Join thousands of readers building a business that works around Life Stuff (like chronic physical or mental health conditions, recovery from big life events, caring responsibilities). I send two-ish emails each week, to help you enjoy a more comfy business and life.
Sizzle or Steak
|
Have you heard the expression ‘sell the sizzle, not the steak’ Reader? Or ‘focus on the benefits, not the features’? In 15+ years writing online sales copy for other people’s businesses, I have heard those two a LOT. From clients. From other copywriters. From business/marketing coaches who mean well, and are trying to improve a sales page they’re critiquing. But, in my opinion, if you’re selling an online service, coaching, group program, course or similar, it’s really crap advice. ‘Sell the sizzle not the steak’ is a quote from Elmer Wheeler’s book, Tested Sentences that Sell. It was written, almost 100 years ago, to help people selling physical products door-to-door that the buyer could see and touch. You are selling an invisible, intangible concept over the Internet. Before the buyer believes you can deliver the transformation, they first need to understand what they’re going to get for their money. So yes, you do need to communicate the transformation. And also explain how that transformation is achieved. Explain the Features as well as the benefits. Outline how the buyer will use those features to get to the promised outcome. Share testimonials from previous buyers. Make your invisible, intangible offer as real as you possibly can. For a deeper dive - on why focusing heavily on selling the transformation isn’t great for your longer-term buyer-customer relationship, and how to sell in a more balanced way instead, here’s my new blog post Sell The Sizzle: How to communicate the ‘transformation’ on your sales page without sounding spammy |
The Comfy Business Newsletter | Laura
Join thousands of readers building a business that works around Life Stuff (like chronic physical or mental health conditions, recovery from big life events, caring responsibilities). I send two-ish emails each week, to help you enjoy a more comfy business and life.
For me, my clients, and I suspect you too Reader, making the sale isn't the end goal - it's the beginning of a longer-term relationship. And that can make selling feel awkward. We don't want to start our new client relationship by being pushy and manipulative. But if we're too humbly-mumbly about what we offer, the client relationship might never get a chance to start at all. In the Summer, I entered a Doom Spiral about this exact dilemma, then pulled myself out of it with a cup of tea, a...
As each business owner made the most of their 30-second opportunity to introduce themselves to the room, I was eyeballing the door and wondering if I could shuffle out unnoticed. The rising panic made the right words elusive. Gosh darn it, Laura, you should’ve anticipated this and come prepared. You had a 3-hour car journey to rehearse this! I have no recollection of the words that eventually tumbled out of my mouth, but I’m pretty certain it wasn’t a pithy one-liner encapsulating my...
Quickie version Got a sales page, website copy, or marketing content you really need to write, but can’t find the motivation/time to do it? Want me to be your copywriting coach, editor, cheerleader this Thursday? (Available on other dates throughout the rest of 2027) Full-length version After a very long, very hot Summer, our garden looked like a giant packet of Twiglets had exploded in the sky, rained down, and buried every square inch of green that was once our lawn and flower beds. (For...