If you have products to sell or services to provide, you need to think of ways to market those successfully so they appeal to various customers. Two marketing elements that can work toward this goal are features and benefits. Discover more about each of these marketing elements and the ways that features and benefits both work for your marketing.
What Are Features?
Features are the straightforward elements of a product or service.
For products, features usually consist of the components that a product is made of or the exact specifications of that product. For example, features might list the various colors, types, sizes, styles, or accessories that a product offers.
For services, features often include the various aspects of a marketed service. For example, if a customer searches for gutter cleaning services, the features on a services page might include the debris a business removes, the types of gutters they usually clean, or the steps the gutter cleaning company takes.
Features do not just cover products or services. They can also cover businesses as well. Common features that businesses can list include memberships, certifications, ratings, years of experience, and proof of insurance.
What Are Benefits?
Benefits take listed features one step further. Benefits explain what the features can do for the customer or client. While people are often interested in the various parts of a product, they might not be sure how these parts help them specifically. Benefits will explain what a specific part of a product or a certain element of a service, such as a warranty, can do for the customer.
If you are unsure of how to translate features into benefits for a customer, put yourself in the customer’s shoes. For example, you have 20 years of business experience. So what does that mean for the customer? That means the customer can rely on your knowledge to deal with specific situations they might face and get answers for any questions they have. Tailor your features to focus on the benefits they can bring to your customers.
However, benefits are only useful as the audience they are intended for. When you seek to turn features into benefits, you have to know your audience, know what they are looking for in a product or service, and know what benefits will appeal to them. That way, you can describe benefits that are effective, useful, engaging, and above all else, successful.
Why Are Features Important?
When customers are interested in a product, service, or business, features can be the details that they need to know to make their decision. Whether a customer is interested in a specific size for a product or whether they want to learn more about the steps of a service, the features can help the customer understand what the thing they are looking at offers.
Features can often appeal to a specific type of customer. A customer who is interested in the more technical aspects of a product, the details of a company, or steps of a service might prefer the features over the benefits, especially if the customer already understands what the benefits are. If you are in an industry that attracts these types of customers, features might be the best thing to highlight.
Why Are Benefits Important?
As mentioned above, benefits take straightforward features and explain how these features can help the customer. Your ultimate goal is to sell your product, service, or business to your prospective customers. Benefits are a way to show why the specific thing you are selling is important, useful, and worthy of capturing their attention.
Benefits are useful for most customers, especially new or prospective ones. People often want products or services due to a specific problem they face or do not want to face. Also, they might be interested in buying a product or service because they want to achieve a specific goal or attain a specific feeling. No matter the customers’ goals, benefits can highlight how customers can either avoid an issue or achieve something they want.
Benefits can also help to forge that personal connection that people can make with a product, service, or business. With that personal connection, people will often be more inclined to buy into whatever you want to sell. You might achieve this through statistics, specific examples, storytelling, imagery, or endorsement from customers or celebrities.
How Can You Use Features and Benefits Effectively?
If you want to incorporate both features and benefits into your SEO campaign, then the digital marketing experts at Grow Team can help. We will thoroughly evaluate your business website and any current online strategy to give you comprehensive, accurate, and effective tips, recommendations, and tools to boost your SEO, content, and digital marketing. Click here to request your free evaluation today and learn more about what we can do for you.