“Sell the sizzle, not the steak” ~ Elmer Wheeler
“What’s Makes Me Say YES?”
Look at your business from your customer’s point of view, not yours!
That emotional component that compels your customer to buy. Guess what? We all buy for emotional reasons. And then we back up our decisions with logic. It’s simple psychology. We want our decisions to make sense to ourselves and others.
At the same time, we want to feel good! What feelings do we all want to experience?
- Respect
- Trust
- Admiration
- Hopeful
- Confident
- Healthy
- Loved
- Confidence
- Pride
The Difference Between Features & Benefits
“Features tell, benefits sell!”
FEATURES
Think about the products or services you sell. Features are those surface statements that tell someone what you do. I create websites. You may cater food, sell cars, take photographs, sell children’s clothing… What someone asks you the question of what you do, it is likely your answer. I have a store and I sell shoes. I sell newspaper advertising to small businesses.
BENEFITS
For my business my feature is a service, creating websites. My benefit is for a small business owner to feel professional and be confident in their online presence in the eyes their clients or customers. My clients know that decisions are made based on what someone sees online. The last thing they want is to be embarrassed that their website does not measure up to their in-person presence and their professionalism. Their website needs to reflect the experience of visiting their business.
A Few Examples:
- A wedding photographer takes pictures and sells them. The benefit is the customer’s need for sentimentality. They want the memories to live on even for generations.
- A jewelry store sells customized rings and necklaces to a husband. The benefit is the husband’s desire for his wife to feel loved and to feel like a great husband.
- An attorney focuses on estate planning. What the client wants is to have peace through the process (experience a caring professional) and trust that his wishes will be put into place and carried out.
Benefits include the following emotions: providing increased feelings of confidence, increases their sense of identity, fulfills a desire to stand out, provides a solution to a feeling of fear, or meets a need for independence.
A successful marketing strategy focuses on knowing the customer’s feelings and aligning the marketing strategy to those feelings. By taking the time to understand the “feelings” that your customers experience, you will be better able to connect them to what you sell.