Features or Benefits – Which One are You Selling?

What are you selling?  A product or a solution? Why should your customers buy your product from you?  Why would they buy your more expensive product or service rather than the cheaper one from that other store?

The answer might surprise you. It’s not about the product – the product doesn’t matter as much as you think.

The reason people choose to buy one particular product or service over another one is because they see the benefits that it brings. They don’t care about the features – they want the benefits.

When we know the details and intricacies of our products inside out then we see the benefits as being self-evident and blindingly obvious.  I hate to tell you this; they’re not.  You need to tell your clients in as much detail as possible about the benefits of your products.  Write them a picture, tell them how they’ll feel, what they’ll see or do or hear when they buy your product.

I’m not saying features aren’t important and shouldn’t be included in item descriptions.  They are important.  Rather than just listing your products features however, you need to expand and describe the benefits of that feature.  You’re writing sales copy here, this tells your client about your product, this is their first impression of your item – make it good.

When writing up a sales page, you need to think from the clients perspective.  When a client is reading the description of a product or service they’re thinking “What’s in it for me?  Why do I care?  How is this going to change my life?  What advantages does that item give me?”  They may not be consciously thinking it, however the answers to those questions are what makes a customer buy from you or not.

Every time you mention a feature of a product, immediately think “So what?”  Your widget comes in six different colours – So what?  Six different colours means the client can pick their favourite colour, colour code their accessories, be different from their friends, etc.  The colours are the feature, the ‘so what’ are the benefits.

Some other questions that are good to get you thinking of benefits rather than just features are “Why should my customer care about this?”, “What does this do for my customer?” and “How will this change my customers life?”.

Are you selling features or benefits?

Melinda Jameson

Melinda is the founder of SuperWAHM.com and started this site to share her best work from home ideas to help other Work At Home Mums become more financially independent and able to spend time with their families.

www.superwahm.com