Features, Benefits and Advantages

Features, Benefits and Advantages

In a previous article, I talked about Features and Benefits and how clients buy Benefits, not Features. If you’re already doing that in your web copy, socials and printed materials, take a bow. You’re way ahead of your competitors. But if you want to make compelling offers your ideal customers can’t resist, you need to know about Features, Benefits and Advantages.

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:

These sheets are 80/20 Cotton/Polyester.

• • If you just leave that there, you’re simply stating a feature of the product.
  • So, you ask the question, ‘So what?’

Your answer might be, ‘That means they don’t crease as much in the wash.’

Does that make you want to buy the sheets? Maybe.

But  let’s dig deeper.

Ask ‘So what?’ again.

• • Having sheets that don’t crease in the wash makes them easier to put away when they’re dry.

Again, it may be obvious to you that making them easier to put away is a benefit, but what does that benefit do for the customer?

Ask ‘So what?’ again.

• • When you spend less time folding and putting away your washing, you save time.

Most people would stop here. They say, ‘I’ve arrived at an advantage, which is “more time” for the client’.

But there’s one more layer beneath.

Ask ‘So what?’ again.

• • When you save time, that means you have more time to do more interesting things…like reading a book, going for a walk, or spending time with your pet hamster.

By digging down to find out what advantage that feature offers your customer, you’re making that product or service stand out from the crowd.

Try it yourself with a product or service you offer, or even a report you’re writing for your boss.

Once you get past the obvious features and benefits, ask yourself ‘So what?’ until you can’t come up with any more answers.

Once you uncover the true advantages of the feature, you’ll have:

• • a much more persuasive piece of copy than ‘I do this’ or ‘I sell this’
  • or, in the case of a report, a boss who listens whenever you make recommendations in the future.