As copywriters, we love words. God, we could listen to ourselves jabber on all day – look at me doing it right now! Damnit, Ben. Okay, but seriously. We love the sound of our own voices. Given the chance, we’d sit here and type and type until our fingers were burnt down to the bone.
But you know what? Normal consumers don’t like words – especially not yours. “WIIFM?” That’s the age-old, well-versed copywriting mantra that means: What’s in it for me? And really, as clichéd as it is, there’s a reason we say it so much…it’s true!
The point of this post isn’t to repeat what so many copywriters have said about WIIFM, it’s to talk about the fact that many of us use far too many words (and sometimes too little) to convey our message. Your advertisement should contain exactly the right amount of text in order to persuade your target audience. Writing on and on, especially about yourself/your company/your achievements to date is only serving to drive your customers away.
The fact of the matter is, your customers don’t want to hear what you have to say; they don’t care how many years you’ve been running, they don’t care that you’ve won three awards for being the most handsome chap in the ecommerce business. What they DO care about is what you can give them; and you should TELL them how you can help/what you can do for them in a succinct and simple way. Don’t blather on, don’t add paragraph after paragraph, hoping to convince your customer. Just tell them what they want to hear, which is benefits.
Benefits, benefits, benefits.
That’s all they really care about, at the end of the day. Sure, you need to handle their objections, to avoid them being scared off; but they’re focused more on what they can GET from you. So make it worth their while to read what you have to say. Get them interested, and keep it to the point. Your customer and your client will love you for it.