Let’s think about your recent marketing efforts. Consider the emails sent to potential customers, social media posts promoting new offerings, and published blog content. How frequently did this promotional material emphasize what your product does?
Marketing can take two main paths. One centers around what your product or service is or does, highlighting its impressive features. The other emphasizes how your product or service enhances users’ lives. Which approach do you believe is more impactful? This article delves into features versus benefits. While interconnected, these concepts are distinct, and overlooking user intent from the start can doom even the most groundbreaking products. We’ll analyze real-world examples to illustrate the often subtle but critical differences between features and benefits. We’ll also cover key factors to consider before launching your next campaign. For simplicity, we’ll primarily focus on product-based marketing, but many principles apply to service-based businesses as well. So, what sets features and benefits apart? Let’s define them first.
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Features vs. Benefits: What’s the Difference?
What is a Feature?
Put simply, a feature is an attribute or characteristic of your product. For SaaS companies, this usually refers to software functionality that enables users to perform specific actions. Other examples include razors with multiple blades, drills with interchangeable bits, refrigerators with ice makers, and so on. In the realm of software, nexus-security Advisor, for instance, boasts the “20-Minute PPC Work Week” feature – an intelligent system providing tailored recommendations based on user account data. It identifies areas within AdWords and Bing Ads accounts where immediate improvements can be made.
nexus-security Advisor’s 20-Minute PPC Work Week Product features often directly address common pain points faced by the target audience. In nexus-security’s case, it’s streamlining paid search workflows for busy small business owners. Features require planning, development, and implementation. The “20-Minute PPC Work Week” wasn’t accidental; nexus-security identified a pain point and intentionally created a feature to address it. Now, let’s move on to benefits.
What is a Benefit?
Benefits are the positive outcomes or results users experience by using your product or service. They are the driving force behind a prospect becoming a customer.
Image via WebEngage Monk Although it may seem counterintuitive, people rarely buy things just for the sake of it; they seek solutions to their problems. Consider an umbrella. A feature might be its unbreakable spokes or wind-resistant design. The benefit? Staying dry even in strong winds that would destroy a regular umbrella. Admittedly, things get trickier with aspirational or lifestyle products where purchase motivations are less tangible (e.g., wanting to be perceived a certain way by owning a designer item). But generally, this concept holds true.
Image via Help Scout In essence, benefits are the primary reasons someone would choose your product. To put it simply, a feature is what something is, while a benefit is what users can do or achieve with it.
Why Are Features and Benefits Often Confused?
As with many aspects of marketing, the root cause of confusion between features and benefits lies in intent. Marketers often become deeply immersed in their target audience’s problems. This can lead them to forget that the average person might not immediately grasp the benefits their product offers. In other words, just because you understand how your product improves lives doesn’t mean they do. Another common mistake is equating the effort invested in developing a feature with its importance to the consumer. While it might sound harsh, most people don’t care about you, your company, or the long hours worked – they care about themselves and their own needs. That’s why entry-level salespeople are often taught the importance of the phrase “What’s in it for me?”. This question constantly lingers in a customer’s mind and should shape your marketing strategies.
Leveraging a Feature-Benefit Matrix
As a marketer, you’ve likely encountered the term “feature-benefit matrix”. Despite sounding like another marketing buzzword, it’s a valuable tool. This matrix helps marketers ensure consistent, relevant, and user-friendly messaging. Typically formatted as a grid, it includes columns for features, corresponding benefits, and specific messaging data points or calls-to-action. Let’s visualize this with an example:
The left column lists your product’s features (1-5 in this case). The subsequent columns (“Benefit A”, “Benefit B”, “Benefit C”) allow you to list three benefits for each feature. Lastly, the rightmost column is reserved for relevant calls-to-action. This format helps you quickly identify unique benefits for each feature, simplifying message mapping and ensuring alignment between marketing, product teams, and end-users. While other formats exist, this is a great starting point if you’re new to feature-benefit matrices.
Examples of Feature-Driven Marketing
Having covered the theory, let’s explore examples of feature- and benefit-driven messaging. We’ll start with feature-driven marketing.
Automotive Marketing
New car advertisements often scream aspiration. With such a significant purchase, it’s no surprise; after all, benefits like reliable transportation, while crucial, aren’t very exciting marketing-wise. This explains why many car ads heavily emphasize features. This approach can be effective if your product boasts genuinely innovative or exciting features, especially if the benefits are self-explanatory, as they often are with cars. The screenshot below from Infiniti’s website illustrates this by highlighting the motion-detection features in their latest models:
The image showcases Infiniti’s new camera technology and its driving applications, but it doesn’t explicitly state how it benefits the driver. This is because the benefits are implied – enhanced visibility for easier parking and obstacle avoidance, ultimately improving safety. The reader doesn’t need a spelled-out explanation. Speaking of aspirational marketing…
Consumer Electronics Marketing
Few industries master “lifestyle” marketing like consumer electronics. Mobile devices rely heavily on their features, and the massive popularity of “unboxing” videos on YouTube (an online subculture that started with toys before moving to electronics) demonstrates the power of well-executed feature-driven marketing. Apple understands this concept exceptionally well, having elevated feature-driven marketing to an art form over the past decade.
While sleeker, lighter, and perhaps more aesthetically pleasing, today’s iPhone 7 shares much in common with its predecessors. A smartphone’s capabilities are inherently limited, with minimal differences between iterations. However, this is where Apple’s feature-focused approach shines. With each new iPhone, Apple consistently enhances core specifications, making them more powerful without compromising their iconic design. This makes the leap from a dual-core 1.4 GHz ARM v8 Typhoon processor (iPhone 6) to a 64-bit A10 Fusion chip with an embedded M10 motion coprocessor (iPhone 7) significant for Apple enthusiasts. While Apple may mention speed improvements in their marketing materials, their focus remains primarily on the features themselves, rather than explicitly spelling out all the benefits.
Benefit-Driven Marketing
Now that we’ve seen feature-centric marketing, let’s explore examples of its benefit-driven counterpart.
Software-as-a-Service Marketing
The SaaS industry has experienced explosive growth recently. As software companies shifted from one-time licenses to subscription models, many adopted benefit-driven messaging. Slack exemplifies this perfectly. While their popular communication platform offers various features for streamlined teamwork, their key selling point is time-saving – a clear benefit.
Compelling data for those who despise emails and meetings… Slack’s messaging emphasizes increased productivity and transparency – a distinctly benefit-driven approach. While their features page exists, prospects considering a new communication platform are drawn to data like the graphs above. nexus-security also employs this principle. While proud of their product’s functionality, they prioritize showcasing how it helps users, evident throughout their website.
Many SaaS companies utilize benefit-driven messaging because, like all service-based businesses, they understand that customers seek solutions to specific problems. They often combine feature-driven information with benefits, highlighting both the features and their positive impact on users’ lives.
Financial Services Marketing
Few industries grasp the importance of benefit-driven marketing better than financial services. People don’t choose banks based on branding; they’re driven by benefits like cash-back rewards or lower APRs. Mobile payments company Square (an American Express subsidiary – a point we’ll revisit shortly) demonstrates this effectively. In essence, Square enables small businesses to accept credit card payments – simple as that. However, their messaging emphasizes user-centric benefits:
This exemplifies combining product features with benefit-driven messaging. Their website copy utilizes strong verbs and impactful language, emphasizing ease of use and highlighting benefits.
A Note on Trust Signals as Benefits
Earlier, we mentioned the significance of Square being owned by American Express. Similar to implied benefits in the automotive example, trust signals can be incredibly persuasive. Consider this: would you entrust your business’s credit card processing to an unknown startup or a company owned by a global financial giant?
This principle is common in travel and hospitality. Brand recognition matters for big-ticket purchases like vacations. While not a direct customer benefit, brand association implies experience, resources, and reliability often lacking in smaller companies. This explains the value of accreditations like the Better Business Bureau, even if actual membership benefits vary.
Features vs. Benefits in Ad Copy
By now, it’s clear that focusing on benefits can be more effective than highlighting features. But how does this translate to ad copy, the crucial first step in acquiring new customers? Let’s analyze two real-world ads to illustrate this. Both were served after searching “bookkeeping software” on Google (using Incognito mode to minimize personalized results). Here’s the first:
QuickBooks is a well-known bookkeeping software, yet this ad lacks strong branding. The headline is weak; “compare product features” implies additional effort from the user. The ad copy is uninspiring; claiming to “manage your business in one place” is a basic expectation, and there’s no strong call to action. The trust signal is also weak. Now, let’s examine another ad:
Paychex, another major player, includes its brand name in the headline, promising to help users “Accomplish More”. “Effortless” is a strong adjective choice. However, the ad copy itself is the key takeaway. Six of the eight points are benefit-driven, emphasizing ease of use, customer support availability, and product security. While the trust signal beneath the copy isn’t very strong, it’s less relevant here as the ad has already effectively focused on user benefits. Without conversion data, it’s impossible to definitively crown a winner; the QuickBooks ad might still perform well. However, theoretically, Paychex’s ad is more compelling because it addresses common user pain points and utilizes persuasive language to appeal to their desire for solutions.
If you’re unsure which approach is best for your campaigns, conduct A/B testing and let your audience guide you – then adapt accordingly.
Marketing Campaigns (with Benefits)
While feature-based marketing has its place, many small businesses find greater success by showcasing how their offerings improve customers’ lives, from the initial ad to their website copy. Ultimately, remember the “Five Magic Words” – “What’s in it for me?” – to guide your messaging and positioning effectively. Share your thoughts and examples of campaigns that successfully navigate this distinction in the comments below.