Gee whiz, that’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? Well, it’s the cold hard truth. Fortunately for you, by the time you’ve read this article you’ll be in a much better position to outfox your competitors and get more visitors, more subscribers, and more customers.

Okay, time out…

Do you see what I just did there? That opening paragraph (which expands on the attention-grabbing headline) is primarily about you and what you‘ll get from reading this blog post.

I could have started off with something like “At KickoffLabs, we discovered that changing the focus of our marketing material to center on the customer’s needs as opposed to what we do resulted in…. blah blah blah…”

You’re asleep already, right?

Well, sadly, far too many landing pages and company websites (both big and small) drone on about what they do rather than what they can do for their customers:

Acme Bionic Super-Injector Widgets is the leading specialist of titanium-coated high-density polymer resin widgets to the aeronautical industry. Having been in business for more than 80 years, we pride ourselves on… blah blah blah…

No one cares.

There’s a time and place for the technical specifications, credibility-boosting factors such as how long you’ve been in business, and so on. But that place definitely isn’t front and center of your communications!

Instead, you need to focus your message entirely on how the end-user will benefit from trading something of value (e.g. time and attention, email address, money) for your product or service. In short, you have to stop focusing on the product or service itself and talk about the solution (or range of solutions) it provides. That is, the BENEFITS.

Here’s an example based on our own experience that I hope is useful to you:

When we started KickoffLabs, we talked all about landing pages: designing great landing pages, why landing pages are a useful tool, etc. Seems pretty logical, right? Our business is in providing a platform to build landing pages… so talk about landing pages!

This is the “traditional” approach and, unfortunately, we walked right into that little pitfall headfirst.

Take a look around our site now, though, and you’ll see it’s all about the reader, i.e. the potential end-user. Our message now is all about how having a quick and easy-to-launch landing page can help you:

Test an idea quickly before bringing it to market

Build a highly-targetted list of leads

Get feedback from early-adopters

Generate word of mouth

And many other things besides. These things are about the reader and how he or she can benefit from a KickoffLabs landing page. Actually, a good example is our Tour page; you’ll see it’s all about the solutions the reader is looking for.

And that’s the key difference. Focus on the benefits to the customer. When you do, more people will start taking up your offer because you’re talking to, and about, them – not you.

Also, feel free to leave your comments and questions below.

– Scott