The ideology behind why features tell, but benefits sell

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. 



      • 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 beverage

      • Inbound 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 the

      • 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

        • Recent Topics

        • Clarification on “Prefill by you” option in Zoho Sign

          Dear Zoho Sign Team, I have been trying to understand how the “Prefill by You” option works when sending out a contract for signature. My use case is quite simple: I need to sign a contract alongside my client. As I understand it, I have two ways to proceed:

        • 見積書のサブフォーム「見積明細」に登録した独自項目が取得できません

          見積書タブの「見積明細」に、独自の項目を設定しました。 設定した項目は「仕入単価(API名： shiiretanka)」です。 見積データの保存時に、 ・各明細の（単価（販売単価）-仕入単価）×数量　で粗利益額を出します。 ・各明細行の粗利益額を（ループ処理で）集計します。 ・集計した金額（合計粗利益額）を、見積書タブに設定した独自項目の「利益額」へ入力します。 という自動処理を行いたいと思い、ワークフローを設定して独自関数をスクリプトで書きました。 CRM設定画面の「API」の項目名を確認し、見積明細サブフォームのAPI名は「Quoted_Items」とのことだったので、スクリプトで見積明細フォームのデータを取得しようと

        • ENBD Business Bank Integration

          Dear Zoho Team, Curently Zoho only Support Personal Bank account Integration for ENBD Bank UAE. We are looking for a Update in ENBD Business bank account Integration as early as possible. Regards Tom Jose

        • Announcing new features in Trident for Windows (v.1.22.3.0)

          Hello Community, Trident for Windows is here with exciting new features to elevate your workflow and take workplace communication to the next level. Let’s dive into what’s new! Zoho Voice integration. You can now easily manage business calls with the

        • Zoho Campaigns API - Send Campaign and "Content not reviewed"

          Hi, I successfully managed to create a Campaign with Zoho API and /createCampaign endpoint, receiving positive 200 status code and and a campaignKey, required for /sendcampaign. However, I can't send it via API, but instead always getting a response:

        • New Asap Widget How to update my code

          I know you're still working on updating the documentation for calling the Asap Widget, the existing documentation is no longer valid. In the old 1.0 version I was able to do many things programmatically in javascript. I could open an article directly

        • Questions About Portal

          I am trying to set up our portal for internal use by company employees and I have a few questions: 1. Where is the portal pulling the form template from? Or more to the point, where can I go to edit it? 2. Tickets submitted by users through the portal

        • Check-in and check-out time calculation discrepancy as shown in a screen recording

          Please see linked screen recording for my question: https://workdrive.zohoexternal.com/external/94dd0267dc877b3f827cc09b294625105627680700cec50e71d36c08e94cb257

        • Can we create Sprint with tasks from Multiple projects?

          Hi Team, We were using Zoho Sprints for quite sometime. Currently we have started the process of Sprint method. We couldnt create the active sprint board with the tasks from multiple projects. I would like to know whether this is possible or Any timeline

        • How to provide Access rights to specific Bank accounts

          We have several bank accounts. I want to provide certain members access to only 2-3 accounts. It appears that when I give permissions, they are for ALL bank accounts. How do I do that?

        • Triggering rules on lead conversion

          There is no field on the Rule list for rule conversion to trigger an alert on liead conversion to a potential. I assigned a rule to file on any creation or update of a lead. The lead was changed a lead to a potential but no rule was fired. Rajesh Bhadra

        • Feature request - pin or flag note

          Hi, It would be great if you could either pin or flag one or more notes so that they remain visible when there are a bunch of notes and some get hidden in the list. Sometimes you are looking for a particular name that gets lost in a bunch of less important

        • Whatsapp Limitation Questions

          Good day, I would like to find out about the functionality or possibility of all the below points within the Zoho/WhatsApp integration. Will WhatsApp buttons ever be possible in the future? Will WhatsApp Re-directs to different users be possible based

        • Any Companies using HubSpot for Marketing integrated to Zoho CRM ? - Looking for Feedback

          Our company is using HubSpot for Marketing looking at moving from our presently working Z-CRM to hubspot for CRM. I am looking for any companies that are successfully integrating HubSpot Marketing functions with Zoho CRM. Upsides/Downsides/Effort/etc.

        • Record Locking for Meetings CRM

          How can I lock meetings module in CRM? For other modules I can use Record Locking or Client Script, to lock some fields But for Meetings Client Script and Record Locking are both absent We have a problem, where employees are able to change meeting time

        • How do I assign a parent to an existing campaign?

          I created a campaign but now I'd like to make that existing campaign a child of another.  How can I do this?

        • Client Script | Update - Client Script Support For Portals

          Dear All! We are excited to announce the highly anticipated feature: Client Script support for Portals. We understand that many of you have been eagerly awaiting this enhancement, and we are pleased to inform you that this support is now live for US DC.

        • Sales tax liability

          I am not seeing the tab for sales tax liability under reports. Please help

        • Is there a way to Prefill A Subform in Zoho Forms?

          By The Grace Of G-d. Hi, Is there any way to prefill a subform? Using URL Parameters or something else?

        • Zoho Notebook suddenly running very slow on long notes

          I have been a longtime user of Zoho Notebook. Historically, it has run quite well, but I've noticed over the last few days that it has begun to run unbearably slow when typing in large notes, to the point where I can type four words and have to wait for

        • Zoho CRM <> Zoho Desk Account Sync

          I have had custom fields in Zoho CRM for a time and would like that data to sync to Zoho Desk. However, since the accounts are all synced to Zoho Desk already, the newly mapped fields are not updating in Zoho Desk. Is there a way to force the sync to

        • Enhance Appointment Buffers in Zoho Bookings

          There was previously a long-standing feature request related to enhancing the way appointment buffers work in Zoho Bookings, but it looks like the original post has been deleted. I am therefore adding a new request that Zoho Bookings adjust how appointment

        • Zoho Signing embedded with iframe is moved out of view when navigating to focus signature on mobile devices

          Dear Zoho team, I'm having difficulty embedding the signing url into a website for users to sign on their phones, it's not working perfectly. The problem occurs after the user accepts and continues to sign, or the user clicks to redirect to any of the

        • 📣📣 Zoho Bookings - Feature Roadmap 2024

          Hi Everyone, Thank you for all the support you have been showing Zoho Bookings. We had a fabulous 2023, with a bunch of new features and over 60K new users. In 2024, our prime focus will be on user experience, and we have a few vital features coming in

        • Setup Leave Policy which increases based on years of service

          Please confirm if this is correct. Effective after 0 days of employment, Opening Balance is 6 days. Valid only for the first year of employment and Accrual and Reset are disabled. Effective after 1 year of employment, Opening Balance is 10 days. Valid

        • Repeating Sections in Writer

          I am wondering if it's possible to create repeating sections or text boxes of a document based on a merged subform fields coming from Zoho Forms. We are currently using excel to dynamically create a legal PDF document based on input fields in another

        • How can i make one checkbox out of a group required?

          for example say I have a contract with two check boxes for "male" and "female". I want to make it so that one of the two options are required.

        • Kaizen #91: Dynamic Lookup filters using Client Script

          Hello everyone! Welcome back to another captivating Kaizen post. In this post, we will explore the process of implementing lookup filters using Client Script. What is a dynamic lookup filter? A dynamic lookup filter is a feature that allows you to specify

        • Bigin iOS and macOS app update - Email Filter enhancement

          In the most recent iOS (v1.11.1) and macOS (v1.8.1) versions of the Bigin app, we have introduced additional email filters. We have now brought in support for 'All Emails' and 'Added from Widgets' filter categories. All Emails: This filter displays emails

        • Canvas Blueprint - Refresh/Reload Section

          I have a blueprint on a Detail canvas in CRM. When one of the blueprint buttons is pressed, the blueprint actions take place as normal but the actual blueprint options on the canvas dont change until the screen is refreshed. This doesn't happen when in

        • I get an [ERROR CODE :550 - Verification failed] but only on 1 address...

          When trying to send an email to a friend, I get an ERROR CODE :550 - Verification failed but only on this one address. - Sending him an email with my private gmail address is successful. - Sending myself an email with my SOHO address is successful. -

        • Please Allow CUSTOM SUBSCRIPTION FIELDS as PLACEHOLDERS in EMAILS

          I have customized the email notification that is automatically sent to my customers when they enter into a new subscription. However, the placeholders available for customizing the content of the email are too limited for my customers' needs.  I just

        • LastFourDigits Placeholder is Broken on Dunning Emails since Feb 24th

          As of February 24th, the dunning emails stopped rendering/displaying %LastFourDigits% placeholder! This has been working for 2 years without issues but last 6 days, it's not rendering. Example of Dunning emails from last few days: RIOR to February 2

        • Set Parallel Transition to Common Transition

          Hello Zoho Team, I wanted to set a parallel transition to a common transition, but was not able to: We want to create a parallel transition, where we store all the tasks that need to be done considered as "paperwork". This paperwork can be done in multiple

        • String field that contains html code to email

          Hello everyone, We've created a zoho flow that takes some input from the user (some keywords from a multi pick list) and sends them to a zoho flow which uses an ai prompt to create an email based on these keywords in an html form (e.g. use of <p>, <b>,

        • Get Workflow Metadata via API

          Is there a way to get metadata on workflows and/or custom functions via API? I would like to automatically pull this information. I couldn't find it in the documentations, but I'm curious if there is an undocumented endpoint that could do this.

        • Zoho Projects API v3 - How to format filter critera in deluge

          I'm trying to return the id of a client company in the Zoho Projects API using Zoho Flow and am running into issues about how I format critera in deluge. https://projects.zoho.com/api-docs#clients#get-clients I have several hundred Client Companies, and

        • The difference between Zoho Marketing Automation and Zoho Campaigns

          Greetings Marketers! This post aims to differentiate between Zoho Marketing Automation and Zoho Campaigns. By the time you get to the end of the post, you will be able to choose a product that objectively suits you.What is Zoho Marketing Automation? A

        • Payments calendar for receivables and liabilities by due dates

          Hello guys! What method can you recommend for tracking and planning future payments against expected income? We operate on the principle - we expect some income this month, then we look at what expenses are due this month and pay accordingly. I've seen

        • Add rows in subform with Excel / Sheet datas

          Hi! I'm trying to build an application where I can choose an Excel / Sheet file from a Workdrive folder, and for each data in the file, I create a row of a subform. But I can't do it, here is the code I have: inputString = input.choose_xls_file; separatorIndex

        • Next Page