Product knowledge can be an entrepreneur’s best friend – or worst enemy.

You love your product and know it so well – maybe too well. As a result your perspective can actually get in the way of website copy that sells. Are you so close to your fine product that you can’t see what really matters to your customers?

Try this.

Put your nose right on your computer screen. Now look at what’s on your screen. How’s the view? Can you see the big picture or are you getting lost in the pixels?

You just experienced pixelvision. In this exercise pixelvision can be a little disorienting; in business it can destroy you.

Pixelvision distorts things for even the smartest entrepreneur and ruins any chances for website copy that sells.

Pixelvision causes entrepreneurs to:

Pixelvision Blunts Customer Awareness

Everybody knows that website copy is all about the customer.

That means good copy promotes customer benefits not product features. Everybody claims to know that too. Unfortunately, pixelvison with its strong product orientation makes features masquerade as benefits.

Let’s say you have invented a brand new product the “Bud Bar” – an alcoholic chocolate bar for beer drinkers. No bottle. No fridge. No spills.

What do you think the benefits would be? Is “no bottle” a benefit? How about “no fridge”?

Here’s a technique I use to force myself to uncover true customer benefits. Use an “=” at least 3 times to reduce a feature to a benefit. For example, the feature “no bottle” = no returns = save time = more time to enjoy life. The final entry, “more time to enjoy life” becomes the benefit.

How is pixelvision affecting your website copy? Quickly now, what are the top three true customer benefits? Do they mean more to the customer than they do to you? Try the “=” system with your product. Did you see any change in your perspective?

Pixelvision Blurs the Details

I meet a lot of pixelvision people who lose their way in the maze of product detail. And they often create or approve detail-ridden website copy that doesn’t connect to customers. Only messages do that. The trick is to get far enough away from the details to see how they add up to a singular, resonant theme.

Remember the Bud Bar and its “No bottle, No fridge and No spills” features? The trick is to re-write this list with a “+” linking the parts to create a sum. This sum represents the value proposition or theme for your product.

No bottle + No fridge + No spills = the value proposition “The chewable refreshment that is so cool it doesn’t need a fridge.”

To make the parts of your message add up you often need to leave out some features. For example, our Bud Bar has anti-oxidant qualities that reduce free radicals. This point, however, doesn’t reinforce the cool product image so we leave it out of the website copy. Instead, this health information might appear in an FAQ section.

How well does your website copy add up? What features/benefits are you intentionally leaving out?

Pixelvision Blocks Objective Input

When pixelvision replaces vision, entrepreneurs lock into a singular view that locks out all others. Even when they hire an experienced copywriter, what they really want is a stenographer to simply put their pixelvision into words. This is where the “-” sign comes in. Can you subtract yourself from the picture long enough to openly consider meaningful input from other sources? What vision of your product should you reconsider? How would that alter your website copy?

Grade School Math Cures Pixelvision

Is there a chance your website copy suffers from pixelvison? Too few benefits? Too many details? Too little input?

Two things have to happen to make website copy that sells. Step up and acknowledge your vision deficit and then step back and put your grade school math to work….. =, +, and -.

Ending pixelvision is easy. Just do the math!

About the author:
Need a website copywriter who gets business? Check out Paul Matthews at http://www.therezon8or.com for website copy that sells. Ask for your FREE website copy analysis.

Source: High Quality Article Database – 365Articles.com

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