Features versus Benefits
25th of February, 2022
Do you have a clear understanding of the crucial difference between the features of your products/services and the benefits of your products/services?
It is an important distinction, and they are often confused. Business Owners need to know the difference between them when marketing and selling their products/services.
A feature is defined as “a distinctive attribute or aspect of something.”
A benefit is defined as “something that produces good or helpful results or effects” or “an advantage or profit gained from something.”
We often see Estate Agents using the term “features” in their adverts “a well-appointed house with interesting decorative features”. A hotel may feature “a large lounge, a sauna, and a coin-operated solarium". We are all familiar with the lengthy list of features attached to car brochures and sales materials. In these examples, features are used to draw special attention to something.
It is critical that we know and can clearly define our products/services, what they are, how they work and their features, especially if these features are unique, hard to imitate and organised.
However, this is where a common mistake is made. The features are often listed as selling points. Features only become selling points if the customer identifies and gains a benefit in terms of a distinct advantage or value from them.
Therefore, it is particularly important to research our customers’ needs and wants carefully to understand the value or benefits they are seeking for a product/service. By asking questions and listening intently to the answers we can ensure we understand their problems and their desired solutions. We can then focus our marketing and selling to matching our distinctive features to their distinctive needs (discarding any other features that are not relevant to this customer at this time). They will then be able to clearly define how valuable you and your products/services are to them and will not seek to look elsewhere for a solution.
Benefits are only found when a feature matches a need.
If you would like our help to define and align your features and benefits to address the needs of your customers, please contact us.
