How To Sell Your Features to Customers With This One Key Rule
Every sales letter has several elements.
It has a great headline.
It has triggers which appeal to certain audience.
It talks about the how, what, why and who of the product.
It has a call to action to ensure people take the next step.
It also has to have a list of the features you’ll get when you purchase said product. Without this, you aren’t getting very far. On the surface, people want to know the specifications and details. In reality, nobody buys anything for the small-details, and it’s a real rare occasion when someone clicks the “buy” button after a description that’s been copy-pasted from a dusty manufacturer’s catalogue somewhere.
So, you have to learn to package those features and sell them. Luckily, there’s only one rule you have to remember.
Sell Your Features: The One Key Rule
Here’s a key point: You only need one reason to buy something.
Chances are there are a lot of features on any one thing you buy that you don’t use or care about. You could read a whole list of those features and not be moved. You could be bored. But when you read that one reason, you’ll forget that you’ve spent fifteen minutes scrolling through an overly long sales page and fixate on that one issue you’re having. You’ll be relieved that the product can solve your problem, and start to imagine it doing so.
Sell Your Features: Emotional Hooks
When you sell something, you ignore the feature itself, and instead promote the benefit. This is Selling 101, but it’s something that isn’t all that natural.
It’s something that I still struggle with. I’ll ask myself, “Why would anyone want this product?” The first answers will be “It’s affordable,” “It has X feature” or “It’s got better specifications than anything else.”
Wrong.
It’s affordable = you won’t even think twice about the price.
It has X feature = It can do this for you.
It’s got better specifications = “Other products will take forever to use,” “Other products will break down quickly, sending you back to square one,” etc.
Even the person who normally buys something “for the specifications” is exactly the sort of person who tends to buy “System-Type” products.
- It’s why “Dating Systems” sell so well. (As though humans follow one blueprint.)
- It’s why “Money Making Formulas” work well.
- It’s why so many products are talked about in terms of gamification.
Those are all emotion-driven examples of appealing to rational types.
For non-rational buyers, you still have to give them the benefits, but this tends to be more ‘traditional sales’ material. For instance:
- They laughed when I said X, until I did X.
This is evoking social disbelief and subsequent social proof.
- This Panda Video will make your toes shake.
This appeals to people who are very-external/feelings based.
- This car gives you an experience you’ve never had.
This appeals to people looking to try new things.
My examples above fall flat, but you’re evoking emotions in any sales pitch. To go back to the original topic: That one feature is going to sell it.
There are two approaches to achieving this “one feature” success.
Scatter-Shot Approach
Have you ever seen a long-form sales letter so long that you’d swear it was longer than War And Peace?
The really-long form sales letter is an example of a scatter approach. You throw everything in the letter, and hope people scroll down long enough to get to their one benefit. The fact is, if you read the one solution to your problem, you’re going to buy, so don’t be afraid to do this for your readers.
One tip though: Put in “buy” buttons throughout; I know that I’ve clicked out of some sales pages because I’ve literally ran out of time to scroll to the end.
Bespoke Approach
If you know that you’re going to have different triggers for different audiences, you don’t have to throw everything in together. You can split-test and run different ads.
For instance, I’ve used the Valentine’s Day example on other articles.
An advert for chocolates on Valentine’s Day can be targeted to a boyfriend. It can be targeted to a husband. It can be targeted to singles. It can be targeted to girlfriends, wives and all manner of people.
It would be crazy to do that in a long-formed, everyone-included way. Instead, split it into smaller ads.
Remember, as long as that one benefit is present, nothing else matters.