When you’re starting to figure out how to manage customer value and market your product well, it can be tempting to bombard prospective customers with specifications, numbers, settings, and more.
After all, you worked hard to figure out how to make sure that your product (or service) has competitive specs. However, that might not be the best call. Instead of highlighting the different features of what you’re offering your audience, you’ll want to concentrate on the benefit you promise them.
Why is this the case? (And aren’t features and benefits kind of the same thing?)
Almost, but not quite. Let’s delve into the definitions of features, benefits – and discuss why you might want to pivot to benefit-focused branding in the future.
What’s a Feature? What’s a Benefit?
We’ll start off with a couple of clear explanations:
- A feature is an attribute of what you offer to the client. It’s something your product is or has.
- A benefit is a specific impact that your product or service has on the consumer. It’s the way it makes your customer feel, the problem it solves for them, the better experience a customer will have after working with you.
Think about the things you love owning. Features of your favorite blender may include different speed settings or the wattage of the motor. The benefits of that blender might be how smoothly it chops up ice, or the settings that make dinner prep a breeze.
Your go-to jeans might have a certain inseam, rise, and stretch – those are features, but they’re likely not the reason you grab them every time you don’t know what else to wear. The benefit those jeans bring is their dressed-up, dressed-down universal appeal.
A workplace communication platform might have a shared calendar, instant messaging options, and built-in notification systems. Those are features; what will really excite your audience is its potential to reduce email conversations or meetings.
Benefits are far more intriguing to a prospective customer than a list of features. Features are also important, but they don’t belong in that initial marketing hook. Use benefits to draw your customer in – your offering’s features will speak for themselves after that.