Your product’s features, no matter how revolutionary, are not what will sell your product. Features are simply facts. They carry no emotional weight. If you want to sell your product, you have to translate those features into benefits.
Benefits are features, translated into “what’s in it for me” statements. Instead of telling your customer what your feature is, you tell them exactly what it can do for them and how it can change their lives.
Features are about you and your product. Benefits are about them and how their lives can improve.
Here are a few examples to illustrate the difference:
Feature: 1 Gigabyte Storage
Benefit: 1,000 Songs in Your Pocket
Feature: 1,380 Watt Motor
Benefit: Blend veggies or fruits with zero leftover pulp!
Feature: Tri-band phone
Benefit: Your phone works with any SIM card in the world
Features are simply facts about your product that don’t necessarily mean anything to the buyer. On the other hand, the benefit statement gives them a crystal clear interpretation of what they get by purchasing.
==> The Translation Process
Take a piece of paper and draw a line straight down the middle. Label the left-hand column “Features” and the right-hand column “Benefits.”
Now on the left-hand side, write down every feature your product has. Write down every feature your company has.
One great place to find features of your product is in your existing marketing or promotional materials. You can also look at your product specs.
Try to fill up one or two entire sheets of paper with features.
Once you have your features column filled out, fill out the right-hand side. Ask yourself: What does this feature mean to someone? What’s in it for them? Why should they care? How would it change their lives?
Repeat this process for each benefit on the right. If you come up with multiple benefits, just write all of them down.
==> Spruce It Up
After writing all your benefits down, let that piece of paper sit for a couple days. Then come back to it.
Now that you’re looking at your benefits with a fresh eye, look for ways to spruce it up.
Add power words and action words. Instead of saying “increase your profits,” say “explode your profits.” Instead of saying “stop being afraid,” say “get rid of fear once and for all!”
Keep tinkering with your benefit statements until you nail it right on the head. Then replace the features on your website and your marketing materials with benefits.
Once you do, you’ll likely see a sudden jump in your conversion rates, opt-in rates, retention rates, pageviews per visitor and length on site stats. Benefit statements make more emotional impact, improve customer motivation and make the overall process of interacting with your brand more exciting and persuasive.
More Reading:
How to Create an Ad Campaign in AdWords Editor: An Illustrated Guide
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