Imply the Benefits of Your Product

Copy should be clear and direct.

This advice is everywhere, yet it leads to copy like this:

• Our chair is soft.
• Our drill is powerful.
• Our software is easy.

Yawn. Booooring.

Plus, this copy seems less truthful. Customers are skeptical, so they subconsciously imagine the reciprocals of direct claims:

• Our chair isn't soft.
• Our drill isn't powerful.
• Our software isn't easy.

Strive to imply your benefits instead (Kardes, 1988).

• Our chair is soft. Hmm, is it actually soft?
• Your new home. Hmm, must be soft and comfortable.

In the second version, a slight tweak has allowed readers to become the source of this meaning — and naturally, they trust themselves more than marketers.

Another example:

• Tide will clean your clothes really well. Hmm, does it clean clothes really well?
• The freshness of the outdoors, now in liquid form. Hmm, must be refreshing.

How to Apply

• Display Safety Certifications. Asserting that your product is safe doesn't inspire confidence because of the harmful reciprocal (e.g., your product isn't safe). Imply safety through certifications, case studies, and other indirect ways so that readers infer that your product is safe.

• Kardes, F. R. (1988). Spontaneous inference processes in advertising: The effects of conclusion omission and involvement on persuasion. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(2), 225-233.