Features vs. Benefits and Why it Matters

In my 10 years of experience building brands and creating marketing collateral for businesses and organizations, including my own, I have observed that, in general, small business owners understand and talk about the features of their products and services really well. We love the nuts and bolts of what we do. Where we consistently have more difficulty is in articulating the benefits of our offerings. This is very important because understanding and implementing the difference is a key to effective position and promotion of your brand, and extends to both the marketing and sales function of your business. 

It is paramount for anyone in charge of a brand, whether a business owner, brand strategist or marketer, to know the difference between features and benefits. How you frame your products and services impacts your overall brand messaging as well as your ability to reach and resonate with your audience. In this blog, we will expand on why it’s important to not only know the difference between features and benefits, but also how they make a difference in how your brand shows up across the customer journey. Much of what we share in this article applies to both service-based and product-based brands, however, for the purposes of this article, we’ll focus on services brands and companies.

What are features and what are benefits?

Features and benefits play an important role in helping a company communicate its offerings and helping potential customers understand and value what they are considering buying. 

Features are what your service does, the characteristics and attributes of your service. Benefits are what your service does for the customer/user, the value or advantages they offer to the customer. By nature, benefits build on features and interpret them through the lens of the advantage afforded to the client. A key question to always consider is this: How does (insert service) improve or enhance my customer’s experience by giving them something they want but don’t have?

An example would be a web hosting company that boasts about live 24-hour support. Great feature! The benefit to the customer is that if there is an issue with their website at any time of the day, they can have peace of mind that someone can support them in getting it back online and in working order, even in the middle of the night. 

Why is it important to know the difference?

Here’s the reality we must always keep in mind: Customers buy products and services because they want to solve a problem or meet a need. Features must always be filtered through the lens of benefits. 

In order for your business to grow, branding and marketing must lead to sales. A key to effective selling is knowing what matters most to your audience and when to introduce or emphasize that in your conversation. If you are thinking about your marketing funnel or sales process, there are important points where highlighting features and/or benefits of the product or service matter more. This is where really understanding your audience’s DNA (Desires, Needs & Aspirations) comes into play. 

Here are three impacts of focusing on benefits to three of your most important business functions: branding, marketing and sales.

Features & Benefits in Branding

Your choice of emphasis will influence how your brand is positioned and perceived. People can get lost in features, but they tend to remember (and value) benefits more because they are applied to them. The question that begins a conversation may be “what can (insert product or service) do?”, but the real question is always “what can (insert product or service) do for me?” A brand that emphasizes benefits to the customer will be seen as more customer-centric and trustworthy.  You indicate that you understand their pain, which creates a touchpoint of connection. 

Features & Benefits in Marketing

Your emphasis on features or benefits will influence how your brand is expressed and experienced when it comes to marketing. Your brand will no doubt compete with other brands for opportunities. You are looking for advantages. Advantages of your product or service only matter as long as they translate into advantages passed on to your customer. Focusing on benefits, especially in a competitive situation where many features are similar, gives you an opportunity to stand out and appeal directly to what matters to the customer. You can speak right to them in a way that you can’t when you are simply touting features. As you learn what they value, it also allows you to tailor and personalize your messaging, and thus speak more directly to the customer.

Features & Benefits in Sales

Your choice of emphasis will also influence how your brand is viewed and valued. Benefits can more easily be communicated as key (valuable) points of differentiation. In a competitive market where many features might be the same or similar, your ability to translate these features into tangible benefits are not only advantages, they can meaningfully set you apart from competitors. It can give you the edge by helping your customer understand and envision how their experience will be improved by what you are offering. A good salesperson can make the connection between benefits and how exactly it will enhance the customer’s experience. Your service will then be positioned not as a solution among many, but as the right solution to this customer problem. 

If you are responsible for a brand, your job is to know the features and benefits of your service and to learn how and when to bring them out in conversation with prospects and customers for maximum effect. Your job is always to communicate why any of it makes a difference to the customer’s experience. This means sharing how your solution can/will:

• Address a problem the customer knows they have
• Illuminate and eliminate a problem the customer didn’t know they have
• Avoid a problem the customer will likely have in the future (that they may not even have or be aware of yet)

Conclusion

As we have shown, it is more advantageous to emphasize benefits over features when building and communicating your brand. Even when translating the brand to marketing and sales, there is a clear advantage to looking beyond features and leaning toward benefits. As a brand builder or marketer, it is important to devote time, space and emphasis to benefits in the various marketing communications pieces you are responsible for. In a world where everyone has a framework or methodology, and the increasing use of AI, analytics and other technologies/tools are making work more efficient and effective every day, asking the right questions is a key to differentiating oneself and landing on the right solutions for the customer. Benefits clearly trump features in making your message resonate through branding, marketing and selling your service.

Resources:

How to Sell Benefits, Not Features (Hubspot)

Enthuse Creative Can Help

Enthuse Creative can help your business develop the right messaging for your brand or marketing communications content. Reach out to us today for a free consultation.