how to make features to benefits

[renricker7]

hello,

the topic will tell you that i'm new to the topic of markting.

i think in one post of the forum i red that you have to mention your features, what is important, but it is much more important is to speak about the benefits for the customer, actually logical.

my question is, how to transform the features into benefits or do i have a misleaded thinking about this process.

for me all the features could be benefits, for example if i say profit from my xy-service, but in fact the service is a feature.

to make it easier to understand for me, could you name some benefits, so it becomes maybe easier and maybe it already fits me.

so you see i'm a little bit confused, if you guys could help me to clear this up, i would be happy.


thanks,


rené

[scot]

A feature is something you provide. A benefit is what the customer receives from this benefit. When you're trying to figure out the benefit, you have to know the customer.

let's say I am selling a watch that is extremely durable. Durability is the feature.

If I'm selling it to a parent I might say "this is something that will last a long time. you buy this one and you won't have to keep buying new watches."

If I'm selling it to a rich young business man, he might not be excited about saving money on replacements so the benefit to him would go something like "Here, look how well it's built. Hit it with this hammer. Isn't that cool? It's still pristine"

Why?

Most of the time, when you think up the features of what you're selling, you think of them because they can help your customer. the practice of putting them into the language of a benefit is meant to help you communicate more clearly.

This comes in handy when you have a feature like "I can juggle 8 balls". Some people might be into that alone because they know how difficult that is, but most likely, you shouldn't present it that way. Depending on who you're speaking to, you may something more like "I am the most skilled juggler your audience will probably ever see and they will go crazy"

Fears & Dreams

A technique I use a lot for converting features to benefits... make two columns on a piece of paper. one for fears and one for dreams of the customer. then, I fill up the page with as many as I can muster. I then take that list and try to figure out how my benefits can alay their fears and get them closer to their dreams.

Applying the benefits

once you got them worked out, you don't have to blatantly say them to the customer. in the example where the audience goes crazy for 8 balls, you can just have a photo of an audience going crazy.

Use the most important benefits to back your strategy for every sales piece. pick the newspaper quotes that best show the benefits. Choose colors, photos, fonts, music... everything in a way that best conveys how you can help the future customer.

[renricker7]

thank you,

for helping out,

i red also some more information on the net and got a little better understanding.

thank you very much, my favorite juggler!

rené

[Schuyler]

Now there's something cool to think about.

[scot]

update: you can now download the document about starting any marketing here:

http://scotaganda.com/pickup/StartingAnyMarketing.pdf