How can we believe your claimed benefits when we don’t see how they tie to some feature of your product? Photo (CC) Becky McCray
“This product is great! It will save your marriage, improve your bank account and make you slimmer!” OK, enough with the benefits overload! I can’t believe your benefits claims because you didn’t show me why they’re believable.
Sales pages online are drowning in benefits, but without any hint that they connect to an actual feature of your product. Benefits without features are a waste of space.
Smart guy Jurek Leon explained why you have to talk about the product features in his terrific email newsletter:
Why bother to state the features if people buy on benefits, not features?
Because linking the features to their respective benefits gives the features believability. A list of benefits isn’t believable. They are empty promises. A well-linked feature gives the benefit substance.
Jurek has some specific tips to help you talk about benefits and features together:
When it comes to summarising the benefits that matter for your customer, preface them with one of the phrases listed in Selling the Benefits Part Two such as, “As you will realise this will give you the capability…”
One more important point: tailor this to your customers.
Just because it is a benefit don’t assume the customer will be impressed. In sales language, what we call a ‘benefit’ won’t necessarily be beneficial to every customer.
Different benefits appeal to different customer types.
For example, the feature “It is made locally” may appeal to one customer because of the benefit, “… which means that when you buy from us you help provide jobs for people in the local community.”
Another customer may be far more impressed with the benefit, “… which means if it ever breaks down we have experts close by who can fix any problems and have it working for you quickly with little downtime.”
That’s why it is important to ask questions to identify what matters to the customer. Then you can focus on the benefits that strike a chord with them.
So, work on identifying at least two benefits for each feature but only spell out the benefits that matter to your customer.
If you work an any rural hospitality or retail business, go sign up for Jurek’s Terrific Newsletter. Not only is it called “Terrific Tips”, that’s exactly what Jurek delivers each month.
New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates.
- 99% of the best things you can do for your town don’t require anyone’s permission - March 4, 2019
- Want more public attendance at your events? Make sure your signs include this specific phrase - February 18, 2019
- Know your customer: Who’s asking them questions? - February 11, 2019
- How restaurants can market each other in small towns - February 4, 2019
- SEO for voice search is different for rural small business - January 28, 2019
- What businesses would work in a small town with empty land - January 21, 2019
- Two 2019 small business trends that are good for small towns - January 14, 2019
- Small towns as testing grounds for future technology - December 31, 2018
- Empty building ideas: Art gallery in the windows - December 24, 2018
- What is holding us back? Why does every project take so long in small towns? - December 3, 2018
