Your potential customer doesn’t know about benefits and advantages when they land on your website.
Their main concern is that they have a problem and they’re hoping you can solve it. So, when you show them what your product does, what the benefits are and what advantages those features give them, they instantly know:
- they absolutely need that product or service and
- they should buy it from you.
How do features, benefits and advantages work?
To get to the heart of what your ideal customers want and why your product or service is the best for them, firstly you create a list of features and benefits. Then you ask yourself, ‘So what?’ until you can’t answer the question any longer.
Here’s an example
Just the other day, I was in a shop (I know, a shop IRL), and the sales person was telling another (stressed) customer who had two small children in tow, that the sheets they were looking at came in a set. They then went on to describe all the features of the set.
- The fabric was 80/20 poly/cotton
- The fitted sheet had a deep gusset
- The thread count was high (200)
- She was looking at a Queen size set
- It had a satin finish
- The set was available in cream, white, blue and peach.
They didn’t say why any of those details meant for the customer.
Features & benefits tell you what a product has and why clients might need it
We can all probably guess why having coordinated sheets and pillow cases might be a good idea, but they weren’t really ‘selling’ the product to the customer. And they didn’t notice that the customer’s children were cranky and probably needed to go home.
I wanted to scream at them ‘Ask her what she wants and tell her why having those features matters!’
Luckily, the manager came over and asked the customer some questions. The first was, ‘Which room they are these sheets going to be used in?’
Advantages tell you what they get & how it makes them feel
Turns out her in-laws were going to be staying with them over Christmas and she didn’t have any ‘decent’ sheets for the spare room, but she also didn’t have a lot of time (or money) to waste on looking for new sheets.
So, the manager told them that the set she was looking at:
- had all the items she needed in the one pack (saves time)
- was cheaper than buying the items individually (saves money)
- was high quality because of the fabric mix and thread count (so she wouldn’t feel embarrassed to use them for her in-laws)
- was an easy way to impress (because satin finish is oh, so luxurious)
- was a quick way to update bedroom decor (relief that her problem was solved).
This manager knew their onions (and sheet sets). And the customer went home feeling that little bit happier that she was going to be able make her in-laws feel a tiny bit special.
Remember:
- Features tell you what the product or service has.
- Benefits tell you why a customer might buy it.
- But Advantages tell your customer what their purchase now makes possible.
Key Takeaways
- Start with features of your product or service
- Ask ‘So what?’ to get the benefits
- Ask ‘So what?’ until you can’t find any more answers…
…and you’ll end up with the Advantages of the product or service. Which tells you what is now possible for your customer.
Yay! You’ve read to the end!
Reach out
If you’re finding this a little overwhelming, don’t despair. You don’t need to have it all figured out. Reach out or book an obligation-free call and we can start work on how to tie all your content together…and reach the right customers.
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