What is the benefit someone is buying when they buy a wristwatch? The first thing that came to mind was something like “the ability to know what time it is”? If so, you have fallen into the Feature/Benefit trap that we often fall into when developing our promotional materials and sales presentations.

A feature is an attribute or characteristic of your product or service. And a benefit is the value of the feature or attribute to your prospect. So, in the example above, a feature is “keeps accurate time” and a benefit could be “keeps you from being late for important meetings or events.” Too often we promote features when our customers are buying benefits.

Benefits appeal to the wants and values ​​of our prospects, and at the highest level, benefits generally fall into three categories:

1. Money: The product or service helps the buyer to earn or save money.

2. Time: The product or service helps the buyer save time or free up time to do other things.

3. Ego: The product or service somehow makes the buyer feel good.

Ultimately, your product or service must appeal to your buyer in one of these three areas. In addition, when developing benefits you should keep in mind the following five considerations:
1. The importance of benefits differs depending on the target audience you want to communicate with. There are often a variety of influencers and decision makers involved in a purchase decision. You should tailor your promotional materials and presentation to each one.

2. It is important to consider the needs and wants of your target audience when selecting benefits to promote. The needs and wants of a Timex buyer are very different from those of a Rolex buyer. Therefore, the features and benefits emphasized in the promotional materials are going to be different.

3. Choose benefits that differentiate your product or service from the competition, or at least those that your target market perceives as differentiating.

4. Benefits must be backed by features. Promoting benefits without features leads to a lack of credibility. A benefit statement such as “Our computer system will improve productivity by up to 45%, saving you $75,000 a year and paying for itself in eight months” should be accompanied by the features that deliver those benefits or your target market. you won’t believe the benefit, you won’t have credibility.

5. While your benefits message should appeal to higher-level values ​​of money, time, and ego, it should also communicate those downstream benefits that lead to increased income, time savings, and “feel good.” If you’ve ever been to a networking event, I’m sure you’ve had the experience of hearing five people say “We help companies improve their revenue.” And the people who claim to provide this benefit can be as diverse as a CPA and an advertising account executive. Without some information about the intermediate benefits they provide, such as “improved communication with your target market,” the higher level benefit of “improved profits” is worthless.

Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate features and benefits in your mind as you develop your promotional materials or sales presentations. One way to make sure you’re promoting benefits and not features is to state a feature followed by “what it means” and/or “what for”. For example, “All of our CPAs take 40 hours a year of continuing education on tax law changes. This means we can make sure you take all the deductions you’re entitled to so you save money on your tax bill.” at the end of the year”. year.”

One of the difficulties in crafting our own feature and benefit statements is that the benefits of a particular feature are so clear to us that we assume they are also apparent to our target market. And that is a dangerous assumption. You can use the “So what?” test to make sure you are communicating the benefits to your target market.

Put yourself in the shoes of your potential customers and read the benefit statement. If you, as a potential customer, can answer “So what? So what does this mean to me?” then you are still communicating functions. Once you’ve communicated a benefit, your prospect will no longer be able to respond with “So what?”

Here’s a five-step process you can implement to develop features and benefits for your product or service and ensure you’re communicating benefits that matter to your target market.

Step 1: Describe your product or service in 25 words or less.

Step 2 – Specifically identify a group of customers you want to target with your message.

Step 3: List the problems your product or service solves for the above customer group and/or the needs and wants your product or service satisfies for the group.

Step 4: With the above information in mind, list three to five features of your product or service that solve the problems or meet the needs described in Step 3. Remember to use “what” and “so” to jump between features. to performance and from intermediate level values ​​to superior values.

Step 5: Test each feature and benefit statement using the “So what?” Test.

Taking the time and investing the energy to clearly communicate the benefits to your target market will lead to a message that resonates with your prospects, leading to increased sales of your product or service.