TLDR: "Now you can"
It’s midnight, I’m sitting in a hotel room in Davidson, NC.
I’m flipping through the tv when I see something that I’ve seen my whole life.
Infomercials.
From chia pets to the slap chop, infomercials have been ingrained into our culture.
The formula that makes infomercials effective has been well documented by marketers.
It is amazing that these commercials can connect their value and produce a sale in under 30 seconds.
How do they capture that attention?
Then I hear it.
Three words help me understand how these kitchen knives will make my life better.
“Now you can…”
Connecting your product with your market
Launching a new product into a market is no easy task.
Founders striving for product-market fit are looking to have people fall in love with their product like it is something they can’t live without but many fail because they can’t seem to share that value effectively.
I’m a firm believer that language is the little dash in product-market fit, it’s what connects it, it’s the glue.
So how can we use language effectively?
How can we make it clear for the world to understand the value of your product in less than 30 seconds?
Language-Market Fit
Matt Lerner wrote an amazing article on language market fit.
In there he explains why headlines are so important, how to develop better headlines and how to test them.
What stuck out to me was the concept of “Now you can…” “I wish I could…” or “Someday I hope to…”
If your language completes the sentence then it might resonate with your target audience.
In the B2B space, there are a few great examples of this.
Try putting “Now you can” in front of these headlines:
“Convert more leads. Create custom landing pages- no coding required.” (Unbounce)
“Create a website you’re proud of.” (Wix)
“Build a custom ad server in just weeks.” (Kevel)
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Test your headlines
Conveying the value of your product isn’t a list of features, it isn’t the world-class technology that you’ve built, it answers the simple question “how will this make my life better?”
You can build the most valuable and usable product in the world, but if the target buyers don’t understand what it does and why they should use it, then the product is useless.
Using “Now you can” as the fill-in-the-blank template for your headlines will give you a jump start in helping prospective customers understand why they should make the investment in your product.
Test this against your current headlines and see if it completes the sentence.
Getting the right messaging is the foundation of building a product marketing strategy but if you nail it, your go-to-market strategy becomes easier to create.
