Some information in sales guides may seem repetitious to copywriters, but the information is useful because it suggests scenarios and direct ways to address customer concerns that are ideal for vehicles such as ad copy. These sections provide information about target customers and the questions that a salesperson can ask to find out whether or not an individual “qualifies” as a possible sales prospect. Salespeople do not want to waste their time talking to prospects that cannot use their product.

 How Information about Target Customers Helps Copywriters

Information about target customers is a great way to ground writing in reality that has been previously based on more general (but very necessary) information such as product definitions and features and benefits in reality. This information essentially tells the writer what kind of company might be interested in buying a product. It gives prospects a face.

Again we are using our corporate bathroom monitoring product SecureFlush as an example, partly because it closely resembles sales guide copy for computer network monitoring products that would interest corporate IT management.

Target Customer Example

• Customers with multiple bathroom facilities in a distributed environment.
• Customers with a diverse heterogeneous bathroom environment in multiple buildings.
• Customers using competitors distributed bathroom solutions from Fast Flush, WatchIt, or NOHOLD .
• Customers who are using SecureFlush to monitor local bathroom environments but have not extended their performance monitoring to their total infrastructure.
• Customers who are using a “homegrown” solution but now need a more robust bathroom management tool.
• Customers who are not using any monitoring or performance tools.

 Target Customer Discussion

You will notice that salespeople will be looking for customers in large corporations with a lot of bathrooms to monitor, or who have a competitor’s product. Types of competitive information usually included in a sales guide will be our topic next time. 

How Qualifying Questions Help Copywriters

Qualifying questions are a variation on the “pain points” provided in a sales guide. They are designed to be conversation starters for salespeople, but they can also suggest scenarios to writers.

Qualifying Questions Example

• Are you able to access the performance and/or availability status of multiple bathrooms across your organization on the desktop or with a tablet or smartphone app?
• Do you want to know how different emergency response times can be associated with various resource conditions in your bathroom environment?
• Do your facilities professionals have access to knowledge that allows them to take action that results in fast problem determination and resolution?
• Do you need a monitoring solution that allows you to easily customize alert levels and actions to meet your bathroom requirements 24/7?

Qualifying Questions Discussion

Copywriters can find specific product features to highlight in the qualifying questions because obviously the salespeople will only be asking questions that highlight their product’s strengths or unique features versus the competition. In the example above, convenience and timeliness are key selling points.