In this episode I'm talking all about features vs. benefits and I'm gonna
save you a ton of time, money and energy by breaking down one of the single
biggest reasons that customers don't buy from you so you can avoid this trap and
never make this mistake again. Let's get to it!
Hey there my name is Adam Erhart, marketing strategist and welcome to The
Marketing Show, where we help you grow your business by making way better
marketing. So, if you're interested in learning the latest and greatest
marketing strategies, tools, tips, tricks and tactics, well, you may want to
consider subscribing and hitting that notification bell so you'll be the first
to know whenever a new episode is released. Alright, let's talk marketing,
specifically, one of the most important things that marketers must know if they
want to succeed in today's economy and of course one of the best ways to
succeed is by simply not making those crucial mistakes that are costing you
sales and losing you customers and one of the biggest sales killers in all of
marketing comes down to one simple thing and that simple thing is: Failing to
clearly communicate why your customer or ideal prospect should care about what
you're selling. That's it. Let me see that again, just
because it really is that important. One of the biggest ways that businesses lose
sales is just by failing to communicate the real value and essentially, why the
customer should care about your business. Because if they don't care, well probably
no surprise here but they're simply not gonna buy and customers that don't buy
well they're not really customers then. What would they be? People, they'd be
people. And this is where so many businesses go so wrong and lose so many
potential customers by focusing solely on features and ignoring the benefits.
But I'm getting ahead of myself and I also don't want to totally trash
features because, like everything, there is a time and a place for them but more
on that just a minute. So, with all that said, first let's dive into the key
differences between a feature and a benefit. The simplest and most clear way
to put it is that a feature is what it does and a benefit is what it does for
you. A feature is about the product: what color it is, how much it weighs, how fast
it goes, things like that. Where as a benefit is about the customer: how it'll
make them safer or smarter or cooler or add value to their life in some way. The
feature is what enables the benefit but it's not the feature that they care
about at all, rather it's the benefit and the end result that they're gonna get
from the feature in the first place... oh that's a bit confusing, let me break that
down another way. Features of things that you care about
and are proud of as a business but the benefits and the end result well, that's
where the magic happens for the customer. Here's some examples: a coffee cup has a
handle, that'd be a feature but the fact that you can hold the handle and
basically hold a hot cup of coffee without burning your hands, well, that's
the benefit. This pen has a removable cap, that'd be a feature but the fact that I
don't get ink all over myself and draw all over the place when I want to carry
it around, well, that's the benefit. Oh! there's ink everywhere. These sunglasses have
polarized lenses, that's a feature but the fact that they reduce glare and
allow you to see through water better, like Aquaman, well that's a benefit.
Where most businesses get into trouble however, is that they're so proud of
their coffee cup handle or removable pen lid or polarized lenses is that they
ramble on and on about features and completely forget about the end customer
and what kind of value that's actually going to deliver for them. Coffee cup
handle this and pen lid that and polarized lenses this and on and on they
go, when again, all the customers ever really cared about is how can I have a
hot cup of coffee and not burn my hands. Remember, just like I mentioned at the
beginning, one of the biggest sales killers in all of marketing comes down
to one simple thing and that simple thing is failing to clearly communicate
why your customer or ideal prospect should care about what you're selling. So
how can you take a boring feature and turn it into a customer centered and
sales boosting benefit. Well, I'd like to introduce you to a simple line: "So you
can, ________". Well, you don't actually say blank, it's just that there's a blank
spot after you say: "so you can..." so it's, never mind... Let's start with a feature.
We'll stick with the coffee cup example for now. The feature, as you already know, is
this nice comfortable handle - man, really sounds like I'm selling coffee cups here -
and the way to turn that into a benefit is by adding so you can at the end.
Here's what I mean, the feature is that it has a nice comfortable handle, so you
can hold a hot cup of coffee without burning your hands, like I'm doing right
now by clearly using this coffee cup wrong, much better. But the beauty of this
powerful little "so you can" statement is that it works pretty much every time and
it allows you to ease the transition away from pushing feature, after feature
and start promoting more of the benefits associated with those features. So, with
all that said, you might start to think that I don't believe in features at all.
But on the contrary, they're actually an incredibly
part of the equation and you really can't get too far with just a feature
and no benefit or just a benefit and no feature. Here's why. For starters, a
benefit that doesn't have a feature, well, it sounds kind of unbelievable and it's
just a claim with nothing to really back it up. Essentially, saying that your
product or service will make someone better or smarter faster cooler, all
benefits but with no real tangible features behind them, well, it's just
gonna sound like you made it up on the spot and that's bad marketing. But
another factor is that customers make buying decisions emotionally but then
they justify those decisions later rationally and logically. This is why you
need both. You need the benefit to appeal to the emotional side of your customers
but then you need that feature to allow them to justify and rationalize their
decision logically. You need features to explain, setup and justify benefits and
benefits to show the end result, paint a more compelling picture and ultimately,
to make customers care more. Alright, the next thing you're gonna want to do is
check out the video I have linked up right here which is going to help you
create even better and more powerful marketing by giving you more tips on
creating that great content, that boosts sales, conversions, gets you more leads
and more customers, so make sure to check it out now and I'll catch you on the
next episode of The Marketing Show.