Power copywriting tip: Know your product

In the October issue of Selling Power magazine, Linda Richardson, founder, president, and CEO of Richardson, a company specializing in sales training, talks about how companies provide sales people with product knowledge training but not enough client-focused sales training (“Know Your Widget”).

Switch “sales training” for “copywriting,” however, and you have some very sound advice for adding power to your copy:

“Product knowledge is often presented from a technical, product, and organization-focused perspective. [Sales] training should go beyond the features, benefits, target market, and how the product works.

It should also include the client needs, questions to ask the client, success stories, anticipated objections and how to respond to them, the competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, and product differentiation.”

Amen sister!

As a copywriter, what tricks do you use to dig deeper to learn more about your product? Here are two I’ve learned over the years:

1. Pick up phone and talk to people.

2. Go online: Research competitor and partner sites; download reports, case studies, and white papers; read articles, blogs, and forums; and perform keyword searches to see what else pops up.