Do You Understand The Difference Between Features and Benefits?
This helps you sell better face to face and helps you write better content for the products.
If you study marketing gurus, they are always telling you to focus on benefits, not features, when you write sales copy or create ads. Most business owners struggle with the features vs. benefits dilemma. Most business owners do not understand the difference. And because of this, most small-business marketing efforts donât work!
Most small-business marketers assume that prospects will understand why they should buy the product just because theyâve been told about it. Therefore, business owners only communicate the features of their products to prospective customers and neglect to mention the benefits.
Take a look at the list of features below related to our products.
Each is a feature â a factual statement about the product or service being promoted. But features arenât what entice customers to buy. Thatâs where benefits come in. A benefit answers the question âWhatâs in it for me; how does this solve my problem?â meaning the feature provides the customer with something of value to them. This is where most businesses go wrong:
 The benefit of only 2 inches wide is that the stun gun is easy to hold.
The benefit of only 4 inches high is the stun gun is easily concealable.
The benefit of the locking actuator is the pepper spray has a safety switch.
The benefit of maintenance free is customer will not have to fix anything.
The benefit of batteries included is the product is ready to use out of the box.
While these may seem like true benefits, theyâre really just elaborations on the features. So what is truly a benefit?
The best way to understand the true benefit of your product, or to answer the âWhatâs in it for me; how does this solve my problem?â question, is to focus instead on the real reasons the customer thinks the features are important. A customerâs perception of each featureâs real reasons is what attracts him or her to a particular product.Â
When someone chooses a stun gun thatâs only 2 inches wide, the assumption is that the benefit is itâs easy to hold, but the actual real reasons are that itâs easier to grab in an emergency situation, making it quicker to use, making the user feel more confident in her ability to get it out of her purse and defend herself quickly â she feels safer. Those real reasons are the true benefits.
When you try to sell the features of your products, youâre making the customer do all the work to figure out why they want the feature. Itâs in your best interest to draw the connection for them. But to do that, you have to know the real reasons yourself. Letâs take another look at that features list to see the possible real reasons the customers likes the features:
Only 4 inches high: If Iâm going to carry a stun gun in my hand, I donât want everyone to see it. I donât want people to think Iâm paranoid and afraid. Or, the bad guy wonât know I have it in my hand because it so small and Iâll be able to shock him before he even knows Iâm carrying the stun gun. I wonât have to worry about him taking it away from me and using it on me because he doesnât see it!
Locking Actuator: I donât want this going off in my purse or when Iâm showing it to friends. Iâm afraid I might spray myself. I donât want to look stupid.
Maintenance free: I suck at fixing things. I want something that wonât break. I donât want to feel dumb!
Batteries included: After I buy the product, I wonât have to worry about scrounging around the house looking for batteries or getting in the car and driving to Wal-Mart to buy some.
Even if you are using features and benefits in your sales copy and web pages, if you look again, youâll probably see that your benefits are really just more features.
So now that you understand the difference between features and benefits, how do you apply this to your own business so you can start marketing your benefits? I have 3 suggestions below.
1. Know your customer. To know your customer, you must gather as much information as you can about your customer. Try to gather demographic data (age, sex, household income, family size, marital status, media preferences and so on) and psychographic data (attributes relating to personality, values, attitudes, interests, opinions, lifestyles and so on).
If you are selling from a store or at a flea market and can talk to your customer face to face, you can start asking certain questions to begin developing a profile of your customers. Just starting having conversations with your customers.
If you are selling online, the easiest way to get an accurate profile of your customers is to do a survey. You can offer a free gift for their participation. The easiest to use is www.surveymonkey.com. Of course, this assumes you have a list of customers.
If you are just getting started, you will have to make some assumptions about who your customer is. Try to define that customer as precisely as you can. Even name him or her. They when you write emails or sales copy for your website or ads, you write just to that person.
As your business grows, you will get a better feel for who your customer is and the problems they are trying to solve with your products.
2. Change your point-of-view. Whenever you write from your own point of view, you naturally fill in the blanks with assumptions. No matter the type of business youâre in, you think itâs great because you fully understand what youâre offering. But a prospect knows little or nothing about your products. They canât make the same connections about it that you can.
Your demographic and psychographic information will allow you to discover what patterns exist among your customers. Using that information, you must learn to put yourself in their shoes as the buyer. Approach your own product as if youâd never seen it (which wonât be too hard for some of my distributors because they havenât since we drop ship for them). Then ask yourself, and anyone else who will help you, âWhat are the real reasons these features will benefit me?â and âWhy would I want to consider buying or switching?
3. Think in terms of real reasons. Thereâs nothing wrong with the term âbenefits,â but if you refocus the problem to think in terms of âreal reasons,â the situation becomes clearer. Your dilemma isnât features vs. benefits, but rather features vs. real reasons. Start with your current features, and then take each one into the real reasons phase. Try out what you get on friends or family to see which ones spark their interest.
When you use this âreal reasonsâ approach to discovering your businessâ benefits, you can be sure the marketing messages you use to reach your prospects will be right on target. And thatâs the surest way to get business!
The post Do You Understand The Difference Between Features and Benefits? first appeared on Safety Technology.
Originally published here: https://www.safetytechnology.org/do-you-understand-the-difference-between-features-and-benefits
