Copy Like Apple: Sell Benefits, Not Technical Details

Want your brand to sell more? Apple's messaging strategy is a great example of how to market products and services to customers.

Instead of focusing on technical details, Apple's messaging emphasizes the benefits customers will experience when they use the product. That one choice explains a lot of their copy. And it transfers directly to your business.

Why benefits beat features

Customers are more interested in the benefits of what you're selling than in the technical details of it. Benefits speak directly to their desires and needs. That makes them more likely to engage and to take action, whether that means making a purchase or signing up for a service.

Features describe your product. Benefits describe your customer's life with your product in it. People buy the second one.

Nobody wakes up wanting a technical specification. They wake up wanting the problem gone, the time back, the stress over. Your feature is the mechanism. The benefit is the reason they care that the mechanism exists.

How to write that way

• Use simple language that appeals to customers' emotions.
• Paint a picture of a desired future state in their minds.
• Help customers visualize how your product or service helps them achieve their goals, or solve a problem they're facing.

The swap test: run it on your own copy

Take the headline on your homepage, or the first paragraph of your last proposal. Underline every feature in it.

Then, for each one, ask a rude little question: so what? Keep asking it until the answer stops being about your product and starts being about their life.

Say you run an AC company. "We offer 24/7 emergency service" is a feature. So what? "When your AC dies at 9 pm in an Orlando summer, you aren't sleeping in a hotel." That's the benefit. Same fact. Completely different weight.

Two or three rounds of "so what" is usually all it takes. Most businesses are one question away from copy that actually sells, and they've been stopping one question too early for years.

Two quick examples

If you're selling a fitness app, focus your messaging on how it can help customers achieve their fitness goals or stay motivated to exercise. Not on its technical specifications.

If you're selling a meal delivery service, focus on how it can help customers eat healthier or save time in their busy lives. Not on the logistics behind it.

And it works the same for a local service business. A cleaning company saying "we bring our own supplies and equipment" is listing a feature, and honestly, a boring one. The benefit version is "you don't have to buy, store, or think about any of it. You just come home and it's done." Same operation. One version sounds like a checklist. The other sounds like relief, and relief is what people actually pay for.

The details still matter. They belong later, in support of the benefit, for the people who want to verify. Lead with the outcome.

We use this copywriting strategy whenever we work with our brand design clients, because a brand identity is only as strong as the words that carry it, and because it's the same thinking behind positioning your brand to stand out.

Thinking about your own logo? Book a free consult with Alchemy Design in Orlando and get an honest read on where it stands.