The mistake nearly every entrepreneur makes with messaging is leading with benefits, features, something “clever,” or straight numbers - how much money your customer stands to make or not lose if they work with you.
Here’s an example:
Now, I have no idea if Martin is a good product or not - it randomly came across my LinkedIn. I do know it’s really hard to make a decision on whether this is for me or not based on this H1. And that’s the point of marketing - to make it breathtakingly, painstakingly obvious who you help. And to do that, you need to know how humans think and market in that order.
Leading with a benefit is ineffective because humans don’t make decisions based on benefits. If anything, we’re skeptical of them. There’s a famous study where someone stood on a corner in NYC for a few days trying to give people $10 bills, and only 20% of people took it.
When most people see a benefit, they ignore it.
A far better approach is to market in the order humans digest information and make decisions. Here it is:
We’ve talked about problem language - how people are subconsciously managing problems that impact them all day. Because of this, leading with problem language is the most effective approach for getting attention and building trust. Whether in the subject line for a cold email, the H1 on a website, or the first sentence in a digital ad. The more specific, the better.