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How and why to differentiate your business

You may have heard of “features and benefits” when talking about marketing your business. Here´s a quick guide to what they are and how they help your business.

They are basically two halves of the same thing. The “feature” is an aspect of your product or service that´s important. The “benefit” is what makes that aspect a good thing for your customer – it answers the question “what´s in it for me?”

The basic formula for drawing up your features and benefits list is:

  • [feature] which means that [benefit]

for example:

  • We deliver out of hours which means that you don´t have to take time off work waiting for us to turn up
  • We are a family-run firm established in 1975 which means that you can trust us and our experience

As a general rule of thumb, if you can say “So what?” after something, you´re missing the benefit. For example, “Our vegetables are delivered daily.” So what? “So you can be sure you´re buying vegetables that are fresh and in peak condition.”

And why are benefits so important? Because they are the reasons people will want to buy from you and not your competitor.


Catherine Every from EveryWord
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