It’s all about benefits, baby!

In my last post, I talked about determining the features of what you’re promoting.

So often marketers write their ads and landing page copy "off-the-cuff" without any thought or planning. And guess what? We can tell!

The best copy out there? Sounds effortless and thrown together, but follows very specific marketing principles.

Features vs. Benefits.

As mentioned in my last post, features are essentially the ‘what’s’ of whatever you’re selling/promoting. The laundry list of what your product does, what is has, what it looks like, etc.

Including a list of features is necessary; it’s just not that interesting.

Features give no thought to how people interact with a product, why they need it, and how it solves their problem.

This is where benefits come in.

Benefits are the reasons why someone needs your product.

For each feature you come up with, you should be able to extrapolate a benefit – People don’t care WHAT a product does, nearly as much as they are about what it does for THEM.

So, using the example from my last post, if you’re marketing a fire extinguisher with the following features:

• Easy installation

• Interconnected to other detectors in house

• Comes with battery backup

• Test button

• Extra-sensitive

• Front loading battery door

Some benefits might be:

• Installation doesn’t require complicated instruction manuals

• Interconnected detectors ensure your family will hear the alarm regardless of where they are in the house

• Battery backup means you’re safe even if you happen to forget to change out the old one

• Test button gives you peace of mind knowing your detector is working properly

• Extreme sensitivity means extra time to safely escape

• Front loading battery drawer means not having to bend over backwards trying to change the battery

If you’re struggling with your list of benefits, here’s an idea you might try:

Come up with a list of features (which are usually easier to crank out), and list them on the left side of a piece of paper. Draw a line down the middle, and for each feature, describe how it solves a problem. Think about how the feature will directly impact and help the buyer.

When you’re writing your ad copy, you’ll want to make sure you’re listing benefits, NOT features. Depending on your product, listing some benefits in point form can work. Sometimes focusing in on one benefit in your copy is better.

Or how about this? Focus on specific benefits your product provides to very specific groups of people, and then have these ads delivered to those groups using Facebook targeting.

For instance, promoting an ebook on ‘How to Build a 6-Figure Business From Your Home‘- Why not talk about the benefits of being able to stay at home with your kids and target your ad to stay-at-home moms? Or talk about the benefit of being able to re-invent your career, and target it at men in their mid-40′s (I’m not beyond exploiting a good old midlife crisis! :-)