20 Minutes Is All You Need to Create 20 Killer Benefit Statements in Copywriting For the Web

Thinking up great benefit statements has always been the most challenging part of copywriting for the web. And, second to the headline, the benefits are what sell people on your product, service, idea or even political opinion.

All of the other parts of copywriting such as good headlines, price offers and stories were much easier for me than finding good benefit statements. What drove me nuts was coming up with a benefits list; that is until I discovered how to develop more than one benefit a minute.

You may recall from Sales 101 that benefits are what sells your product or service, not features. Understanding that, I wanted to understand what exactly benefits really are. They’re action items, right? As an example, you “build” muscles or “create” more time. So, why not start out all benefit statements with action verbs? Here’s the process:

1.  Get a long list of alphabetized action verbs.

2.  On your computer or desk, spread out the list so you can see the whole thing
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3.  Beginning with the letter A, read each verb aloud and come up with a descriptive sentence about your product or service that includes the verb.

”Accelerate” is the first word on my list of verbs, for example.

So, I might say to myself that my product helps people to “Accelerate your learning speed by     getting true hands-on training with every command”.

4.  Write benefits until you can’t think of any more, and don’t think of quitting early! You can cut out those that don’t have as much impact later. Don’t worry about duplicates right now either. Just let your brain consider your product and freely create the benefits as they come to you.

5.  Now is the time that you will prioritize your list from most important to least.

This process has worked for me not only to create great benefits lists, but also for writing articles for my website like “35 Reasons Why a Blog is Better than a Traditional Web Site for Your Business,” or “50 Ways to Kill a Perfectly Good Seminar”.

Use my list of verbs or create your own and start creating your killer benefit statements in just 20 minutes. Most of the time, you won’t need more than a great list of 20 benefits.

Marty Dickinson is an entrepreneur and the founder of HereNextYear, Inc., a full service Internet marketing company in business for 15 years.  He specializes in Internet marketing solutions for the small business owner, speakers and authors.  Visit to see what HereNextYear has to offer and to learn more about their innovative new website packages fully integrated for ease with social networking and other Internet marketing strategies.

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