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
Billing Management: #9 Usage Billing in IoTs
We live in a world where connectivity has become a lifestyle rather than a luxury. From smart thermostats that adjust your home's temperature to GPS trackers monitoring end-to-end fleets and sensors that optimize energy grids, the Internet of Things has{"code":1038,"message":"JSON is not well formed"}
Today this began failing: sales_order_data = zoho.books.createRecord("salesorders",books_organization_ID,order_data); with this error message. {"code":1038,"message":"JSON is not well formed"} This code has been running for two years. Here is the inputHow can I migrate Shared Mailbox from Zoho Mail to Team Inbox?
I am unable to migrate mails from my shared mailbox in Zoho Mail to Team Inbox. I am the super admin of my Zoho One plan and yet I am getting an error saying only admins can do this? I don't understand the issue.Remember all the ways we've posted?
The world celebrates World Postal Day in 2025 with the theme “#PostForPeople: Local Service. Global Reach". The story of the “post” is a story of human connection itself, evolving from simple handwritten notes carried over long distances to instant digitalCan no longer upload my own Notebook cover
I've had Notebook for over a year and have been able to create my own notebook covers, but when I tried to upload my own cover for a new notebook today, the upload feature has suddenly been starred, requiring me to upgrade my account. When did thisZoho Desk - Cannot Invite or Register New User
Hi who may concern, we encountered a problem that we cannot invite user or the visitor cannot register for a user at all through our help center portal, with the snapshot shown as below and the attachement. It always pops up that "Sorry, Unable to processCustom domain issue
I recently changed records for my support area custom domain for a few months, I then wanted to come back to Zoho, but now I can't connect it and I can't login as it's having an SSL issue. I cannot get a good response from support, as I've been notifiedHow do you generate personalized certificates and save them in dynamic folders using Writer's mail merge?
Zoho Writer's mail merge feature can help you enhance the certificate management process. It's a great way to save time and effort! Merge certificates and maintain a well-organised repository with personalised certificates stored in separate folders forZoho Editor
Zoho PDf Editor is not working I am clicking on EDIT PDf then it again bringing me back to the same page. again and again.The present is a "present"
The conversation around mental health has been gaining attention in recent years. Even with this awareness, we often feel stuck; the relentless pace of modern life makes us too busy to pause, reflect, and recharge. In the world of customer support, thisMarket cap
Market cap formula?? Kaise nikaleCreate project (flow) and assign to person without account (company)
Hi Zoho Support & Community, I'm trying to automate a process using Zoho Flow to create a Zoho Project and link it directly to a Zoho CRM Contact. This reflects our B2C workflow where we primarily deal with individual Contacts, not Companies/Accounts.Mail and OS
Jai Hind! Zoho is doing good by creating good software (made in india) on par with other tech giants. 🥰 Suggestion: 1. Whenever we sign up on zoho mail its asking for other mail id. It shouldn't be like that. You should ask general details of a userNeed Help to setup plugs along with codeless bot buidler. To send sms OTPs to users via Zoho Voice and to verify it
Need Help to setup plugs along with codeless bot buidler. To send sms OTPs to users via Zoho Voice and to verify it. I get leads from our website and we need to make sure those are not junk. So we are using proactive chat bot and we need mobile OTPs toDirect Integration Between Zoho Cliq Meetings and Google Calendar
Dear Zoho Team, We’d like to submit the following feature request based on our current use case and the challenges we’re facing: 🎯 Feature Request: Enable meetings scheduled in Zoho Cliq to be automatically added to the host's Google Calendar, not justZoho sheet
Unable to share zoho sheet with anyone on internet with editer option only view option is showPersonal account created under org account
Hi there, I am Jayesh. We are using ME Central, and we have an account by the email ID soc@kissht.com.. Now I have created a personal account., jayesh.auti@zohomail.in, accidentally. Can you help me to remove this jayesh.auti@zohomail.in from my organizationAdd another account
How to add another mail account to my zoho mail.Recover deleted user
Hi by mistake i have deleted an added user and his email associated. Please help me recover it thank you.No connection to the server
Hello! I can't add a new email address to my mailbox because your server is rejecting me. Please help. I took and added a screenshot of this problem Marek OlbrysEmails missing from desktop but visible on phone
Subject says it all. Windows 11 laptop. Apple phone. all systems up to date.Website Hosting
Hello, I want to host my domain on Hostinger, and I want my emails to run through Zoho Mail. Please provide me with the SPF record, MX record (Type: TXT), and A record, so that I don’t face any issues with my emails. My website is on Hostinger hosting,Can not search zoho mail after update V.1.7.0
i can not search mail on to and cc box from attached picture and then search contacts box can't click or use anything. include replay mail too.How to retreive the "To be received" value of an Item displayed in Zoho inventory.
Hi everyone, We have our own Deluge code to generate a PO according to taget quantity and box quantity, pretty usefull and powerful! However, we want to reduce our quantity to order according to "To be received" variable. Seems like this might not evenKaizen #211 - Answering your Questions | Using Canvas and Widgets to Tailor CRM for Mobile
Howdy, tech wizards! We are back with the final post in addressing the queries you shared for our 200th milestone. This week, we are focusing on a couple of queries on Zoho CRM mobile configurations and custom payment gateway integration. 1. Mobile SDKRemove "Invalid entries found. Rectify and submit again" modal
Following up on a post from a few years back, but can the Zoho team consider either removing the 'Invalid entries found. Rectify and submit again' modal that displays for empty mandatory fields OR allow an admin to change it? I've built a custom errorCadence reports as front-end reports
Hello everyone, We have built a cadence which is connected to the Leads module. There are 11 steps in total, 7 are automatic emails and 4 are tasks for the Lead owners. As admins, we have access to this (very nicely made) 'View Reports' tab where we canShow elapsed time on the thank-you page?
Is it possible to display the total time a user spent filling out a Zoho Form on the thank-you? I’d like to show the difference between the `form submission timestamp` and the `start time` (currently have a hidden Date-Time field set to autofill the dateI need to do crud with snippet html
I need to implement a form with an improved user interface. I would like to use snippets to build a CRUD that allows me to create and update records. How could I achieve this using snippets?Incorrect “correct” password on email client apple mail
I have troubleshot this account several times. I have deleted and re added account. It keeps saying incorrect password. Can you check that it is not locked on your end?Is it possible to lock editing subform rows?
Ideally editing would only be locked after the form has been updated but I still want them to be able to add new subform records at any time and they should be able to delete rows from the subform. It is a named subform if that's relevant however theWhat is the maximum file size of a video upload in Zoho chat?
Can I upload a 20 mb video file and share it with my colleagues?Update a field in ALL all calls under a contact
HI guys! I have written some deluge code to update a field in my calls after i have comepleted the call, i need this field to update in all my scheduled calls as well that are comeing up. I just cant seem to get it to work, i have put teh code below,Verifying Zoho Mail Functionality After Switching DNS from Cloudflare to Hosting Provider
I initially configured my domain's (https://roblaxmod.com/) email with Zoho Mail while using Cloudflare to manage my DNS records (MX, SPF, etc.). All services were working correctly. Recently, I have removed my site from Cloudflare and switched my domain'sFat Download of Ulaa Browser
I just observed that Ulaa Browser is offering an one-capsule big download. These days it is a custom to offer a small bootstrap downloader and based on user customization options an appropriate download completes. And this is particularly common withBilling Management: #8 Usage Billing in Logistics & Delivery Services
The logistics and delivery industry thrives on movement and precision. Every delivery completed, every kilometre driven, and every ton transported is a measurable activity. However, billing often lags behind. Many logistics companies still rely on fixed-rateTags for New Tickets
Hi there, When creating a new ticket, there is currently no way to choose a tag you would like to associate with the new ticket. Being able to associate a tag while creating a new ticket will be very beneficial as it will save time and flow well withZoho Desk: No Incoming email
Is Zoho Desk services down? No incoming email reflect to desk tickets.Zoho CRM - Widgets | Update #3 : Introducing SDK V1.5 along with new ZDK Methods and ZRC Support
Hello everyone! Widgets in Zoho CRM just got a big upgrade! With the release of SDK v1.5, developers can now create more immersive widget experiences. This update elevates Widget development with new ZDK methods for easier interactivity and ZRC supportUnusual activity detected, account blocked
I am unable to send emails and am getting the error "Outgoing blocked: Unusual activity detected. To unblock your account, please and submit a request. Learn more.". I am unsure as to why this is happening since all my activity is legitimate, mainly confirmationNext Page