Strive
Bronze Contributor
Many times when people ask for advice on their brand new widget or next big web company, they make the mistake of listing the features thinking they’re benefits. A feature is just something your widget can do, a benefit is what’s in it for me. Remember, almost every one of your customers does NOT care about you or even what you do, the ONLY thing they want to know is what can your product or service do for me? Does it save me money? Does it make my life easier? Can it make the trip to McDonalds for me? You can sell penmaster 3000 with all the features known to man, that’s great, but what does it do for me?
“Don’t you hate when your lowly pen runs out of ink? Well forget about those days with penmaster 3000! The self-filling ink cartridge guarantees you never have another inkless headache again.â€
Hmm I do hate when my pen runs out of ink.
“Not to mention with our patented sphere point technology, writing has never been more fluent and exhilaratingâ€
Wow, this pen’s pretty cool.
“This baby even has a GPS feature built-in to locate it if you ever misplace it – never lose a pen again!â€
Man, I HATE when I lose my pen… I’ll take 10!
As silly as that example was, it has a point. If you took that sales copy and compared it with:
The former would take the cake over the latter every time. This is simply because you explain how your product or service benefits your customer instead of telling them what “cool†features it has. The customer can picture just how much better their life would be with your help, and that’s half the battle. This explanation is fairly novice, but for beginners wanting to increase sales: Implement benefits instead of features to your ads or site copy and, assuming you provide value, money will follow.
“Don’t you hate when your lowly pen runs out of ink? Well forget about those days with penmaster 3000! The self-filling ink cartridge guarantees you never have another inkless headache again.â€
Hmm I do hate when my pen runs out of ink.
“Not to mention with our patented sphere point technology, writing has never been more fluent and exhilaratingâ€
Wow, this pen’s pretty cool.
“This baby even has a GPS feature built-in to locate it if you ever misplace it – never lose a pen again!â€
Man, I HATE when I lose my pen… I’ll take 10!
As silly as that example was, it has a point. If you took that sales copy and compared it with:
- Self-filling ink cartridge
- Patented sphere point technology
- Built-in GPS
The former would take the cake over the latter every time. This is simply because you explain how your product or service benefits your customer instead of telling them what “cool†features it has. The customer can picture just how much better their life would be with your help, and that’s half the battle. This explanation is fairly novice, but for beginners wanting to increase sales: Implement benefits instead of features to your ads or site copy and, assuming you provide value, money will follow.
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum:
Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.