Ever read something and heard a little voice in your head?

A little voice saying, “Oh I didn’t even realise I had X problem. I better buy Y to fix it.”

Next minute those life-changing mop slippers (yes, they’re a thing) are making their way to you.

Because these people, that brand, they get you.

Not only do they get you, they’re actually offering to improve your life. Who could resist?

Good copywriters and marketers understand that in order to persuade someone you first have to understand him or her.

Getting to know the user benefits of your product or service is essential to writing helpful, persuasive copy. It’s not enough to simply describe a product and assume the reader will connect the dots themselves.

It’s your job to show your customer how your product solves a problem and improves their life. Bingo! Product sold.

The best part?

You don’t need to interview consumer groups or send out surveys to identify user benefits.

There’s a simple trick involving two words that helps you do this.

“So what?”

These two words can transform the most boring product into something alluring.

Let’s take chicken soup for example. (Yes, I’m sitting in a café while writing this.)

Lazy copy describes the product like this:

“Our chicken soup is made out of organic chickens, vegetables and stock.”

If this sounds like something you would write, you need to ask yourself, “so what?”

“Eating chicken soup keeps you warm and fills you up.”

We’re getting closer. This tells us what the soup does, but we’re still not nailing the true user benefit. Ask again, “so what?”

“When you have a warm, full stomach you feel better.”

There! We’ve found out a user benefit. Now the final marketing can be:

“Feel great, try our organic chicken soup.”

Sounds more appealing no?

And this trick doesn’t just work for products.

Take this blog post for example. I could’ve called it:

“Using “so what” to identify your product’s user benefits.”

It says what it does on the box, but it doesn’t tell you why that should matter to you. So I asked myself, “so what?”

“Knowing your product’s user benefits helps you address them in your copy.”

So what?

“Writing about user benefits makes your copy powerful.”

See? It’s such an easy and fun exercise and will make a difference to your writing.

The challenge today is to try this trick with some of your products and services. I’d love to see what you come up with in the comments.