How to use category benefits in your messaging
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Last week I wrote about the difference between category benefits and product benefits. Category benefits are benefits of your wider category, while product benefits are benefits of your specific product.
As a silly example, a benefit of books in general is that they have lots of information packed into a relatively small package. But that's not why you would buy any one specific book. If the blurb on the back of a book talked about how great books are rather than that particular book, you would be fairly baffled (at least I would).
A little pushback
I got a couple of replies to that email telling me that there are cases when category benefits can make a good case for your product. And it's true! I just culled that aspect in the interest of brevity. So I'll get into it today in order to round out this topic.
Not all competitors are direct
When I talked about category benefits vs product benefits, I was thinking of a fairly specific scenario: when your target audience is comparing you to direct competitors. Coke vs Pepsi, Nike vs Adidas, Xero vs Quickbooks, iPhone vs Android - you get the picture.
But that's just one scenario. Another common scenario is when your competition is indirect. That's stuff like:
Using spreadsheets (a major indirect competitor in the b2b software space)
Getting temps to do it
Doing things manually or on paper
Or, everyone's #1 favourite:
Doing nothing
If you know your audience is comparing you against these alternatives, and not necessarily against other providers, then you may well be better off highlighting category benefits - as long as these category benefits are in relation to the alternative.
An example from the archives
I wrote about a great example of this idea three (!) years ago. This is from the website of a company called Boltra (sadly out of business now), which leased e-bikes for $200 a month. Take a look at this screenie from their home page:
The bit of this I like the most is the subhead - "because traffic sucks."
That is not actually a benefit of the specific e-bikes Boltra leased, or anything specific about Boltra at all. It's just a benefit of having an e-bike. But Boltra was going after an audience of people who were comparing leasing an e-bike against other alternatives - not other e-bike leasing companies.
They hammered this idea home in the price comparison section further down the page. Here's a snippet from it:
They're not comparing their prices against other providers. They're comparing their prices against the alternatives - the other ways a person might get around Auckland.
This is a great use of category benefits in website copywriting.
If you're going to use category benefits in your messaging, take a leaf out of Boltra's book - be sure to explicitly compare those benefits to the alternatives, rather than just list them and expect people to see the value.
Bottom line: it's a strategic decision
There's no real "right answer" when it comes to product benefits vs category benefits. Rather, it's a matter of making clear decisions about who you’re targeting.
When they're reading your material, what are their comparison points? Are they looking at lots of your competitors, or are you competing against stuff like spreadsheets and inertia? Choose who you want to go after, understand the tradeoffs, and build your copy around that decision.
Special shouts out to subscribers Ben Mosier and Reuben Posthuma for telling me some of their category benefit stories.
See you next week
Sam
PS: The smart folks at 42 Agency published a great long essay last week, about the new trend of software companies to position themselves as media companies (EG, Hubspot buying The Hustle). Carve out 10 minutes and take a look.
PPS: Whipped out another video this week - this time working through calls to action, and how they can be improved by being more specific about what's going to happen when your reader clicks them. Take a look at the two-minute video on Linkedin. Also, leave a comment - it's good for my reach.
PPPS: Is your home page performing as well as it could? I'll find easy ways to make its copy more persuasive and compelling by this time next week. Costs $799. Find out more and book here.
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