The Difference Between Features and Benefits

 

One of the first rules in sales is to emphasize the benefits to the potential customer. If you can’t show your prospective buyer his future better-self, he will not buy from you. 

 

It’s about the destination. Your customer doesn’t care about your product. Your potential client only cares about what your product can do for him. That is why you emphasize benefits. 

 

What is a Benefit Anyway?

 

Have you ever watched the first 20 seconds of a car commercial and thought, what are they selling? You think this because they don’t show the car until they show the cool lifestyle of owning the car. After they’ve shown you how fun your life is going to be in their car, they finally get to things such as the car has a 3.5 liters engine, made of titanium and steel, etc. 

 

Simply put, the benefits are what you get from the product. Or stated another way, the benefit is the word or phrase that comes after the two words, “so that ___.” 

 

For example, buy this pen so that you can….impress the judge in his chambers. 

 

Another useful way to think about benefits is to compare the benefits to the “features.”

 

So what’s a feature?

 

What is a Feature?

A feature is what the product is. Or, the specifications of the product. 
 

Sell Me This Pen

If you’ve studied any marketing materials for just five minutes, you’ve likely come across the famous “sell me this pen story.” 

 

In this hypothetical job interview, the hiring person hands the prospective employee a pen and says, “sell me this pen.” Then the prospective employee starts to talk about the pen’s smooth finish, ballpoint ink, 3 millimeters in diameter, clip for putting in your pocket, etc. 

 

These are the features of the pen. And this is the wrong answer!

 

The correct answer is to describe the pen’s benefits. In other words, talk about what the pen will do. 

 

For example, the pen has a nice rubbery finish…. So that it is comfortable when you take a lot of notes.  

 

Benefit v. Feature

 

The best illustration I’ve ever heard for distinguishing between a feature and a benefit is what I call the shovel example.

 

Let’s say you’re a hardware salesman. A customer comes in looking at your shovels. He picks up one that he likes. Now you have to sell it to him. You don’t tell him how strong the handle is or how sharp the blade is. 

 

No, you ask the customer, why do you need the shovel? He says he needs to dig a ditch for a water line. Then you tell the customer this shovel has a sharp titanium blade so that you finish your job in half the time it would take with another shovel. Thereby giving you time to spend time with your family. 

 

Blueprint and Summary

 

So when you write an ad. The first thing you should do is list the features. Then make a corresponding list of all of the benefits you can think of that flow from those features. Then rank the benefits in order of most compelling. Then take the best benefit and put it in the title and throughout your article.