Features vs Benefits and Audience Sophistication

Like 'Copywriting In The English', this entry is a spillover of thoughts in response to a post over on Copywriting. This time: 'Benefits of benefits', OP Kevin Birch.

To save you having to click over, Kevin asked for advice on turning features into benefits.

I said:

And this blog post is based on taking this idea further in a way which, on the main forum, would be purely self-indulgent... and thus is much better expressed here at Bloggo di Gil-Ad, the home of all that is purely self-indulgent.

Features and Benefits. As you can see from my demo of the "And That Means" game, every time you add a development you're making it even more beneficial (if you will).

If you start reading from halfway down the game, your starting point would arguably already be a benefit, not a feature.

This train of thought is probably a touch murky at the moment, so let me put it this way:

I was really confused about the whole "what is a feature / what is a benefit" thing until I realized something.

It may or may not be correct, but it works for me.

Here it is:

Features and benefits isn't a couple of columns, with items falling into one or the either.

Like this:

Feature----------Benefit
--x---------------------
---------------------x--
---------------------x--
--x---------------------
---------------------x--
--x---------------------

Features/benefits is a gradual spectrum.

Like this:

Pure Feature -------------------- Pure Benefit
-------x------x--x---x------x---x--x----x-----

When you play the "And That Means" game, what you're doing is moving up the benefit spectrum.

In theory, you could also move down the spectum. Maybe be playing the "How Is This Possible" game.

Whatever. A-ha moment number #1: Features and benefits are classified along a spectrum, not in clear-cut categories.

OK. Next:

As I see it, for every single feature of the product you have one or more feature-benefit spectra.

Somewhere along each of these feature-benefit spectra, there is a Ding Point. (OK, maybe that's not the Official Copywriting Terminology (TM), but go along with me here.)

The Ding Point is the point along the feature-benefit spectrum where your prospect says:

"OK, good enough for me. I want that. Ding!"

A-ha moment #2: There is a Ding Point where your prospect is effectively "sold" on a particular feature of your product through appreciation of its associated benefits

Onward - this is important:

The Ding Point will be at different points along the spectrum for different people.

For example, let's say you were trying to sell me a copywriting product.

If you were to say something like:

"My book, 'Secret Copywriting Secrets', will show you an easy way to find a USP for any product"

I'd say: "hey, yeah, good enough for me. I want to be able to do that. Ding!"

But Joe The-Average-Small-Business-Owner might not be such an easy sell. You'd have to explain why a USP is important, how it will set him apart from competition, create certain associations with customers, and ultimately make him more money.

It's certainly going to be a whole lot more work on your end to finally get Joe to say "Ding!".

Now, think about this for a second: who knows more about copywriting, marketing etc?

a) Me
b) Joe

I would like to think that I do. No offense, Joe.

I know a lot more about the subject matter at hand (i.e. related to your book, Secret Copywriting Secrets). I am also, as you can see, a much easier sell.

Here's what this means:

A-ha moment #3: The more sophisticated your target audience is with regard to your product, the faster you will reach the Ding Point.

In other words: More sophisticated audience: Ding Point closer to "Pure Feature" along the spectrum. Less sophisticated: closer to "Pure Benefit".

Don't misunderstand me when I say "sophisticated". I am using the word in a very specific context: sophistication of knowledge and understanding of a certain subject.

For example: golf. I've never played. My understanding of it is very unsophisticated. It stretches as far as knowing that there is such a thing as a "slice", and that such a thing is undesirable.

And I know that only from studying Carlton's golf letters, of which he has written many.

If you were trying to sell me video training that eliminates slices, you'd have to sell me on why I should want to do that. You'd have to tell me how I'd get fewer points (maybe????) and why that's a good thing. And you'd have to tell me that I'd feel really good humiliating my smug friends who'd be, no doubt, slicing all over the joint.

Now take the same "no more slices" video training and try to sell it to a golf nut. You wouldn't have to explain why he needs such a product in any great length. Just tell him what you can do for him and he'll go "Ding!".

That's what I mean by sophisticated.

One more example:

Sometimes a market is so tightly focused on a tangible goal that features/benefits speak for themselves. Take the seduction market:

My book, Secret Seduction Secrets, teaches (among other things):

"The easy 4-step chemical formula that kills the female brain's ability to resist... making her say 'Yes' to everything you ask"

I don't need to explain why you want that. There are disaffected middle-aged men going "Ding!" all around me and I'm still firmly in the centre of the feature-benefit spectrum.

Sometimes a market comes with a pre-defined minimum of contextual sophistication... and there's a limit to how far up the spectrum you need to go.

To review:

#1: Features and benefits go on a gradual spectrum, not in disparate columns. Every feature belongs on one or more feature-benefit spectra.

#2: For every prospect there is a Ding Point that lies somewhere along the spectrum, where the prospect is "sold" on a particular feature.

#3: The more contextually sophisticated the audience, the closer the Ding Point is to "Pure Feature", and vice versa.

Here's the token witty closing line.

Gil-Ad