The ideology behind why features tell, but benefits sell
Do you think there's any truth to this? Do features only tell, and benefits sell? Well, let's see why we should focus on benefits rather than features as the great marketing wizards, David Ogilvy and Steve Jobs proved to be the best examples leveraging this method.
Features vs Benefits
As you know, features describe the attributes of a product or a service. It answers the “What" - exploring the functionalities and persuading prospects about what it does. On the other hand, benefits sell the result. It explains the “Why" - focusing on the result 'that customers' yield.
When pitching a product, getting a little obsessed with the product's features, and explaining it in detail is natural. And we're not saying it's wrong to position the features that distinguish your product from your competitors. But before that, it's important to think about what end-users want. Everyone is looking for simple solutions that could solve problems, and make things better. Benefits convince the users to listen to your pitch, as it is more focused on providing them solutions to their business problems.
So, where does the feature description fit in your narrative? Once convincing your audience about the benefits, showcasing the features intrigues and engages them. Let's assume you are looking for better ways to store and automate your customer information. You find a descriptive blog suggesting efficient ways to manage your leads data. It also gives a footnote about how a CRM could solve your problem. Now that you've got the solution, you start to compare different CRM solutions and their features to see which best fits your business. It applies to your target audience as well. By first convincing your audience briefing the benefits and then leveraging the features closing a deal proves to be an agile method to win more sales.
Feature and benefits of iPod
In 2001, Apple launched its iPod, the mp3 song player that changed the way we listened to music. Steve Jobs introduced the iPod as, "1000 songs in your pocket". Had he emphasized more on the feature stating, “We are presenting iPod - the largest storage, mp3 digital media song player", it wouldn't address the "Why', and it wouldn't have caught the imagination of the consumers the way it did. The pitch rightly positioned the benefit, making the product a huge success. More than 400 million iPods sold and transformed Apple into one of the most valuable companies in the world.
How to reposition features as benefits?
So far, we understood the importance of prioritizing benefits over features. Now, we will see how to transform features into benefits.
'Talk' to your customers through your writing
“If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular” - David Ogilvy.
The father of advertising, David Ogilvy was one of the most successful advertisers during the 60s. His notions regarding marketing and advertising played an incredible role in promoting big brands, and are relevant to this date. He emphasized that understanding your customer pain points helps you to talk the way your customers talk. When you identify their problems, you can easily draft content that is more relatable to them. It addresses their needs. When you tailor your content to your customer's pain points, you wouldn't have to chase after them, they will come to you. To identify their challenges, here are some platforms you could explore:
Market survey - By surveying your target customers, you directly interact with them to find out what is lacking and how you can slide in the gap.
Review sites - Your own user community site and other relevant review sites like Yelp, Trip Advisor, and Am track customer complaints.
Social media - Social media is a powerful tool to draw public’s attention. Perform social listening to check if there are any customer complaints about your competitors.
Keeping a tab on some of the platforms mentioned above will help you to understand your customer pain points and lets you optimize the sales pitch that best resonates with them. Gathering this data is only the first step. Deep analysis into niche areas using these data points enables you to profile and pitch to your customers better.
Ask so what
To 'talk' to your customers through your writing, just ask, "So what?", a simple yet powerful question that flips your features into benefits. This strategy aids in simplifying the content and answers the purpose of the product. Let’s see some of the examples:
Mp3 song player with 5 gigabytes storage
So what?
1000 songs in your pocket
SEO page optimization
So what?
Rank first in google
Portable wireless BlueTooth speaker
So what?
Carry the speaker anywhere you go
1.5 ton, 3 Star spilt AC
So what?
Bring Antarctica to your room
Analog, water-resistant watch
So what?
Be playful without removing your watch
When your content passes the 'so-what' test, it indicates that your draft is customer-friendly and focused. Feature or benefit is not the dispute. Both should be used wisely to craft a selling content.
Access your files securely from anywhere
New to Zoho Recruit?
Zoho Developer Community
New to Zoho LandingPage?
Zoho LandingPage Resources
New to Zoho Survey?
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Bigin?
Topic Participants
Shaveethira G
Sticky Posts
10 simple e-commerce marketing tips to boost sales
Congratulations! You've finally set up that e-commerce store you've been thinking about for a long time. Hopefully it wasn't too difficult. Even if it was, the effort will be totally worth it when you start seeing some orders come through. Now that the store is live, let's take a look at some marketing tips you can apply for sales growth. 1. Avoid cart abandonment If you've ever shopped online, you might have added a product to the cart but then decided not to purchase it. This is known as cart abandonment.Marketing in a post COVID-19 world!
Consumers across countries are increasingly spending more time on a wide variety of digital activities, right from online grocery shopping, to video conferencing, to tele-medicine. There is a good chance that you performed one or more of the following activities during this lockdown, thanks to COVID 19: Cooked a meal Made a TikTok Video Signed up for a remote learning session Consulted a doctor online (or ordered medicines online) Shopped for groceries online A study by Hunter, a food and beverageInbound Marketing 101: The Foundational Blocks of Inbound Marketing Strategy
According to a behaviour survey, 68% of the buyers use sources such as blogs to evaluate the product even before considering it. Before buying a product, we do a lot of research to learn more about the product through communities, blogs, social media,How Zylker doubled their webinar registrations!
Webinars are good educational resources to gather qualified leads for your product. But what if your visitors are dropping off from your webinar landing page without signing up? What more could you do to convert visitors into registrants? This is theThe ideology behind why features tell, but benefits sell
Do you think there's any truth to this? Do features only tell, and benefits sell? Well, let's see why we should focus on benefits rather than features as the great marketing wizards, David Ogilvy and Steve Jobs proved to be the best examples leveraging
New to Zoho TeamInbox?
Zoho TeamInbox Resources
Zoho CRM Plus Resources
Zoho Books Resources
Zoho Subscriptions Resources
Zoho Projects Resources
Zoho Sprints Resources
Qntrl Resources
Zoho Creator Resources
Zoho CRM Resources
Design. Discuss. Deliver.
Zoho Show Resources
Get Started. Write Away!
Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.
Zoho CRM コンテンツ
-
オンラインヘルプ
-
Webセミナー
-
機能活用動画
-
よくある質問
-
Ebook
-
-
Zoho Campaigns
- Zoho サービスのWebセミナー
その他のサービス コンテンツ
Nederlandse Hulpbronnen
ご検討中の方
Recent Topics
Production Management Tool (MRP / BOM)
Hi Guys, is there any recommended App available that works with zoho and covers the needed applications for a production? What we need is a system that covers the BOM (bill of materials), MRP (material ressources planning), MRP II (manufacturing ressourcesBug in Zoho Cliq Signup Flow – "%s" Placeholder Visible Instead of Product Name
Hi Zoho Team, I would like to report a UI bug in the Zoho Cliq signup/enable flow. During the step where Cliq asks to enable the product for the company, the following text appears: Great! Your company is already available in Zoho, so you just have toExporting tickets
I went to Setup -> Organization -> Import/Export in order to export tickets but found 2 issues: 1. The email body never gets exported. 2. There are some large numbers (like 5.57E+16) under certain columns of the exported CSV file. I could not find any export options. Please can you help with this?Copy field information to clipboard
I need to be able to transfer some field information in to the clipboard, so that I can then paste it in to our helpdesk system. Is there a way I could add a button to a detail report that does this?Issuing reconciling a bank statement
HELP! I'm trying to reconcile a bank statement. The prior month reconciled perfectly. Beginning balance is correct yet I'm off by the same amount each time. Both myself and my office manager, separately and together, have tried to complete this reconciliationDetect and ignore bots in visitors
The SalesIQ visitor numbers are basically useless to us because there is no bot detection. We get the same bots coming in from the same countries looking at the same pages every day. It can't be that difficult to tell the difference between an actualAdd Real-Time Microphone Audio-Level Indicator During Screen Recording
Hi Zoho WorkDrive Team, Hope you are doing well. We would like to request an important enhancement to the Zoho WorkDrive screen-recording experience. Current Limitation: During a recording session, there is no visual indication that the microphone isZero Personalization of the File Sharing Experience
By now (2025) this is the maximum level of personalization available for a Zoho sharing link. We gently asked Zoho if we could modify at least the background, and they replied that it cannot be customized. We're truly disappointed – and surprised everyRequest for Solution to Reverse $500,000+ FY2024 Inventory/COGS Discrepancy in Zoho
Dear Zoho Support Team, I hope you are doing well. We are contacting you regarding a significant discrepancy in our financial data within Zoho Books/Inventory, and we urgently need your guidance on how to correct and reverse these issues. After reviewingTwo factor authentication for helpdesk users
The company i work for wants use the helpdesk site in Zoho desk, as a place for their distribution partners to ask question and look for information about our product. The things there is suppose to go up there is somewhat confidential between my companyKiosk can't merge picklist or multiselect
There is no ability to load a multiselect or picklikst field into a kiosk with the values that have been previously selected. So, I essentially have 3 unacceptable options: 1.)Load the value into a text string and include instructions like this: "PicklistAGE field from DATE OF BIRTH Field.
HI! I have a field called date of birth in my CRM (LEADS, CONTACT etc…) How can I know the AGE today I would like to create a field AGE. I now how to create a field but I don´t which calculation (CUSTOM FUCTION) to make ¿ANY HELP?How to update/remove file in zoho creator widgets using javascript API
Hi Team, I have developed a widget which allows inserting and updating records I have file upload field with multiple file upload. Now while doing insert form record, I am using uploadFile API to upload files for that record. I am using updateRecord APIAnnouncing new features in Trident for Windows (v.1.34.4.0)
Hello Community! Trident for Windows just got better! With this update we have features that make your daily work easier and more efficient. We've added some features that are exclusive to our app and we're sure you'll find them useful. Let’s dive intoReport Hover Setting
Would be great if we will able to show information to the user while hovering a record in a report.Vertical images displayed as horizontal
Some pictures that originally are in vertical position are displayed in horizontal after the upload. It seems that system rotates them by 90 degrees. How can I fix this issue?Plug Samples #12: Verify Customer Mobile Numbers with OTP to Avoid Spam Entries
Hi Everyone! Verifying customer information is critical in business to filter out junk data and spammers. Whether it’s lead generation, appointment booking, or any other operation, ensuring quality data is essential for driving meaningful outcomes. AZoho Desk iOS app update: Saved filters and sort options
Hello everyone! Saved filters created on the web(desk.zoho.com) for tickets are now accessible on the Zoho Desk iOS app. You can easily rename, delete, or clear filters on the go. We have also introduced Sort options on the ticket listing screen, allowingBig Things Just Dropped in the SalesIQ Universe: Top Upgrades You’ll Love in Nova’25
Nova'25 has landed, and it’s packed with meaningful upgrades to help you engage smarter, work faster, and scale with ease. Whether you're into proactive messaging, smarter automation, or better admin control, there's something here for everyone. Here'sTime Entries in Analytics
I am trying to import a zoho sheet into zoho analytics. In my sheets one of the columns has "time Entries" in this "format HH:MM am/pm" example 11:00 PM. After import, i noticed that analytics converted the time to "00 Jan 1900 23:00:00".. how do i maintainAmazon invoice in Zoho Books
I have just made my first few sales on Amazon India. Amazon Seller account generates invoices for the sales made on Amazon. These invoices are sent to customers also. Now when I was only making offline sales, I used to create Invoices in Zoho Book. NowZoho Creator Upcoming Updates - November 2025
Hello everyone, Welcome to your monthly roundup of new features and enhancements! We hope you've already taken a look at Release Projection 2—it details the features coming your way for the rest of the year. And this month, we're excited to start rollingZoho Webinar + HubSpot : Simplifiez la gestion de vos données de webinaires
Les webinaires sont aujourd’hui essentiels pour interagir avec vos prospects et vos clients. Cependant, la gestion des données entre plusieurs plateformes peut vite devenir complexe. Grâce à la nouvelle intégration entre Zoho Webinar et HubSpot, vos outilsI am trying to give access to one of our educators access to 3 forms in Zoho and she is not able to view the data - Access issue
Hi Team, When I try to provide read access to one of our educators on Zoho for Pre-training , post training and Impact survey forms submit form access which also allows them to read , it does not show them dataHow to book GST paid in zoho books
hi, i am a new user to Zoho books and not able to book GST paid in books, kindly suggest how i can book it in books. thanks, siddharthPUNJAB NATIONAL BANK (CORPORATE) INDIA - NOT AVAILABLE IN BANKING
Dear sir, Kindly fix it. PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK (INDIA) is available but PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK (CORPORATE) is not available. Kindly enable this banking since we need to categorize the entries. Regards, Sanjay Jena email id/ user id : travewithmerchant@Unable to Delete Items – No Visible Transactions but Error “Items which are a part of other transactions cannot be deleted…”
Hello Community, We are using Zoho Inventory for our business and encountered a persistent issue that is preventing us from deleting certain items. The message shown is: “Items which are a part of other transactions cannot be deleted. Instead, mark themKaizen #216 - Actions APIs : Email Notifications
Welcome to another week of Kaizen! For the last three weeks, we have been discussing Zylker's workflows. We successfully updated a dormant workflow, built a new one from the ground up and more. But our work is not finished—these automated processes areYour bot just got smarter: AI-Powered routing that reads between the lines
What if your bot could tell the difference? Between a visitor who just needs a quick answer, someone actively comparing options, and a frustrated customer one click away from leaving? Most bots can't. They deliver the same response to everyone, missingWeekly Tips : Master Keyboard Shortcuts in Zoho Mail
If you spend a lot of time managing emails, switching between your mouse and keyboard can slow you down. Whether you are replying to clients, organizing your inbox, or searching for messages, every second counts. So, how can you streamline your emailIntroducing custom lookup fields in the Tickets, Contacts, and Accounts modules
Hello all, We are excited to announce a new enhancement that will empower you to further customize the Tickets, Contacts, and Accounts modules. Now, you will be able to create custom lookup fields in your Tickets, Contacts, and Accounts layouts for moreDKIM cannot be enabled for the domain as no verified default selector present
Can't get the DKIM working. May you please check my account (nksy.us) to see what's wrong?Collections Management: #3 Tackling Payment Failures
Sam refreshed the dashboard. "Payment failed". Same customer. Same subscription. This is happening for the third time. He sends a usual email: "Your renewal payment failed again. Could you please check and retry?" A couple of days passed, and there wasHow do I increase the email attachment size in Zoho CRM ?
It looks like I'm limited to 10MB when sending an attachment using the email widget on a record in Zoho CRM. Is there a way to increase the size? Or can I use some other tool? From what I'm reading online, I'm maxed out at 10MB. Any insight would be greatlyWhatsApp Channels in Zoho Campaigns
Now that Meta has opened WhatsApp Channels globally, will you add it to Zoho Campaigns? It's another top channel for marketing communications as email and SMS. Thanks.Zoho sign and creator error message {"code":9043,"error_param":"Checked by","message":"Extra key found","status":"failure"}
Good day, I receive the error message: {"code":9043,"error_param":"Checked by","message":"Extra key found","status":"failure"} when running below code from creator to sign, void TestForSign(int ID) { //Fetch Template Details (Optional, for dynamic mapping)Download a writer template as .docx instead of .pdf.
I have been trying to implement a feature to download a writer template as a .docx and got it working partly but it isn't good. Earlier I checked our code and I saw openurl("https://crm.zoho.com/crm/org121314/specific/Template.do?action=print&step=pdfPreview&id="Allow the usage of Multi-Select fields as the primary field on "Layout Rules"
We want to force our users to enter some explanation strings when a multi-select field has been utilized. I can't understand the reason for the usage restriction of Multi-Select fields as a primary field. This is a simple "Display hidden mandatory fieldExtract Archived Projects using Zoho Projects API
In my organization we archive the projects when they are already completed, charged, invoiced, so that only those that are still pending process remain active. I need to access all projects (active and archived) from an external system, but the API v3Ask the Experts: Five-hour live Q&A session with Zoho WorkDrive product experts
Have questions about WorkDrive 5.0? Let’s talk! We recently launched Zoho WorkDrive 5.0, packed with powerful updates to help your team work smarter, stay secure, and get more value from your business content. From content-centric workflows and AI-poweredNext Page