Emphasize Benefits,Not Features
There's nothing wrong with feature-driven advertising. It's a great way to show your company’s market value through the sheer number and variety of features you can provide. But if your product or service is not in the habit of adding new features, it may be time to change that. Ease customers into changes by highlighting some of their benefits and how they can leverage those benefits throughout their business processes, rather than just mentioning the myriad functions available on your product or service.
Recent research shows that employees of a company tend to perceive a product or service as having more features than it actually does. When a company’s marketing materials highlight the features on their product, they are not showing customers that their advantages outside of features outweigh the advantages those features provide. However, when customers see the same value through a variety of benefits and how those benefits will enhance their lives, then they begin to better understand why they need to use your products and services.
Every product or service has some unique advantage over others in its market. When you point out these unique offerings, customers should be able to see how different yours is from the competition. Having a number of features may be why you have a lot of customers, but without any of those customers seeing the benefits that make your offering better, you are only relying on the preferences of the average customer.
But when you market your product or service based on its unique advantages and how those advantages will improve someone’s life, then you are speaking directly to the individual. You are providing them with a greater incentive for them to switch from their current solutions. We may like things because they are familiar or common; however, we don't buy things because they're common. We buy things because we see unique value in them that is significantly greater than what we currently own.
In the end, your best marketing approach is to use your product or service as an opportunity to show how it can improve someone's life. To do this you should concentrate on how the benefits of your solution will positively affect every major aspect of their business. Explain exactly how your product or service will improve the following:
* Workflow
* Work Productivity
* Customer Relationships
* Customer Retention (for consumers) & Acquisition (for businesses) * Business Processes * Marketing Strategy * Sales Strategies * Service Delivery Methods * Compliance with Regulations (e.g., HIPPA, Sarbanes-Oxley, etc.) etc..
This approach requires a high level of sophistication from both buyers and sellers. The sellers must be able to explain how the benefits of their products and services can positively affect each of these business aspects. The buyers must then be able to understand how these benefits will improve their lives and the lives of those around them.
This approach is about selling your product or service for its value, not for its features. In doing so you open yourself up to a whole new world of marketing that puts you in front of consumers and businesses looking for a solution, giving your company the opportunity to capture much more market share with less cost, time, and effort than you would have had with feature-driven advertising.
The above article is copyrighted by Business Trade Media © LLC (2015) All rights reserved. Distribution is permitted only in the context of an active Link to the article under these terms.
Isn’t feature driven advertising (remember the video with Paul Bettany about how media services are now “feature-driven”) just a thinly veiled sales presentation? Not really. You might think it is, but it isn’t. The ad above is about feature driven advertising and why it doesn't work for your business. It's not about making a sales pitch or trying to sell something to someone who might be interested in hearing from you. These ads always look like this.
In the ad above, you have to read carefully to understand what they are trying to say. Look at how they say they focus on "as much as possible", and that it was done without video editors. You would think this is an honest review of the service. But in fact, the whole purpose of the ad is to tell you why your business should buy this service even though it's not all that great.
posted on October 10th, 2015:
Posted by: ElizabethShim at 8:41 PM
Why are people so persuaded by "fake" reviews?
Don't be deceived by fake comments. It's just a marketing strategy.
The above article is copyrighted by Business Trade Media © LLC (2015) All rights reserved. Distribution is permitted only in the context of an active Link to the article under these terms.
Posted on September 24th, 2015:
Posted by: ElizabethShim at 5:05 PM
Posted on August 31st, 2015:
Posted by: ElizabethShim at 10:28 AM
• Robert Cialdini’s book 'Influence' is all about how to persuade people the right way — don’t try to invent new sales pitches or messages. Instead, simply use the ones that are already proven to be effective.
• Use social proof (e.
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