Thinking up great benefit statements has always been the most challenging part of copywriting for the web. But, other than a good headline, to sell visitors to your service, product and ideas you need great benefit statements.

All of the other parts of copywriting such as good headlines, price offers and stories were much easier for me than finding good benefit statements. The benefits list always drove me crazy; until I discovered the secret to creating one benefit or more per minute.

You may recall from Sales 101 that benefits are what sells your product or service, not features. Knowing that, I started to try to get to the bottom of what benefits actually are. I discovered they are really just action items in disguise, agreed? As an example, you “build” muscles or “create” more time. If that is true, how bout starting each benefit statement with an action verb? Here’s the process:

1.  Alphabetize a long list of action verbs.

2.  Put the list on your desk or computer screen where you can see the entire list
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3.  Begin with the first verb in your list that begins with the letter A and read the verb out loud and make a sentence out of it that describes one benefit of your product.

”Accelerate” is the first word on my list of verbs, for example.

So, I might say that my product helps to “accelerate” fingernail growth.

4.  Write benefits until you can’t think of any more, and don’t think of quitting early! You’ll weed out the benefits later that don’t have as much punch as you thought. Now is not the time either to worry if you are writing duplicative statements down. Just keep an open mind and write down any benefit statements that come to mind about your product or service.

5.  Now is the time that you will prioritize your list from most important to least.

This process has worked for me not only to create great benefits lists, but also for writing articles for my website like “35 Reasons Why a Blog is Better than a Traditional Web Site for Your Business,” or “50 Ways to Kill a Perfectly Good Seminar”.

Use my list of verbs or create your own and start creating your killer benefit statements in just 20 minutes. Most of the time, you won’t need more than a great list of 20 benefits.

Marty Dickinson is an entrepreneur and the founder of HereNextYear, Inc., a full service Internet marketing company in business for 15 years.  He specializes in Internet marketing solutions for the small business owner, speakers and authors.  Visit to see what HereNextYear has to offer and to learn more about their innovative new website packages fully integrated for ease with social networking and other Internet marketing strategies.

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