How to write compelling feature descriptions, ProShop ERP have a great headline, the short-term costs of switching service offers
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TIP: Easy way to write headlines: think about how you let people have their cake and eat it too
EXAMPLE: Proshop ERP have a great headline - and it's not really to do with their copywriting.
THOUGHT: On the short-term costs of switching to a new service offer.
Tip: introduce features by talking about having cake and eating it too
A great way to talk about how you solve specific problems is to try and think of how you let your audience have their cake and eat it too.
It works like this:
[Outcome your audience wants] without [painful alternative way of getting it].
"Lose weight without counting calories," "add value to your house without renovating" - that sort of thing.
It works particularly well for things like feature descriptions and integration landing pages, where you're talking about a solution to a very narrow problem. It can work on home pages, but that's going to depend on the specifics of your product. If your product isn't that narrow, you're going to struggle to use this framework to talk about it.
It's a great framework because it really agitates a customer pain that you can solve. It's also so plug-and-play that you can roll it out at scale.
Like everything, the devil is in the details. Its success depends on you having good information to put into those two sets of brackets above.
This means you need to really know what outcome your audience wants - and you also have to know the painful alternative way they’re achieving that now.
If you just make something up, your headline is going to fall flat. So don’t do that! Get some customers on the phone and find out what you let them achieve, and what painful alternative you help them avoid - then serve that up in your copy.
Example: Proshop ERP has nailed their headline (and it's not really about the copywriting)
There’s a couple of cool things about this home page headline from Proshop ERP. Check it out:
First, as you may be able to tell, it’s a great example of the tip I was talking about up the top. “25% more throughput” is the outcome they want, and “same machines, same people” is just different way of saying “without buying new machines or hiring more people”.
But the more interesting thing here is why they are able to make these statements. And it’s actually very little to do with their copywriting, and a lot to do with their positioning.
ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. It’s the software that businesses use for all their core activities, like accounting, procurement, invoicing, etc etc. There are heaps of ERPs out there - 1500 on Capterra.
But this particular ERP is designed specifically for machine shops. This gives them the ability to say things like “25% more throughput” and “same machines, same people.” These statements wouldn’t really land with, say, a professional services outfit, a financial services company or a software company.
It is a great headline - but the reason it’s so great is because of the business decision to dial in on a specific niche customer.
This is really the essence of copywriting to me. It’s less about finding the exact right words, and more about finding the right things to talk about in the first place.
(Also, a few months ago I wrote a more in-depth newsletter about how software company Hnry applies this same principle in their business. Check it out.)
Thought: short-term costs of changing my service offer
Historically, I wrote lots of content that educates versus copy that tries to get people to take an action. Lots of blogposts, case studies, long-form articles.
I’ve been doing this type of thing for such a long time that I’m comfortable charging quite a lot for it. I also have lots of muscle memory and documented processes, so I can produce high-quality work, fast. This means high prices and high margins (as I charge fixed rates).
Earlier this year, I decided to change my focus, taking on less content stuff and more conversion work. Now I’m working on home pages and landing pages, which has sprawled a bit into messaging and positioning consulting, coaching and copy training.
This has been great. More challenging, very stimulating, and (I think) adds tons of value to my clients’ businesses.
But there’s a tradeoff: I don’t have anywhere near as much muscle memory with this stuff as I do with the content stuff. I’m still working out how to structure this work. I take my time doing it, because I want to do it right, and I charge somewhere in the middle of the market rate for it.
This means: lower prices, lower margins. But only for now. Because the upside is that there’s a lot more growth potential in this kind of work. Growing my content business would have been a matter of taking on subcontractors and increasing volumes. Not really for me.
This type of work has potential to grow the value of the work without growing the volume. And that’s exactly where I want to be - even if it means taking a bit of a hit in the short term.
We’ll circle back next year and see how I got on.
That's all for today. Hope you enjoyed. As always, hit reply and tell me your thoughts.
Sam
PS: If you like this newsletter, please forward it to someone who might get value from it! One group of people who tend to really like it are non-copywriters who find themselves responsible for a big chunk their organisation's copywriting. If you know any of them, flick this newsletter into their inbox.
PPS: I am now only taking on landing page reviews. $799 for an in-depth review of your landing page copy. Top 3-5 highest-impact, lowest effort changes you can make, followed by line-by-line analysis of your landing page. Buy one here.
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