Mark Crosling

A brilliant example of features and benefits was the very first ad for an automobile. It appeared in the August 13, 1898 of Scientific American by the Winton Motor Carriage Co. of Cleveland, Ohio.

The jaw dropping headline read:

Dispense with a horse and save the expense, care and anxiety of keeping it

In 1898 this would have been a head-turning, utterly fascinating headline. Not just for the novelty of being the first automobile ad seen, but also the huge benefit that the Winton Carriage could offer potential buyers of their horseless carriage.

The headline says nothing about the vehicle and its fantastic features. That comes later.

Instead the headline drills into the immediate benefit of saving on the expense and care of owning a horse. Then there’s the transition into the ultimate benefit which is reducing the anxiety of keeping a horse.

The features of the vehicle follow on from the headline.

When making a purchase, people make decisions at a deep-rooted emotional level and then justify it with facts and features.

Whoever wrote the copy for this historic advertisement understood the concept of selling with benefits and supporting with features.

This short post is a follow-up to my recent article on the difference between features and benefits.

Do you know the difference between features and benefits?

It seems like a dead easy question, but it’s not. Actually, most business owners and marketers get it wrong.

And they get it wrong because their focus is on the product or service they’re selling, not on the customer. They’re selling features.

But the customer wants to buy benefits. She’ll hand over her credit card once she understands what’s in it for her. What is the benefit to her when she buys your product?

To sell your product or service, you need to stress the benefits, not the features.

Why? Because customers really don’t care about you or the products and services you’re selling. They just want to know what’s in it for them and how your product can benefit them.

The difference between features and benefits

A definition is handy:

Features are facts about what your product or service does. Benefits are what your customer gets out of it.

Here are a couple of examples.

The first is a classic by former Harvard Business School marketing professor Theodore Levitt who said:

People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.

Let’s break this down with an example of a man who’s been given a framed photograph of his beautiful granddaughter. He wants to hang the photo in the sitting room and he needs to buy a drill that can make a hole in the brick wall, so he can place a picture hook to hang the photo.

The feature is a drill that can make a hole in brick-work or concrete. The benefit is he can hang the photo. But there’s more to this and that’s the ultimate benefit, which is the joy and pride he derives by looking at his beautiful granddaughter.

The second example I’ve borrowed from Brian Clark, founder and CEO of Rainmaker Digital, who discusses the motivation and benefits of people getting a college education. To quote Brian:

People don’t really go to and the parents really don’t pay for college in order to get an education. Knowledge is what colleges are providing. But what people are buying with all those tuition dollars are the benefits of knowledge.

In this case, the features are the descriptive facts of the course and its subjects. The benefits are what the student gains from the course and this goes much deeper than just the piece of paper on graduation day.

For a start, people with a college degree typically make more money than those without; they generally find it easier to get a job; and they can hopefully enjoy a better lifestyle which is an ultimate benefit.

The Benefits Pyramid

A handy way to look at features and benefits is with the Benefits Pyramid.

The pyramid represents the different levels of benefits, starting with “Features”. These are the descriptive facts about your product.

The next level is “Advantages”. This is what differentiates your product from your competitors. It’s what gives you the edge.

The next level is “Benefits” and then we move up to “Ultimate Benefits”.

There are benefits and then there are those ultimate benefits

Benefits tell you what your customers want to do and be.

Ultimate benefits align with the customer’s self-interest and what they’re looking for. Some of the things people want are to:

• Look attractive
• Be respected
• Be loved
• Be admired
• Be more productive
• Make more money
• Be happy
• Have good health
• Have less stress
• Have more leisure time

Finally, people want to avoid sickness, uncertainty, pain, fear, and guilt.

Advantages Differentiate your product

Advantages are what differentiates your product from your competitors. What are the advantages of your product over your competitors? What is it that differentiates you?

Basically, advantages are the Unique Selling Proposition for your product or service.

How to find out what the benefits of your product or service are

First and foremost, it doesn’t matter how great your product is and the features offered, your customer isn’t interested.

She’s only interested in what your product can do for her. What’s in it for her? How can she benefit?

When selling, you need to sell with benefits and support with features.

This is easier said than done. Many marketers struggle to describe the benefits of their product, but there are a couple of cool ways of doing it.

One way is to list the feature at the beginning of a sentence and then transition to the benefit with the words “which means“. Let’s go back to the drill example and simplify it.

This drill can make a hole in a concrete wall, which means you can hang a photo.

A useful method but a bit boring and doesn’t easily help you get the ultimate benefit that all customers subconsciously want.

My preferred way is the So What trick that Henneke advocates. It quickly defines the benefit of a feature. Here’s an example.

Imagine you’re selling an electric kettle. There are a number of features on the kettle but its special feature is that it boils water fast. This feature, like all features, is a fact about the product.

To flesh out the benefit the dialogue would go like this:

This electric kettle boils water quickly.

So what?

It takes less time to make your cup of coffee.

So what?

You’ll be able to enjoy your coffee sooner [benefit]

So what?

You’ll have more time to do the things you want to do [ultimate benefit].

Let’s revisit the drill and extract the benefit using so what:

This power drill has a hammerhead action.

So what?

It can drill through brickwork and concrete

So what?

It can make a hole in the wall so a picture hook can be inserted to hang a photo [benefit].

So what?

You’ll able to look at your beautiful granddaughter [ultimate benefit].

You can see by using so what in the above examples, we’ve been able to transition from features, through to benefits, and finally, ultimate benefits. You’ve described the ultimate benefit when you no longer can answer another so what question.

Know your customer to understand the benefits they want

All products have more than one feature, and each feature has a benefit. Knowing what benefit to describe to your potential customer is to understand the benefits they’re wanting.

People want many things, but how do you find the real benefits your potential customers are seeking?

That comes back to the very basics of knowing your potential customer. Being able to empathize with them and see their worldview. This will give you an understanding of their desires, wishes, and pain points.

Sell the benefits to increase sales

A bit of psychology. People make decisions at a deep-rooted emotional level and then justify them with facts and logic.

When buying a product, your customer is thinking of the benefit she can obtain and subconsciously the ultimate benefit. She’ll then justify her decision to purchase based on the great features your product has over the competition. It’s as simple as that.

By knowing your potential customer, you’re in a position to sell the benefits your product or service offers. That’s what your customer wants, you’re aligned, and the sale is yours.

The expression “sell with benefits, support with features” is ever so true.

Let me tell you about Stephen King, the author.

He’s published 54 novels; 6 non-fiction books; and nearly 200 short stories. His books have sold a whopping 350 million copies and counting. Feature films have been adapted to some novels.

It’s said that when he writes, he’s writing to just one person, his wife Tabitha. To the right of his computer is her photo. He’s writing to an audience of one.

Maybe not exactly spot on, but it serves my purpose. If you’re trying to write or talk to everyone, you’re talking to no one.

Laser focusing on an audience of one, is instrumental in forming the right message in creating products people will buy from you. This audience of one is called a persona.

A persona is a portrait of a person who is your ideal buyer or prospect.

What is a persona

A persona is a fictitious person that’s made up from a composite of who you believe your prospective customer is likely to be.

Actually, you already know a lot about this persona from the research undertaken to create your empathy map and worldview of your prospect.

I like to think of a persona as being one person that represents the behavioral patterns, attitudes, lifestyle choices, and motivations of your prospect.

Importantly, a persona is an individual, not a demographic. There is no 60% female 40% male, or an age group of between 35-45, or any of the other typical demographics. There is just an individual.

The persona you’ve created you can empathize with. You know this person well. You’ve literally been in their shoes and seen how they view the world.

The benefits of creating a persona

The ultimate benefit of creating a persona is allowing you to visualize and empathize with your prospect or audience. Your focus and message are always about them.

Let me give you two examples.

Recently I mentored and produced a podcast series for Nishita on women’s health. Nishita, in her final year of medicine, digs gynecology and loves sharing all the cool things about the female body in her podcast series.

Before we started recording the series, I asked her to imagine her audience of one – who will she be speaking to each day her podcast is aired? Her podcast addressed a question each episode which formed a building block for future episodes.

Nishita’s initial persona was that of a younger female cousin that knew next to nothing about the female body. She imagined her young cousin leaning across a table over a cup of coffee and quietly asking her a very personal question.

With that vision, Nishita was able to empathize and answer questions in a way her cousin could understand. That’s the power of a persona.

Another example is John Lee Dumas, an extremely successful podcast entrepreneur. John Lee has a daily audience of tens of thousands but he only has one persona or avatar, and that’s Jimmy.

John Lee knows everything about 34-year-old Jimmy who has a wife and 2 kids aged 3 and 5. Jimmy’s commute to work, which is a cubicle job he doesn’t like, takes 27 minutes. His drive home after a 9-hour day takes 32 minutes because of traffic. The persona of Jimmy is very detailed. John Lee even created an entire animated video on Jimmy.

Why? Because John Lee’s podcast series, EOFire, is to inspire Jimmy, and others like him, whilst they drive to work. John Lee knows exactly what Jimmy wants, believes in, and aspires too.

How do you create a persona?

The empathy map you created, and the research for your prospects worldview, will provide you with most of the information you need to construct a persona.

There are the basics such as name, age, gender, income, education, marital status, and children. Then there are the personal details to help you empathize with this person on a more intimate level.

Personal information such as their goals, values, and problems. What are your persona’s needs and what are their influences?

Finally, find a photograph that closely resembles your persona. Would be good to know hair color or do they always wear a cap?

Ultimately you’re creating a persona you can empathize with and who resonates with your target market.

The persona and why it’s important

Creating a persona gives you the opportunity to visualize and empathize with your prospect or audience. It’s your audience of one person who you know so well. What you write or talk about will resonate.

There are no other distractions. You’re at one with this person and empathize with their worldview.

Look at the photo of your persona and think how well you know the person. To write or to talk is as easy as talking to a close friend.

And the persona you’ve created represents your prospective customer.

We all have a worldview.

Simply, it’s how we see the world. But it’s far more complex than that because our worldview is responsible for our behavior and actions.

Knowing your prospective customer is understanding their behavior and actions. It’s being able to empathize with them and see their worldview. That’s the starting point for creating products or services they’ll want to buy from you.

Being able to empathize with your prospective customers is literally putting yourself in their shoes to understand their behavior. The best way to do this is to create an empathy map.

But this behavioral information lacks context because we need to know the why behind the behavioral patterns. The why is their worldview, and that’s why it matters. How does your prospect see the world?

Why a worldview matters

Our worldview informs how we behave.

Your worldview can be very specific such as, “should I park my car out in the open or undercover” or very general, like having a favorite color. There is no right or wrong because it’s your worldview and that forms the basis for much of your decision making.

Likewise, your customer’s worldview tells you the reason why they behave, such as their purchasing decisions and the goals and objectives they have. It forms the basis of who they are.

You’re not trying to change their worldview. Far from it. You’re trying to understand their beliefs and attitudes of how they see the world, in order to create a product or service they’ll want to buy.

Worldviews change over time

Think of your own worldview and how it’s developed and changed over time as different events impact your life.

There are obvious reasons for change, such as the influence and opinions of your parents, teachers, and friends. Other reasons are subtle, like the type of education you undertake, your work experiences, romance, partners, and the kaleidoscope of what is life.

Try and recall the simplicity of your worldview at the age of 6 compared with today. With maturity and age, our worldview develops, and we see things through different lenses or filters.

Our worldview may also completely change about a subject or situation. An example could be your political voting intention when you were younger compared with today.

The power of understanding your prospect’s worldview

It feels good when someone agrees with your views. That’s when someone has a similar worldview on a topic.

They may nod their head in agreement as they read or listen to what you’re saying. They’re attracted to you because you’ve confirmed their worldview.

That’s very powerful particularly if it’s a prospective customer. Your message, and what you have to offer, has resonated with them. They’ve actually made a start on the journey towards making a purchase from you.

How to discover your customers worldview

It comes down to doing research, much of which overlaps with the research required to create an empathy map.

Let’s take a look at some ways to gather information on your customers worldview.

1. Perform online surveys.
2. Read comments on blog posts.
3. Sitting down and having coffee with people who represent the type of person you’re wanting to sell too.
4. Monitor social media conversations and online communities that represent your prospective customer.
5. If possible, be a member of the group you’ll sell to.
6. Eavesdrop on conversations.

The above list, by no means exhaustive, requires both observation and asking the right kind of questions. The answers obtained will provide a general sense of the way your prospect believes the world works.

Keep in mind that your customer’s worldview also changes over time, so your research needs to be of continual monitoring. You can’t be complacent after the initial research phase – it’s ongoing.

Pulling it together

It all seems like a lot of research, and yes, it is. But the aim is to define and redefine who your prospect is.

Knowing and understanding your prospective customer is key. It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing a blog post, a book, or creating a product or service. You need to know who you will be serving, otherwise, it’s all for naught.

I haven’t mentioned markets, niches, or personas yet. That will come later.

The starting point is being able to empathize with your prospect and see her worldview. That’s where it starts, and that’s actually where the game is won.

The work done in this research phase will give you an understanding of who your prospective customer is and why they will do business with you. That’s invaluable.