Benefits vs. Features: The Crucial Key to Selling Your Product.(Printwand).

One of the biggest traps a marketing writer can fall into is confusing features vs. benefits. Often when selling a product or service, copywriters merely present a list of features–and that’s simply not enough to make a sale.

Both features and benefits are equally important for effective advertising copy, but at the end of the day, it will be the benefits that give you the best advantages for converting customers.

The difference between benefits vs. features

A fast internet connection is a feature, but the ability to quickly find your way when you’re lost is a benefit.

• Features are defined as surface statements about your product, such as what it can do, its dimensions and specs and so on.
• Benefits, by definition, show the end result of what a product can actually accomplish for the reader.

It can be difficult to tell the difference between the two, as many features might sound like benefits. For example, saying that a cell phone has a fast internet connection is actually showcasing a feature, not a benefit. A benefit of fast internet would be the ability to quickly get directions when you’re lost (before you become even more lost).

You should also never confuse either a feature or a benefit with an advantage. Advantages are like the intermediary between features and benefits; they are effectively what the feature does to eventually result in a benefit. For example, a 4G internet connection (feature) means that you can access web applications in a shorter amount of time (advantage), which means that you can quickly and easily find your way home when you’re lost (benefit). Be sure to make the distinction and understand the relationship between features, advantages and benefits.

The biggest difference between features and benefits is that the latter affect an emotional level that audiences can relate to. The fast internet feature sounds vaguely positive, but on its own, there’s no strong, immediate reason why it’s positive. Meanwhile, almost every audience can emphasize with being lost and wanting an immediate solution to the problem.

(Printwand)

Patrick Abboud

www.baerads.com.