.
As you analyze the product or service for which you?re writing, every time you get a feature, ask yourself in the voice of your audience, ?So what?? as in, ?What?s in it for me?? Your answer should be a benefit. Then ask, ?So what?? again and again, each time leading you to a deeper core benefit.
You?ll get past the features fairly quickly, and somewhere in this ?What/So What? process an especially meaningful benefit will jump out at you and you?ll say, ?That?s it!? (Or something equally demonstrative.)
You?ve arrived at THE benefit. That?s where your power to influence is. Write your commercial around that benefit.
Let?s say it?s a commercial for a meal delivery service. This company will deliver meals from several fine area restaurants to your home or business for a small fee.
So what?
So, you can get a variety of delicious meals brought to your table or desk by making a phone call, accessing a website, or just texting them.
So what?
So, you can save all the time that you?d spend driving to a restaurant, waiting in line, ordering, paying, and driving back, and use that time to do business, or have fun.
So what?
So, now you?ve leveraged your time for a small fee and can be more productive?
So what?
?which enables you to earn more, or help more customers, or spend more time with your family, or just plain have more fun.
Now, instead of creating a commercial that focuses totally on what they do -- deliver food -- you?re creating a message for a service that gives the audience a great benefit: the gift of time.
As you discover multiple core benefits for each of your clients, create commercials for each benefit, making a powerful campaign.
Do the ?What?/So what?? technique with your client. When they participate with you, they?ll understand how you arrived at the commercial message, they?ll possibly gain insight into how their audience might perceive it, and they?ll be more likely to approve the commercial.
So what? Happy clients, sales quota met, more money, less time.
To learn How To Sell More On the Radio Using Stories, visit http://www.hedquist.com/stories
Jeffrey continues to discover ways to help you help your clients make money at Hedquist Productions, Inc. Phone 641-472-6708. E-mail jeffrey@hedquist.com. For your free subscription to our idea-packed newsletter visit http://www.hedquist.com.
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