I originally presented this as a talk on features and benefits to the Learn to Blog Influencer Society. It’s such a great topic, I decided to share it again here on my own blog as well. I’ve covered this topic in various pieces, but this one brings everything together for you.
You know you want someone to take an action once they’ve found you, whether it’s via a blog post, a website, or visiting your brick and mortar store. That “action” could come in many forms, including:
- Opting in for your lead magnet or content upgrade.
- Buying a product or service.
- Reading another blog post.
- Leaving a review for you.
The list goes on.
The problem is, no one likes to feel “sold.” No one wants to feel pressured into an action of any kind. It’s sleazy marketing behavior and it can make you, the person doing the pressuring, feel like a slimy used car salesperson.
Eeeewww!
Don’t be that person. Ever.
There’s a much better way to do things. It’s easier, it’s more fun and it’s a much better way to increase your conversion rate.
Answer the Question Your Potential Customer is Asking
Everyone has the same question, whether they’ve just landed on a blog post, a landing page, a sales page, or are talking to a salesperson.
That question is
“What’s In It For Me?”
This is what everyone wants to know when they’re faced with pretty much any decision. Why should they care? Why is saying “yes” to you worth their time and effort?
Let’s face it. When someone is on the internet or out shopping, they’re there for one of two reasons:
- They’re distracting themselves from what they should really be doing.
- They’re searching for a solution to a problem that’s been bothering them.
Sometimes, it’s both.
Your job, as the smart, savvy marketer and business owner, is to show these people why they should give you their attention, email address, or money. What makes you worth it, compared to all the other distractions there are out there on the internet.
If you can answer this question, your conversion rate will soar!
If you can’t, your potential customers will just click back to their SERP, Facebook wall, Twitter feed, however they found you, or walk out the door of your shop and keep going with their day.
How Not to Answer This Question
Most companies blather on about the technical aspects of how their product works or what their service does.
Guess what?
No one cares about that.
Okay, they do care, but it’s not the primary question on their mind.
They really want you to answer that question, “What’s In It For Me?”
Spewing data at them will not answer this question.
They need to see themselves in the picture you’re painting. They need to understand why this information genuinely matters to them.
They need to see how the features of your product or service will benefit them immediately, and long-term.
Use Features and Benefits to Show Your Potential Customer How They Fit Into the Picture of Your Product or Service
To paint that rosy picture, you need to explain a feature, then show your potential customer the benefit they will receive from that feature when they say “yes.”
It’s not enough to say that your lead magnet, product or service is super cool. You have to explain how that super coolness plays into this person’s life.
You need to clearly demonstrate how their lives will be better by using your product or service every day.
You need to show them exactly what they will get when they plunk down their hard-earned cash. And that goes well beyond the technical aspects of what you’re selling.
You’ll show them how your product or service will have a positive impact on their lives immediately, and in the long term.
You’ll answer their burning question of “What’s In It For Me” and give them a reason to say yes.
What’s the Difference Between a Feature and a Benefit?
Let’s address this question first.
A feature is what is true about your product or service. This can be about a particular aspect of a product or about the product as a whole.
A benefit is something the product does to make your potential customer’s life more enjoyable or help them accomplish their goal.
To illustrate this, I will use one of my favorite examples, duct tape.
Duct tape is fantastic!
It sticks to pretty much everything. It’s fabric base makes it flexible and strong. It’s stronger than the paper or plastic-based tapes. You can pull it off and reapply it more easily than most other tapes.
It has a dark side and a light side. Like the Force, it binds the Universe together. (Yep, I’m still a Star Wars geek.)
Anyway…
Demonstrating an Immediate Benefit
A direct or immediate benefit of duct tape is that it sticks to just about everything. Because it’s flexible (another feature), you can wrap it around whatever you’re applying it to and shape it so it stays firmly fixed where you put it.
Seriously, you can use duct tape to fix pretty much anything. Years ago, NPR did a report listing all the things you can use duct tape for.
The one thing it’s apparently not so good for? Securing furnace ducts. (Oops.)
Another feature of duct tape is, it’s easy to carry around. You can keep it in your car, a toolbox, or a bag of emergency supplies.
The benefit is, you’ll never have to worry about whether you can fix something because you always keep a roll of duct tape around.
Demonstrating a Deeper Benefit
A deeper benefit is how your product or service will affect someone on an emotional level.
We all like to think that we’re entirely rational and make all of our decisions based on logic.
Not even a little.
We all make decisions based on our emotional reactions, then we rationalize those decisions to ourselves with logic.
I have a secret to share with you.
Marketers all over the world use this fact to pull on your heartstrings and get you to convert.
Think about the last time you bought a car.
Did your salesperson say things like:
- Don’t you think this car will impress your neighbors?
- Won’t the safety features of this car do a better job of protecting your family than the one you have now?
- How would it feel to drive this car to work every day?
(These were some of the lines the salesperson used on me the last time I bought a car. Yes, they sound pretty cheesy, but they worked. I bought the car. I bet you did too.)
Your salesperson triggered an emotional reaction in you, with each of these lines.
Let’s break it down:
“Don’t you think this car will impress your neighbors?”
That statement triggers a feeling of pride and possibly vanity.
“Won’t the safety features of this car do a better job of protecting your family than the one you have now?”
That statement triggers feelings of security, because you’re doing a better job of keeping your family safe. It could also trigger feelings of fear that you’re not doing enough to keep your family safe, so you’d better get this new car right away!
“How would it feel to drive this car to work every day?”
This final statement puts you directly in the picture. It gets you to imagine what your life would be like if you owned this car.
It can trigger feelings of confidence and excitement at the idea of owning such a nice car, as opposed to the junker you’re driving now.
It can also trigger feelings of envy and greed that other people have this car and you don’t!
Emotion is an incredibly powerful motivator.
It’s used all the time in marketing. You should use it in yours.
Here is a short list of emotions you can trigger in your potential customers. The most common emotions marketers use are fear and greed. I encourage you to go beyond these, as people are becoming more inured to marketing triggers that use them.
Back to our duct tape example,
Remember how I was talking about duct tape being flexible and sticking to anything?
This is a picture of my personal dress maker’s dummy. It is my exact shape, because I put on a t-shirt and had my mother tape me into that t-shirt so I had a body cast made of t-shirt and duct tape. I then put that body cast on an old dress form, stuffed it with fiber-fill to make it my size, and voila, my body shape.
How does this benefit me?
Having this dress maker’s dummy that’s shaped exactly like me lets me make and tailor clothing to my body. Knowing that my clothing fits well and looks good on me makes me feel more comfortable and more confident.
(Yes, sometimes those benefits can go pretty deep and can take a little while to get to, but it’s well worth it.)
How Do You Answer Your Potential Customer’s Burning Question?
Ultimately, this all comes back to the question, “What’s In It For Me?”
Honestly, this is pretty easy.
You state the feature, then ask yourself the question, “So What?”
This is the question your potential customer would ask if they were standing in front of you. Your answer should address their skepticism and concerns about this aspect of your product or service.
It looks like this:
Duct tape is flexible and sticks to anything.
So What?
You can wrap it around and shape it to whatever you’re working on to suit your needs.
So What?
You can create a perfect replica of your own body so you can tailor your clothes perfectly, making you feel more confident and beautiful.
You get the idea.
The way I originally learned to do this is with an exercise called the So What Wheel. It looks like this:
You can see that the feature is in the center and the immediate and deeper benefits spoke off of that feature.
I recommend doing this exercise to figure out the benefits for the features of your own product or service. It helps you get to the heart of that infamous question, “What’s In It For Me?”
Using Features and Benefits to Get Your Desired Result
Okay, the real motivation behind all of this, getting your potential customer to take the action you are leading them toward.
Now that you’ve done the So What Wheel exercise and you know the immediate and deeper benefits of your product or service, how do you use this in your blog post, on your landing or sales page, or in a person-to-person situation?
Easy.
Use this formula
“This (insert feature) will give you (insert immediate benefit) so you can (insert deeper benefit.)”
Depending on your features and benefits, that could be a much longer statement, so you’ll need to play with it a bit.
To continue the duct tape example:
The fact that duct tape is flexible and sticks to anything means you can use it to repair a broken hose in your car engine. This means you won’t be stuck by the side of the road for hours. Instead, you can drive your car safely until you can get it into a repair shop.
Another example, single-serving applesauce cups:
Packing a single-serving applesauce cup in your child’s lunch gives them a healthy treat that they’ll eat and enjoy, instead of trading away for junk food. This means your child is getting the nutrition they need to grow and learn, and you can rest assured that you’re giving them everything they need to succeed.
Finally, a service-based example, reading this blog post:
Reading this blog post about features and benefits helps you understand how to use this very powerful copywriting technique in your marketing. By demonstrating features and benefits to your potential customer, you can:
- Show them the benefit of taking the action you want them to take, like opting in for your lead magnet or buying your product or service.
- Address any objections they may have before they raise those objections themselves.
- Move them closer to taking the action you’re guiding them toward.
- Reassure them that they’re making the right decision when they do take your desired action.
- Increase your conversion rate, get more customers in the door and grow your business faster.
Here’s Another Way to Benefit from Features and Benefits
You should be using features and benefits in every aspect of your marketing, including your emails.
One simple way to benefit your subscribers is by knowing which type of nurture email your subscribers are most likely to open, read, and buy from.
Once you know your subscribers’ Nurture Email Type, you’ll have a much easier time writing those weekly nurture emails and adding those features and benefits to show your subscribers exactly what’s in it for them. (This benefits you too!)
Click on the button below to take my 60-second quiz and find out which type of nurture emails your subscribers are most likely to open, read, and buy from, now.
(Oh look, I used another feature and benefit.)