In keeping with the theme of tomorrow's (Wednesday February 20th) free teleclass in our Business Development series -- "5 'Dirty' Secrets to Sleaze-Free Marketing", I was interested to read Brian Clark's Copyblogger post from a few days ago on "Why Our Brains Crave Beneficial Copy".

Since I will be harping on promoting your services and products using the language of "benefits" and not "features", it's handy to have a research-based neurological rationale to support my nagging.

In essence, our brains yearn for and respond to the promise of a reward. And the more tangible the reward appears, the more likely we are to drool for it and take the steps to manifest it.

"…we made some headway at understanding broadly the underpinnings of why certain messages might gain behavioral power. They come to act like rewards, and the rest of the brain adapts itself to predict and acquire them. Events that foreshadow these potent messages also accrue value because our brains are designed to transfer value to events that predict reward. Just like, “A friend of my friend is also my friend,” the brain has its own version, “A predictor of a predictor is also a predictor,” where the predictors predict future reward. This is exactly why even complex verbal descriptions like the “…salad of perfectly grilled woodsy-flavored calamari…” can set off reward seeking circuits. It’s a proxy for the reward to come." (emphasis mine)

From Read Montague's book: "Why Choose This Book?: How We Make Decisions"

When you describe your offering in terms of what it can do for your intended audience, graphically, emotionally and/or visually in terms of basic human needs -- more money, more time, more prestige, more ease, more comfort, more speed, more convenience, more safety, more self-confidence, more health, more energy (I think you get it now) -- your audience's brains are programmed to begin justifying why they should open their wallets and buy!

So next time you are writing copy for your website or brochure, remember to seduce those brains into action by spelling out What's In It For Them!