Never Try to Sell a 'Swiss Army Knife'
Plus: Why you can't read while someone is talking to you
If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you know quite a bit about how to write copy that sells. Today, let’s put that knowledge to the test. Imagine you had to write short yet highly effective sales copy for the product below. How would you do it?
It’s a trick question. You couldn’t do it, and neither could I. It’s impossible to write short sales copy for the above product, let alone “highly effective” short sales copy! If we tried, we would just confuse the reader — and (say it with me) confusion is a sales killer.™
I use this absurd example as a way to illustrate the importance of the fifth of my Divine Seven (D7) criteria: EASILY EXPLAINED. You should never have to face a challenge anything like the one above because you should be weeding out hard-to-describe products during the product-selection phase.
Every so often I see a product that has so many features, the seller has no prayer of explaining them all before his prospect loses interest. I call these ‘Swiss Army knife’ products. What you want is almost the opposite. You want one of those EDC (everyday carry) folding knives. Something like this (conceptually):
If you think about it, the product above still offers plenty to write about. Here’s Doug Mahoney of the New York Times on why he named it Wirecutter’s “best pocket knife”:
The CRKT Drifter shares the two basic characteristics of most of the knives we tested: The blade is about 3 inches long, and you can open and close it with one hand. On paper, the Drifter offers nothing unique, but it excels at all of the small elements that make for a successful knife. The most impressive of these is the smoothness of the blade’s pivoting action, which is among the nicest we tested and on a par with that of knives costing four times as much. The Drifter’s handle is contoured to fit both big and small hands, and it has a light texturing that improves the grip. This model has excellent fit and finish, and it doesn’t have a cheap plastic feel like many of the knives in its price range—usually costing around $30, it’s a bargain.
Notice how the product’s limited features allow more space to talk about its benefits. It opens with impressive smoothness. It fits any size hand. The light texturing improves its grip. It feels like quality. At $30, it won’t break the bank.
Smart marketers know that benefits have significantly more selling power than features. That’s another reason why choosing a product that’s EASILY EXPLAINED is so critical. It lets you get to selling your product’s benefits sooner.
I was also thinking about demos when I originally added this criterion to my checklist. In fact, many DRTV marketers had “demonstrable” as one of their key criteria at the time. The reason: A good demo is worth a thousand words. It can communicate features and benefits in mere seconds. But when a product has multiple features, even the demos get confusing.
There’s also something deeper here from cognitive psychology that’s worth mentioning. It helps explain why confusion is a sales killer. It’s called cognitive load. The term describes the amount of information our brains can process at any one time. Charley Gale of the Product Marketing Alliance explains:
Customer cognitive load is the amount of thought that’s required to carry out a task.
If you’re asked to focus on too many things at once, this makes it difficult for your brain to process the individual pieces of information and this will increase the time needed to fulfill the objective.
For example, a high cognitive load can be caused if you’re trying to read a complex piece of text while having someone talking to you with loud music playing in the background.
Everyone handles levels of cognitive load differently, so it’s important to reduce the complexity of your product to cater to a wider variety of consumers.
Gayle goes on to share several ways to reduce cognitive load in this context, such as simplifying product instructions or making online customer experiences more seamless. These are great suggestions. However, as I’ve been arguing, I think the process begins even sooner — back when you’re selecting the products you’ll be trying to sell.
Go back and look at the Swiss Army knife at the top of this article. Can’t you just feel the load on your brain as you try to process all of those features? Now imagine trying to make a purchase decision at the same time!
See the Future 🔮
One of the founders of the ‘As Seen on TV’ industry just brought back and modernized a product concept that took the auto category by storm in the 1980s. This Old Gold success eventually sold more than 10 million units at mass-market retailers like Walmart and became a household name.
That founder’s competitor just tested a product in a category that has produced four bestsellers in just the last decade or so. It’s actually a smart combination of two of those previous bestsellers. Even more interesting, TV hits tend to repeat every 7-10 years, and it has been almost exactly seven years since the last hit in this category. In other words, the category is primed for another winner.
Both of the above products have the potential to become huge bestsellers that drive massive consumer interest in their respective categories. To find out about these potential game-changers, head over to The Library of DRTV.
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The Divine Seven
1. UNIQUE
(Article: Build the Marketing Into Your Product to Maximize Sales)
2. MASS MARKET
(Article: These 3 Powerful Letters Can Greatly Improve Your Odds of Choosing Hit Products)
3. PROBLEM SOLVING
(Article: The Problem Scale Can Guide You Toward the ‘Heart Attack’ You Seek)
4. PRICED RIGHT
(Article: What a Huge Walmart Mistake Can Teach Us About Product Pricing)
5. EASILY EXPLAINED
(Article: Never Try to Sell a ‘Swiss Army Knife’)
6. AGE APPROPRIATE
(Article: Why TikTok Advertisers Shouldn’t Sell Canes)
7. CREDIBLE
(Article: Don’t Even Bother With Products That Can’t Live Up to the Hype)