Features, Benefits, Results and Emotion. (And how they work inside your brand)

When you have features for sale, you’re in a race to the bottom. You have to either have the most or have the best or sell it for the least. Very rarely do we see where more features equals more value.

And yet, most of us sell the features of our programs or widgets.

Then you have benefits. Benefits are great to sell until virtually every item can get you the same benefit. Then you’re right back in the features race (to the bottom). (The same goes for selling results.)

So if we can’t sell benefits or features, what are we selling?

More and more we are selling emotion. Not, what does this do for me results-wise, but what I think it should (or does) do for me. The key word there is ‘think.’

If I think this computer by this brand makes me fit in with my peers, I’m going to buy it. I’ll find the money to do so. If these sunglasses are the kind that ‘people like me’ wear, I’ll buy them, expensive or not. If I feel better owning this brand over that one because it brings back childhood memories, I’ll go with it. If I want to do something off the beaten path, I’ll find a brand that fits that lifestyle.

Features are worthless. Benefits are hard to differentiate. Emotion, when appealed to correctly, trumps most any scenario.

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