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Flaunt the Benefits of Your Biz with the Right Photos and Graphics

In Advertising 101, it's one of the first things they teach you: Sell benefits, not features. Business skills trainer Robin Brooke elaborates: "No matter who your target market is, they only care about the benefit to them. Not image, not features. Bottom line: Keep the customers' benefit in mind."

Great. Lesson learned. Aced that test. But when you're a small business crafting your own marketing materials on a desktop, how do you put this theory into practice? Often, amateur advertisers forget benefits and just stress features in their images. They show a picture of the fancy new product. Or they go to great effort designing a print ad that displays the features of their service.

Showing graphics and photos of features might appeal to customers who are comparison shopping -- they're ready to compare features across the board. But it doesn't do much to motivate potential customers who first need to understand what they're getting out of the deal before they buy.

That's why it's important to use images that reinforce benefits, not just features. Consider the example of Wheaties cereal, the "Breakfast of Champions." The box doesn't show the picture of a giant wheat flake. It sports Bruce Jenner or another robust Olympian. Message: "This product will make you a champion." It's not: "This is a great product."

When you're selecting photos or graphics to scan into your own ads, figure out the benefits of what you're selling -- and flaunt them. If you're a piano mover, let's see a satisfied customer pounding out Chopin -- on the 83rd-floor -- while her neighbors drag their harp up the fire escape. Here, you're not selling the thing itself but what your customers get out of it. Net results.

Since using lots of photos and graphics is now cost effective even for small business, you can use the same tricks the big guys have been using for years. Like car makers that sell safety as a benefit. Sure, we see a picture of the car -- but we also see a picture of a happy family safely ensconced on the front porch, teddy bears snuggled under the kids' arms. Or pharmaceutical companies showing healthy people bicycling down a country lane.

The trick isn't to sell something your product isn't. The trick is to show something your product helps people achieve.

 

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