Features Vs. Benefits – The Showdown
I would love to start by saying, “There are two types of people in the world…” but that would be both clichéd and inaccurate. For the purposes of this blog post, however, there really are only two types:
Those who understand “Features Vs. Benefits” and those who don’t.
If you don’t get it, that’s OK. Not a lot of people really do. But if you run a home business, you need to learn. Otherwise you (or your marketing consultant) will waste many precious and expensive hours trying to sell the wrong things.
What you need to know: A benefit results from a feature.
Commonly accepted marketing wisdom suggests that customers like benefits. They don’t give a damn about features. A classic Marketing 101 exercise suggests that you take a piece of paper, and on the left side, write down a list of your product or service’s features. On the right side, list the corresponding benefit(s).
Heaters
Feature: It comes with a timer.
Benefit: Your house will be warm when you get home from work.
Lipstick
Feature:Fancy-pants patent-pending co-enzyme light-diffusing blah blah blah.
Benefit: Your lips will be glossier.
TiVo
Feature: Preprogrammable recording function
Benefit: You’ll never miss your favorite shows.
Pants
Feature: Lycra panels at the waist
Benefit: You will look 10 pounds slimmer.
It’s a little harder to delineate when you’re selling a service. Features and benefits tend to look alike. Here are a few:
Phone service
Feature: Call forwarding
Benefit: You’ll never miss another important call.
Google Analytics
Feature: Detailed statistics tracking
Benefit: You know what your readers are doing.
Internet service
Feature: 7 megabyte per second download speed
Benefit: All those mp3s you’re stealing come much faster.
Web design
Feature: Knowledge of PHP, AJAX, JavaScript, etc.
Benefit: You get a pretty website.
What if you can’t figure out if something is a feature or a benefit?
If you don’t know, drill down. Ask why whatever it is you’re thinking about is important to your customer. When you arrive at an answer that even a three-year-old could understand, you’ve found your benefit.
For example, let’s say you run a freelance writing business. You have a network of other writers to whom you can subcontract. Is your network a benefit or a feature?
You: I have a team of freelancers available to me.
Customer: Why do I care?
You: Because you can have your stuff done 5 times faster.
Even your dog understands why that’s important. Therefore, having a team of freelancers is a feature. Having a faster-than-the-speed-of-sound turnaround time is a benefit.
With very few exceptions (medicine and cutting-edge technology come to mind) you are wasting space and money by telling people about your features.
Nobody cares. Get over it. Move on.
Come back tomorrow. We’ll talk about how to put your newfound knowledge about benefits to good use.
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Naomi,
You did a really, really good job of explaining this.
Just sayin’.
This post was particularly interesting…(I think you know why)…
It is a little harder differentiate when you’re business is a service rather than a solid product. But the distinction is an important one that needs to be made.
I love how clear you made it. Quite often I see people trying to sell features, not understanding that they may get the importance but the client rarely does.
Is there anything out there that does not have both aspects?
There is one easy way I use to explain to my team the difference between features and benefits:
Ask, “So what?”
We offer quality copy. “So what?” So you get better readership, more hits, and a higher return on your investment.
We offer a personal touch. “So what?” So you feel like a real person treated with respect, not just a number.
The same can be done with any business, product, or service.
We sell real estate. “So what?” So you can find that perfect haven of peace you’ve been dreaming of.
We sell red rubber boots. “So what?” So you’ll be the height of fashion when it rains, your feet will be dry, you’ll be visible in bad weather conditions, and you’ll stay safer while looking sharp.
@ Shane - I’ve thought about this. No matter how I turn it, be it tangible goods or a creative concept, there always appears to be both. I think the difference lies in knowing what matters to people and why it should matter.
Good comments, guys! I think that especially when you have more than one demographic that you’re addressing, you need to figure out what matters to whom.
Apple, for example, probably wants business from both Jamie and me. But their ad in Oprah magazine is going to (or at least should) look very different from their ad in Wired.
I want it to look pretty and not have too many wires. God knows what Jamie wants, but I have a feeling that’s not it. :)
Hey Naomi,
Great job at turning a relatively normal (for marketing, anyway) topic into something that is interesting and will be learned much more easily.
I love this topic—features vs. benefits, ‘what’s in it for them,’ ‘walk a mile in their shoes,’ or whatever you want to call it (it being empathy, of course). It’s been around for as long as marketing has existed (and while before), but it still manages to confound so many people. And, it’s still every bit as important.
This is one of those, “oh I know that” points that almost everybody gets wrong.
Giant companies with enough money to buy thousands of marketing supergeniuses get this wrong. I find that weirdly comforting.
i use to work at a major canadian financial institution and sales was a huge part of that job. i was consistently a top performer (horn tooting, hear that?) and my team leader (mr. useless) asked me to do a sales presentation. specifically, how to trick people to over extend themselves, so i gave a presentation on features vs. benefits. the peeps that were already good at sales did this already and continued to do this to be successful. the others did not, they continued listing features (yawn) and would not mention any of the benefits (that new car will get you so much pootang, but your married, so you don’t want pootang, right?).
i lost my train of thought (when was the last time someone used the word pootang?). good post though!
feature: you’ll be noticed everywhere on campus, with your super sick durtbag.
benefit: water proof interior and large enough for a twelve-pack AND ice.
got it. i wish you would have taught my high school chemistry class. and college algebra.
@ Sonia - You’re so many levels of right. They think they get it. Then their business fails. Rinse, repeat.
@ Michael - Dude, pootang. There are no words to explain the awesomeness that is your comment. (Spell check picked up “pootang” but not “awesomeness”. Interesting.)
@ Erin - One of the commonly accepted prerequisites for teaching high school chemistry is to have actually attended high school chemistry. Hundreds of thousands of students are missing out on my genius because of this arbitrary rule. I may revolt.
@ Erin - unless you were kidding (hard to tell in text), this isn’t quite right:
feature: you’ll be noticed everywhere on campus, with your super sick durtbag.
benefit: water proof interior and large enough for a twelve-pack AND ice.
Feature: Waterproof interior. Large enough for a twelve-pack and ice.
Benefit: Get noticed everywhere with a cool party pack.
You had it backwards.
So simple, yet so powerful Naomi! Us entrepreneurs often get this mixed up (me too) and I’m not sure why. Why is it so hard to really articulate the benefits of our products/services?
I noticed you got rid of your subscribe to comments feature…is there a reason?
Feature: Giant irradiated pet arachnoid has 8 fuzzy legs, venom of death, giant fangs and farts 23 hours a day
Benefit: Nobody’ll focus on how fat you ass is getting anymore, they’ll be too pissed off about the damn killer spider.
So, did I get it right?
@ Jonathan - Exactly. See everybody? HE gets it.
[...] Features vs Benefits - Learn the difference. Seriously. [...]
[...] Features Vs. Benefits: The Showdown [...]
[...] Edit Your Writing: Leo from Write to Done explains how to edit your writing to ensure that it’s clear and concise. 71 Amazing Blog Writing Tutorials: Daniel at Daily Blog Tips has 71 brilliant resources for blog writers in this post. Features V Benefits - The Showdown: You may have heard that you need to show your customers benefits, not features in your business writing and advertising. Marketing wiz Naomi Dunford explains the difference. [...]
Great post! Customers don’t buy features, they buy benefits!! Customers won’t care that their cell phone has a built in swiss army knife in it unless they can benefit from it (they’re a professional tracker!) Sell the benefits, not the features.
[...] Features Vs. Benefits: The Showdown [...]