There is an often repeated mantra in marketing: Write about benefits rather than features. A marketing feature is a fact that describes what a product or service is, has or does. A marketing benefit describes what is gained or life gets better. In my ABN course on Practical Online Copywriting for Business I talk about a fool proof way of deriving a meaningful benefit from your feature.
How it’s done
The first step is to write down all the features of your product or service. Remember features describe what a product or service is, has or does. A feature could also include your service delivery as well. Then imagine explaining each feature to a stony faced sitting across from you. You tell them a feature and they say, “so what? Why should I care?” So you have to explain why they might care. They say, “So what?” You have to keep explaining why they should care until you hit upon a benefit they will care about. When you can’t answer the question, you’re probably there!
But did you know…
There are a few kinds of marketing benefits you can derive. When you consider exercise above through these different lenses, you’ll have meaningful benefits galore!
Functional benefits
This is the practical outcome of a feature. The famous line is, “People don’t buy a drill. They buy a hole in the wall.” A functional outcome is that hole.
Financial benefits
This all comes down to money saved or gained. Simple. It could be a real or perceived gain.
Experiential benefits
This is where we get more emotional, talking about how people feel when they experience the feature. Satisfied? Confident? Will it be fun? Or exciting?
Psychosocial benefits
These benefits reflect back on how a feature will make you feel as a person. Does all this talk of marketing benefits mean you shouldn’t promote features? Not at all. Sell with benefits. Support with features.
