Features vs Benefits: How To Captivate Your Audience & Increase Sales
Let’s talk features and benefits as they relate to your brand and the business you’re growing.
FEATURES
Features stick to the facts. They describe “what it is” and are typically the description of what you get when it comes to the product, service or experience you’re selling.
BENEFITS
Benefits talk about the value of what you offer. They are the desires of your target audience, fulfilled. When your ideal clients are wondering what they get out of your product, service or experience as the result, outcome or takeaway, what they really want to know is how your offer benefits them and their life / business.
Both features and benefits are important when communicating about your branded offers and your clients and customers will want to know about both. However, only one of them will hook your audience’s attention and influence them to buy. Can you guess which one?
THE COMMON MISTAKE MADE BY ENTREPRENEURS
One of the most common mistakes I see entrepreneurs making is jumping straight to the features when they’re asked about what they do, or about their specific products / services.
The greatest benefit of this blog post is this rule of thumb, that when put into practice, will lead to captivating your ideal audience and convincing them to buy from you:
ALWAYS LEAD WITH THE BENEFITS.
Why? The benefits are the juiciest takeaways and the coveted results that your customers are searching for. They absolutely would love to have the outcome that your offer promises, so lead with it! Tell your audience right upfront WHY they should buy.
Here are a few examples to illustrate features vs benefits so you understand the clear difference and why benefits should come first:
(Couldn’t help throwing a couple Disney movie examples in here since I spent 15 years at Walt Disney Studios distinguishing the features vs benefits of any particular film we were marketing in order position it to audiences as a “must see” on opening weekend).
EXAMPLE 01 – “THE ROOKIE”
The Rookie is a Disney film telling the true story of a man who got called up to the big leagues after his students of the high school baseball team he coaches dared him to try out again.
Features: On the surface, this is a baseball movie. That’s “what it is.”
Benefits: Ask yourself, what would make audiences want to come and see this movie? What’s the ultimate benefit of this story that will captivate audiences?
It’s the fact that it’s a true story about second chances and the takeaway is that it’s never too late to make your dreams come true. THAT is telling audiences why they should care and it evokes an emotional response that motivates them into action.
EXAMPLE 02 – MERIT BEAUTY
Merit is a minimalist beauty brand invented out of our quarantine life by founder, Katherine Power. The features vs benefits of this brand are easy to find.
Features
These tell you the facts about the products, what’s included, what they are literally made of – it’s the details about the product:
Products are EU compliant (removed 1328 potential harmful ingredients from our formulas)
Added skin-loving ingredients to our formulas: plant-based squalene, vitamin B5 and antioxidants
Vegan, cruelty free and certified by Leaping Bunny
Benefits
These statements describe why customers would buy Merit. They are the ultimate takeaways that ideal clients for Merit would be searching for when it comes to their beauty products:
Merit is minimalistic beauty: well-edited essentials that have earned a place on your vanity
We take a holistic approach to CLEAN – creating formulas that are safe for our body + skin + planet
EXAMPLE 03 – APPLE IPOD
Tech and computer companies could get caught up in all the tech specs and features that geeks would surely want to know about their products, however, Apple is a genius at quickly honing in on the ultimate benefit FIRST, and then sharing the features (i.e. leading with the benefits!).
Features
Here’s the tech specs and details telling customers “what you get” when you buy an ipod:
5 gigabyte hard drive
Fast firewire connection to download songs quickly
Rechargeable lithium battery
Specially engineered headphones for high fidelity sound
The Benefit:
1,000 Songs In Your Pocket.
Mic drop. That’s the benefit. You lead with that because that’s ultimately what would entice customers the most. It tells them exactly why they should buy it and how it would improve their lifestyle immediately.
In summary remember to:
01 – Lead with the benefits
02 – Then, describe the features
03 – Bonus if you describe the features and tag a benefit onto it (good example is with the ipod above: the feature is “fast firewire connection” the benefit is “download songs quickly” so when they string it together as “fast firewire connection to download songs quickly” they’re giving you the details of the product AND reinforcing the benefit at the same time.
WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR SERVICE BUSINESS
How do you take this concept and directly apply it to your business? Since I mainly work with coaches, consultants, course creators and community builders, this is what features vs benefits look like for you:
FEATURES
That part of your Sales page where you say “What You Get” and you list things like:
· 8 week program
· 1 hour live Zoom calls weekly
· A private Facebook group
· Or you outline the modules included in the program
But, remember, before you ever talk about these kinds of features, you’ll Lead With The Benefits, that’ll tell your ideal clients why they should buy it and the ultimate result they can expect:
· Feeling confident in your skin and fitting in those skinny jeans again
· Call in your dream clients and grow a business you love
· Organize your home to feel like a peaceful sanctuary
· Build a clear and cohesive brand with messaging that resonates
· Transform your life
· Scale your business and become wildly in demand
Every entrepreneur and business owner will be able to distinguish between the features and the benefits of their brand and their offers. Lead with the benefits.
I’ll leave you with a quote from one of my favorite Disney characters, because Captain Jack Sparrow does such a brilliant job at illustrating the difference between features and benefits when talking about his ship, The Black Pearl:
“It’s not just a keel and hull and a deck and sails. That’s what a ship needs. But what a ship is…what the Black Pearl really is…is FREEDOM.”
JACK SPARROW, PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN
You tell me: which are the features and what is the benefit that Captain Jack describes?