Basic Marketing Concepts

by Alan Carson August 1, 2014

BASIC MARKETING CONCEPTS – Features versus Benefits
by: Alan Carson – Carson, Dunlop & Associates Ltd.

Client’s Perspective Is Key

The distinction between a feature and a benefit is a key marketing concept. “Feature” is a quality of your service from your perspective, whereas a
“benefit” expresses a quality of your service from your customer’s perspective. Put another way: a feature is an element of your service; a benefit is what
this element does for the prospect or the customer. For example, “Open 24 hours!” is a feature that the company offers. Convenience is the benefit that the
customer enjoys.

The success of any professional service depends to a large extent on its ability to put itself in the customer’s position. All the customer cares about is
how one service will help them more than another. Everything in marketing, advertising, public relations, and sales should focus on what aspects of the
service are going to benefit customers (see Figure 1.1). To successfully market your business, you need to adopt the credo, “It’s all about the customer.”

Features Describe; Benefits Sell

Features are easier for us to promote because they are the parts of our business we think are desirable. It’s always easy to speak from our own
perspective. Benefits, on the other hand, are a little more difficult to identify. They require us to justify the value of the features to someone else. In
other words, a benefit is what your customer finds desirable about your features.

For example; you book a flight to Europe for an important business meeting. The airline is advertising business class seating. You are trying to decide if
you should fly business class or coach. The advertisement states that business class has larger seats and more leg room. You immediately book the coach
tickets. Your rationale: You aren’t going to pay twice as much just for a little extra leg room and a larger seat. You will tough it out in coach. The
airline failed to sell you the more expensive seats because it only provided you the features of a business class seat, rather than showing the benefits of
these features.

A more compelling airline ad would have demonstrated that the larger seats in business class provide ample space for you to set up a workstation. And the
extra leg room, which makes it possible for you to comfortably stretch out, means you can sleep during the flight, if you choose. With proper room to work
and a comfortable place to sleep, you will arrive for your meeting prepared and refreshed. You will excel at the important meeting; you will get a
promotion and a big bonus at the end of the year.

Show Benefits of Your Service

Although benefits are the obvious and logical conclusion of features, it’s a mistake to assume your ›4prospective customers will make the connection
between the two. Most people don’t have the time or inclination to fill in the blanks. Furthermore, it’s your job to make the benefits of your services
immediately apparent. You can demonstrate benefits without discussing features, but not vice versa. You must focus on selling the benefits.

Let’s look at another example. Let’s say you are in the market for a new flashlight and you walk into a store and see a display with this headline: “The
world’s first steel flashlight!” The fact that the flashlight is steel is clearly a physical feature of the product that the manufacturer is very proud of.
What is important, however, is what that feature will do for you. The value of that feature lies in describing what that product actually does. The fact
that the flashlight is steel will help justify the added cost, but the manufacturer should be telling you that the added weight of the steel means that if
you drop it, it won’t break. The manufacturer should tell you that you will never have to buy another flashlight again–guaranteed! So the feature is steel
construction, but the benefit is durability and reliability. The functional aspect of this particular product (not the physical feature) intensifies your
desire for it.

Benefits Are Explanations

If you are giving a presentation to a real estate office, or speaking to a client or agent, you have all the time in the world to describe the benefits of
your features in detail. But in written marketing materials you need to be concise or you will lose your reader’s attention.

Features are easy to come up with, and to position in a brochure, because they amount to basic descriptions. Benefits are harder to express because they
are explanations of the descriptions.

Inexperienced marketers make the mistake of filling a brochure with features, resulting in an unconvincing and weak piece. Have a look at your competitor’s
brochure. It will likely be filled with a list of features only. Any marketing piece that you put together should list the benefits. Marketing materials
that would benefit from this philosophy include a

• brochure,

• business card,

• Yellow Pages ad,

• mailer to agents, and

• Web site.

Good Layout Helps

Here is an example of a successful marketing piece. A web site ad for a software company features a simple two-column fact sheet. The left-hand
column lists features and the right-hand column lists benefits. Each feature lines up with its associated benefit, clearly demonstrating the added value
inherent in the feature. After seeing this ad, we decided to try it out in some marketing pieces for home inspection services. It has been a very
successful layout. It’s simple yet effective. Try it in your brochure.

Show Features and Benefits

Here is an example of how to think about the benefits associated with the features of your services.

Feature Benefit___________________________________

We are available seven days a week. The benefits to your clients are convenience and accessibility. They can reach you when they need to.

We have been licensed builders You have the experience to detect

for 20 years. problem areas. What is the benefit

to the client? You can potentially save

them headaches and money down

the road.

What’s the benefit to the real estate

agent? Because you have years of

experience in problem solving, you

may be able to suggest a simple solution

to a problem. Your suggestion

could help the client avoid an expensive

fix. This could make the difference

between the deal going through

and the deal falling apart.

Writing a concise benefit is not as easy as describing a feature. Writing about benefits requires more time and finesse, but if you hope to make an impact,
you have to show the benefits of your service. Benefits are an essential part of all your marketing material.

A benefit often sounds like a promise. It is frequently followed with a description of the feature that shows how you can make good on the promise.


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