For the purposes of this article, let’s put you in the shoes of the consumer. Let’s say you are researching a product for a larger purchase. Let’s say, a new smartphone.
Perhaps you open a web browser and do a quick Google search. Soon, you are bound to run across a lot of snazzy sounding words. You’ll run into technical wizards on Reddit boards who seem to know a whole other language that includes words like “nits”, “oleophobic coating” (what???), and my personal favorite, haptic touch (which sounds like something from a space opera film).
You might think you aren’t making this mistake. Perhaps your industry isn’t so technical. Or perhaps your industry is technical, but your audience knows the lingo.
Either way, there is one mistake you don’t want to make, and that’s selling features instead of benefits.
Let’s go back to a couple of those technical details.
Nits is simply a measurement of brightness. The more nits, the brighter your phone can get. Which means–better image quality. More nits = better image quality. Nits is the feature. Better image quality is the benefit to you.
Oleophobic coating is a material that is resistant to oils, which makes it resistant to those oils on your fingers. This coating makes your phone less prone to fingerprints, which makes for a better-looking phone. Oleophobic is the feature. Not getting fingerprints on your smartphone is the benefit to you.
Beginning writers and business owners often make the mistake of selling their features, not the benefit of that feature to the consumer. They make it all about themselves.
Don’t make it about you. Make it about your audience and what is in it for them. Always.
Apple has quite a bevy of marketers at their fingertips. It is worth studying how they turn their features into benefits. And then do the same with yours.
Stefanie Cosman 