Hi, this is Alan Stewart.

If I could be king for a day, I think I would shout to all advertisers: “Fall in love with your target market, not your product!”

Several times per week, our team is either reviewing or rewriting ad copy for clients, and it fascinates me how many business people place such a heavy emphasis on the features of their products. However, selling on just features alone does little to interest a potential buyer. Your customers want to know how those features will give them an advantage. They want to know how the product will benefit them. Indeed, they will fall in love with your product if you give them an emotional connection.

How do you do this?

By telling a fable. And I am not talking about the Hansel and Gretel kind.

A simple system is to use yet another one of Al’s acronyms: the word F.A.B.L.E.

F – feature
A – advantage
B – benefit
L – love your product, if there’s an
E – emotional connection.

Let’s say your product is dog food. A feature of that dog food is that it’s calcium fortified. It’s not very compelling in copy to just state, “we put calcium in your dog food”. You need to ask yourself, what is the advantage of calcium fortified? Strong bones and teeth. What are the benefits of that advantage? A healthy dog and less trips to the vet. So that’s the FAB in FABLE.

Now the biggest challenge is coming up with the L and the E – love your product if there’s an emotional connection. Overcoming the challenge is the thing that is most likely to create quantum leaps in the effectiveness of your ad copy and what makes your product and services go viral.
How do you create an emotional connection?

If you know your target market is young maternal mothers, then you may test pictures of gorgeous, sleeping, vulnerable, little puppies alongside the following copy:

“You can be confident knowing that Yummy Dog Food is calcium fortified to ensure the little four-legged member of your family will have strong bones and teeth, and grow up to be happy and healthy with less costly visits to the vet.”

Of course, if your target market was a Hell’s Angel Bikie Gang, then the photo may have been of a lean, mean, Doberman ripping the backside out of some mug who was trying to mess with one of their motorbikes. Yes, that would make for some interesting copy!

Now to TV advertising.

If your product was a washing machine with a super-fast spin dry feature, then once again you would look for your F.A.B.L.E.

What is the advantage of the super-fast spin dry option? Your clothes would get dry quicker.

What are the benefits of that advantage? More time for you to smell the roses.

Where is the emotional connection? If you know your target market is mothers aged between 30 – 50 years, then you would have a woman about 40 years of age walk past her empty clothes line and pause to smell the roses in her garden. Then the commercial would cut to the super-fast spin dry washing machine with a freshly cut rose placed delicately on top.

Now try the exercise with your own products or services. Ask yourself:

What is the feature?
What is the advantage of the feature?
What is the benefit of that advantage?
How can you get them to love your product or service through an emotional connection?

Please let me know how you go by leaving your comments.