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Why people buy isn’t often why you think they buy, what factors you think affect whether a person does business with you may be totally different from the actual ones, decision making in the sales process is quite a fluid thing, many boxes need to be ticked.

We’ve already previously covered that what you are selling isn’t always what people are buying, e.g you sell drills but in reality the customer wants holes, You may sell walking holidays but your client is buying adventure, or  so in AdCopy or AdGroup building and targeting. So when trying to build landing pages or your product pages you really need to understand your potential customers to ensure that you tick all the boxes to appeal to and persuade to as many of them as you can.

One way to do this is by telling a story, or painting a picture with words, obviously photographs help but people throughout history have relied on stories to pass information on. So here’s how you can tell stories to make more sales without compromising your credibility.

Hotels seem to have a good handle on appealing to potential clients with stories, of course they target and bullet point with benefits : Free or super fast WiFi, Pool, Free Newspapers etc. but also the wiser ones push hard on local interests or perceived guest requirements. It could be proximity to a conference centre, or city views, or maybe industry leading quality of their standard room, there’s often something that sets each hotel apart from others.

Here’s an example from the Best Western Donjon Hotel, Carcassonne, France :

Hotel Adcopy

They sell the quality in this AdCopy with “Unique Privilege”, they use romance with “UNESCO World Heritage site” , they use exclusivity “the only 4-star hotel in the centre of the medieval citadel” and they add further romance with Become an “Honorary Citadin” as well as “Once over the drawbridge and across the moat” – Most girls are probably day dreaming at this point!

The copy above just sells the place, it creates a sense of adventure, quality, history, culture, architecture and romance, above all it doesn’t fail to deliver either, having stayed here I can say it lives up to all of these things and as a result transference occurs as you seamlessly class the city and hotel as one fantastic experience. Result being very impressed customer more than happy to recommend the hotel. (see it here)

Adcopy like the example above tells a bit of a story, it paints a picture that you fill in yourself, your should consider doing this with your landing pages and sales copy too.

Below is a less romantic example that still works well by the Hampton Inn Washington D.C

Washington Hilton Copy


Rather than just bullet point so it’s a list of features they paint a picture and extoll the benefits to the busy professional that is their target market.

Below is an example of the Marriott Hotel in York, England :

York hotel page copy


As you can see it doesn’t really capitalise like the previous examples, they could make much more use of the historical city of York, it was founded by the Romans in 71 AD! so there are 2000 years of history there and the only mention is “Walking distance to historic city walls” – compare this to the DonJon!

The page is just a list of features, rather than benefits woven into an appealing story.

It’s often up to you as the supplier to educate your potential clients whether you offer a product or a service; some will come in at entry level with minimal knowledge, others will have researched a fair bit already, as long as you offer information and advice that is true and highlights the benefits (rather than features) you should do better (price being equal) than those who just push features even if your “Story” is a little sparse it’s still better than just a feature list.

Below is an example of bullet points from Amazon for a “Necky Chatham 16 Kayak :

amazon copy

And then here’s one for the same Kayak with a bit more story from Backcountry.com :

Kayak Sales Copy

A bit of a difference in sales technique there huh? You can see the full sales page from Backcountry.com here. As you can see it’s more than a bullet list, it paints the picture of being between islands, challenge of rough seas etc. and then explains and educates why each feature is a benefit, i.e Polyethlene hull, is actually able to withstand high impact and abuse as well as UV rays, Amazon’s listing never makes mention of this whatsoever, it just lists Polyethlene hull as a feature without explaining the benefits.

Review your pages now and see if you can work a story into the page, whilst educating and informing, swap features to benefits  you’ll also find that rapport and trust is built by default when you educate .. as long as you are totally honest!

If you need help designing better performing online experiences that tell a story, we can help you drive more improvements through conversion rate optimisation or find out more about our bespoke landing page design services.

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