How to be Compelling When You Communicate the Benefits of Your Product or Service
It’s difficult in the marketing world to define marketing principles that are truly more than mere theories…
But the Eureka! Ranch has managed to do it. Over the last decade, it has compiled and analyzed thousands of client cases related to the introduction of new product/service concepts and new marketing messaging for existing products/services.
This research has produced and quantitatively validated a number of well-proven and very practical conclusions for marketers of all types.
One of the key principles that emerged from this research dispels a dangerous marketing myth and therefore needs never-ending reinforcement. And it applies consistently across industries and consumer/business segments.
I’m referring to the critical importance of communicating what the Eureka! Ranch folks call your “overt benefit.”
The value of communicating benefits rather than mere features is hardly a breakthrough discovery. The NEW news is just how overt that communication of benefits needs to be in order to produce a consumer response.
As consumers, we utilize only 2% of the information to which we’re exposed. In the clutter of the marketplace, we need to “get it” quickly – in a matter of seconds. In order for this to occur, marketers must be direct and focused on their most compelling one or two benefits.
Contrary to popular belief, there is a negative correlation between number of benefits presented by marketers and success in the market place. Benefits more numerous than two actually tend to produce diminished results. Therefore, marketers need to discipline themselves to capture the essence of their offerings in one or two easily observed benefits.
The communication philosophy that we must have the courage to embrace is to set a prospect say “no” because what you offer does not apply to her – NOT because she does not understand what you offer.
How do you build “overtness” into your marketing copy?
Add directness, bluntness, and specifics to your generic promises. (i.e. It’s not a “fast car wash,” it is a “6 minute car wash.”) Straight talk wins. Direct, to the point language out performs fancy word play in the minds of consumers.
8 More secrets from the Eureka! Ranch:
- There is no difference in effectiveness between rational and emotional benefits. HOWEVER, when rational and emotional benefits are combined, effectiveness suffers. You must make a clear decision to appeal to your consumer’s heart or mind – not both.
- Benefits are relative to a specific target audience. When you focus clearly on a specific audience, you create expert credibility. And guess what… consumers expect to pay more for specialized expertise than generalist offerings.
- When a customer buys your product or service, she’s often buying a moment that she has visualized in her mind. To the extent that you can provide visualization of the moment of overt benefit (the defining moment of success for your product or service), your communications will be significantly enhanced.
- Confusing people is NEVER a good strategy for winning their interest or patronage. Clever and obscure communication does not create consumer interest or curiosity. It leads to rejection.
- Benefits should be reduced to not more than 10 clear and focused words for maximum impact.
- Beware of solving a problem that is not a real problem. For a benefit to have motivational power with consumers, it must be relevant to their true needs - yet unexpected in that it offers a new insight or approach to addressing their needs. The greater the anxiety that your prospects feel relative to a particular problem, the greater the chance that they will rush to the solution.
- Beware of selling the absence of a problem instead of a positive benefit. There is far greater power in selling the positive than the absence of a negative. Selling the absence of a negative requires that customers know that negative exists elsewhere in the marketplace. When prospects have to do more work, you generate less sales.
- Beware of assuming knowledge. Do not assume consumers are aware of anything or anyone.
October 27th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
But from what I understand, Doug Hall and Eureka Ranch mostly works with smaller companies rather than mainstream CPG clients. That’s not to say business owners don’t have an equal amount to risk. Failure would just be an opportunity to begin again more intelligently. Also, I’d like to see that database of concepts. Since most companies participate in commodity categories, and given that few actually ever manage to differentiate themselves, what examples does the ranch hold up?
October 29th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
When I read that the research dealt with “new business concepts,” I was first inclined to think the same thing. However, upon further review, I found that the data behind this research is comprised of more than 6,000 client projects, 1.2 million documented consumer reactions to new business concepts, and more than 60,000 data points that were collected and analyzed as “part of an expert innovator survey to provide enhanced depth and understanding of the true dynamics of how breakthrough ideas are really invented.”
Don’t confuse “new business concepts” with new/small businesses. From what I understand, the Eureka ranch has worked with more than its fair share of CPG clients. I believe that Doug Hall published the research to reach the broad audience of small businesses that they probably don’t deal with directly at the Ranch.
November 3rd, 2007 at 7:09 am
Yes, Doug Hall was my client for several years during his tenure at Procter & Gamble where we first introduced the innovation practices that took Procter & Gamble from $12 to $58 billion and from which Doug ultimately got the experience to spawn the ranch. Our database, datapoints, etc are far larger and more comprehensive than Doug’s, reaching back to the first “positionings” used on television. These were needed every time a second product entered a category that had not yet formed itself as a category. We wrote the ads at CBS, the first viable commercial station for advertisers like David Ogilvy and his clients trying the “television experiment” for the very first time. However, I remain a believer that the more complex the mind, the greater the need for play and Doug is good at that. I still have T-shirts he’d produce every time he’d bring us in to help him figure out a problem with our product-based abstract creativity. But visit my blog, MADISON AVENUE http://advertising-age.blogspot.com. Blogging’s fun. Let’s talk again. Thanks.