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Do You Know the Difference Between Features & Benefits?

by Mark Pescetti
12 replies
If you fail to animate how your product or service can make your prospects more money, increase their health, create stronger relationships, enhance or even simplify their lives in some extraordinary way...

...You ain't gonna make a bloody dime!

Looking back at 2011, I had to ask myself, "what was the most common theme when working with my clients?"

The answer was an utter lack of ability for almost ALL of them to communicate the BENEFITSof their business model!

Now, there's a world of difference between delineating the features of your product or service... and the real life benefits that will somehow, someway make MY LIFE better!

Let's take for instance a massage therapist...

If you were marketing yourself (or writing the copy for a bodyworker), would you focus on explaining to people how:
  • Massage increases blood flow...
  • Helps accelerate healing from injuries...
  • And can decrease levels of anxiety?
OR

Would hope to distinguish yourself from what everyone else does (above) and really animate how the quality of YOUR client's lives will dramatically elevate as a result of receiving massage from YOU?

For example:
  • Experience the mental acuity to effortlessly be more productive at work, make more money and have more free time to do what you REALLY want... (from increased blood flow to the brain...)
  • Spend way more time on the tennis court (insert your sport of choice HERE) and even prevent injuries that put you on the shelf (thus eliminating your life's true pleasures!)
  • Get the most restful sleep EVER, increase the level of intimacy in your relationships (because you're feeling positive, rather than a walking nervous tick) and experience a general state of ease that makes you excited to wake up every morning! (from eliminating the anxiety held in your connective tissue.)
These two sets of bullets show feature and their BENEFITS...

...And trust me...

...At the end of the day, your prospects need YOU to TELL THEM how your product or service changes their lives.

YOU HAVE TO SPELL IT OUT AS AUDACIOUSLY AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN!

If you fail to accomplish that task, you're leaving way more money on the table than you've got in your bank account.

That's a guarantee.

So what are the BENEFITS of your product or service?

Write them down and integrate them into every single one of your FEATURES!

If you can accomplish this one task, I promise 2012 will become WAY more fruitful than 2011 could have ever been!

Cheers big ears!

Mark

P.S. I just wrote a blog about this subject - using a Life Coach client of mine as an example for how people make the cardinal sin of NOT KNOWING their product or service's benefits. Check it out!
#benefits #difference #features
  • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
    I like to keep things as simple as possible:

    A feature is an 18-carat gold shift knob in your new Mercedes. A benefit is the pride you feel having that sucker knowing no one else at the club has one.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mark Pescetti
      Originally Posted by travlinguy View Post

      I like to keep things as simple as possible:

      A feature is an 18-carat gold shift knob in your new Mercedes. A benefit is the pride you feel having that sucker knowing no one else at the club has one.
      Absolutely!

      However, for a great many people who are marketing their own businesses, they don't have the luxury of keeping it quite that simple... especially for people offering their services or ground-breaking products.

      Sometimes it takes REALLY going the extra mile to demonstrate for people EXACTLY how their lives are going to be made somehow better.

      A lot of car companies are coming out with more electric-centered vehicles. I've noticed one of the commercials, forget which company, had the actor stop at a gas station, even though he didn't need fuel. This was a clever way of communicating the REAL LIFE benefits that owning a electric (than gas) car creates in one's life.

      Had they just stated the features by saying you fuel up less, it would have had far less impact on potential buyers who are sick of paying top dollar at the pumps.

      The concept was simple, for sure. But it played on people's dissatisfaction with the economy, pump prices and the desire to move forward with new technologies all in one fell swoop.
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  • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
    It's still simple to me. Benefits are almost always emotion-based. I love writing benefit bullets because I just pull out my copy of the Seven Deadly Sins and the juices start to flow.

    I understand what you're saying about people marketing their own business. Hell, there are people claiming to be copywriters who don't know the difference between features and benefits.
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  • Profile picture of the author max5ty
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve The Copywriter
      I usually follow one of “Team Makepeace’s” Benefit Formulas – there are a few but this one works well.

      Feature - What is it?

      Why – Each feature exists

      Functional Benefit – How it works. What the feature does for the client

      Dimensionalized Benefit - What additional benefits does that provide? – give a vivid, seductive description and experience

      Emotional Benefit - What positive emotion will the client feel? What negative emotion goes? How are they triggered?

      Then lead your client through an experience where they feel these emotions automatically for themselves.

      These could be -

      Joy, peace of mind, pride, excitement, release from fear, frustration or anger.

      Or whatever the key emotion is.


      Steve
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      • Profile picture of the author Mark Andrews
        Banned
        A feature is one of the components, facts, or functions of your product or service. Describe what it does, how it works, or what it looks like. In short a feature is what a product actually does.

        A benefit describes what a product does for someone to offer a solution to a particular problem.

        Best,


        Mark Andrews
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        • Profile picture of the author Mark Pescetti
          Originally Posted by Mark Andrews View Post

          A benefit describes what a product does for someone to offer a solution to a particular problem.
          ...And how that problem can become non-existent, replaced with x-y-z.

          "And all you have to do is click here RIGHT NOW!"
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      • Profile picture of the author Mark Pescetti
        Originally Posted by Steve Copywriter View Post

        I usually follow one of “Team Makepeace’s” Benefit Formulas – there are a few but this one works well.

        Feature - What is it?

        Why – Each feature exists

        Functional Benefit – How it works. What the feature does for the client

        Dimensionalized Benefit - What additional benefits does that provide? – give a vivid, seductive description and experience

        Emotional Benefit - What positive emotion will the client feel? What negative emotion goes? How are they triggered?

        Then lead your client through an experience where they feel these emotions automatically for themselves.

        These could be -

        Joy, peace of mind, pride, excitement, release from fear, frustration or anger.

        Or whatever the key emotion is.


        Steve
        Can you give us an example of how you piece together these essential aspects in your copy?
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        • Profile picture of the author Steve The Copywriter
          Originally Posted by Reflection Marketing View Post

          Can you give us an example of how you piece together these essential aspects in your copy?

          Alright a quick example again with the help of “Team Makepeace”

          Let’s assume we’re doing a "weight loss book" promo.

          Feature - 297 quick recipes (including appetizers, salads, soups, main courses and desserts) all based on scientific, proven, cutting edge research on permanent weight loss

          Why – Because you need to have a complete and utterly enjoyable selection of delicious recipes that don’t make you fat – instead they let you shed your excess fat

          Functional Benefit – Makes it so easy and enjoyable for you to eat healthy, great tasting food and lose weight

          Dimensionalized Benefit – At last, you can eat mouth-watering meals that make it fast and safe to slim down. Your taste buds are going to welcome back a lot of flavours and textures you’ve been craving for. And pure indulgent sensations that you thought you would have to give up. And all the while the pounds just drop off more quickly, effectively and consistently than ever before

          Emotional Benefit – Imagine the joy, freedom and almost sinful pleasure you’ll experience as you eat the sumptuous foods you love. Losing the weight and keeping it off forever - that no diet has ever been able to do before. You’ll feel so excited and relieved because there’s no need to starve yourself of any of the foods you love – once you’ve armed yourself with the “Scientific Weight Solution Cookbook”!



          Steve
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      • Profile picture of the author Mark Pescetti
        Originally Posted by copyassassin View Post

        Glenn Livingston offers an in-depth explanation about what "emotional benefits " are, how to figure out what the "real" emotional benefit for your product or service truly is, and how to incorporate them into your copy.
        Part of becoming aware about how to trigger the right emotions that drives sales is knowing your prospect's beliefs.

        Easier said than done, right?

        Well, the way your target audience predominately believes is a HUGE part of deciding HOW to communicate the benefits of your product or service.

        For instance...

        ...I'm doing a blog website for a crystal shop here in town.

        I sat down and interviewed the owner of the store for about 3 hours to understand how his customers think and believe.

        This has allowed me to frame my topics in such a way that in just one month, sales have skyrocketed.

        But I was only able to achieve that goal because I knew exactly how to play into people's predominate beliefs about crystals.

        Part of your job as an online business owner is getting crystal clear about what beliefs your audience harbors, so you can play to them and drive WAY more sales as a result...
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        • Profile picture of the author Mark Pescetti
          Originally Posted by copyassassin View Post

          I like your example, and have a couple of follow-up questions:

          Why ask the shop owner when you could of asked actual customers? Isn't the shop owner too close to give an accurate answer? Too biased?
          The owner of the has been in business for over 25 years. His experience will all different types of customers is unparallelled. He was able to pinpoint an exact character makeup of the kind of person who lays down $5000 for his specialty items. In turn, I took this information and devised how to speak to his customers, with laser-precision, WAY more effectively than if I interviewed them directly.



          Originally Posted by copyassassin View Post

          What specific questions did you ask the shop owner?

          Well, as I said, we talked for hours and I never go into an interview with an agenda. That being said, I asked him firstly what his marketing intentions are and how they differ from what he's done in the past. Then we got into his extensive knowledge about these particular kinds of crystals, who buys them... and why. We proceeded to brainstorm about 10 or so powerful topics that can help drive sales. I also wanted to know how he wanted the site to look so I could have a better idea of how to present the copy. (I ended up creating it myself using a Wordpress theme I had used for one of my sites.)



          After just the first three blogs (and linking from the main site), we increased sales dramatically.



          Originally Posted by copyassassin View Post

          What are "predominate beliefs"? (I have an idea, but just to be clear)
          Predominate beliefs = collective truths.

          In this case, the majority of people who pay large sums of money for these specialty crystals have certain beliefs about life purpose, reincarnation, energy, vibration and spirituality. I was able to take these beliefs and spell out the benefits that owning one of these crystals would imply to their lives by animating the emotional, spiritual and financial possibilities.

          Just did a new one on The Law of Attraction...

          ...That's a for instance.
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