Honestly, yesterday was one of those days. To top it all off, my printer died. Just died… dead. There were no symptoms. It was fine in the morning and blinking and jerking and frozen in the afternoon. After a quick call to the repair shop I immediately found out that printers are disposable! It was going to cost more to fix it than to buy a new one. So, the search began.
I didn’t actually pay attention to what I was doing until the whole thing was over with. But then the steps of my buying process came to my memory. Discovering how I behaved and why was very interesting. I’ll walk you through and you can see how the copywriting I ran into along the way was helpful (sometimes) and what actually made a difference to sway me from one product to another.
My first stop was the Consumer Reports magazine. I’m a big fan. As timing would have it, they’d just reviewed printers and all-in-ones in last month’s issue. The printer I was replacing was an Epson and I’d loved it so I started with the Epson brand fresh in my mind. I was open to other brands, but Epson would be my first choice if all other factors were equal. My previous printer lasted 8 years surprisingly and I truly felt I’d gotten my money’s worth.
After looking at the reviews and reading the commentary on printers and all-in-ones, I saw two that I liked. One was an Epson and one was a Cannon. I knew nothing about Cannon except for their reputation as a camera manufacturer. So with those two all-in-ones in mind, I took my next step.
I went to the Circuit City website first. Why? Because they have a location about 8 miles from me. It would have been simple enough to go down and pick up a new printer if they had what I was looking for. I would have rather not waited for a printer to be shipped.
As I clicked through the site, I scrolled right past the “Top Selling Printers” section at the beginning of the page and down to the Cannon section. I went to the model listed in Consumer Reports and read what the product description said. The Cannon copy started with bullet points which I found helpful somewhat, but a few of the ones they included were a waste of valuable space. For instance, the number of pages per minute was useful information, but telling me that it has a USB connection wasn’t. I think pretty much everybody assumes these days that everything connects with USB plugs. The Epson copy included dpi capabilities as well as noting the 48-bit scanner and PC-free printing.
They had a package deal where you could add a cable and paper for $24, but that didn’t really impact me as I already had several USB cables and didn’t need the paper.
The features? Almost identical. The customer ratings? A 4.1 (out of 5) and a 4.2. What was the tiebreaker? The end results included in Epson’s product details copy. For instance, Epson’s copy didn’t just list features, it gave examples of what I could do with the product. Reduce and enlarge copies. Send multiple-page faxes automatically while I worked on other things. Optimize, correct and crop photos on the built-in display so they were perfect once I printed them. Restore faded color photos. It just kept coming. Because I could see myself using this product in so many ways, I opted for the Epson.
Would the Cannon do the same things? Probably. But they didn’t connect with me through their copy. Epson created a visual image of me working with their all-in-one. I saw the end results of buying this product. Cannon just listed features fluffed up by hokey language like “ultra-versatile.”
Features are great. Benefits are better. But showing your visitors the end results of buying your products and services is invaluable.
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