Features v values v benefits.
“Why are we only selling with discounts?” “Why is our competitor beating us with an inferior product?”
Customers don’t initially consider a product based on specs (that comes later). They buy based on what those aspects do for them and how that makes them feel. This is why understanding the differences between features, benefits and values is critical when developing your marketing.
People don’t buy features; they buy outcomes. So, if your top of funnel (learn more about funnels here) marketing focuses on features, you are not going to resonate with your audience.
People don’t buy a coil-over mattress; they buy a restful sleep. People don’t buy hyaluronic acid; they buy healthy skin. People don’t buy digital 5.1 speakers; they buy a better experience watching movies.
If your top of funnel marketing is purely feature-based, you are not showing them those outcomes or the associated emotions. You are leaving a gap that the customer must bridge on their own. Something no one has the time or patience to do.
Benefits are the outcomes of those features. It’s what happens. Sleep like a baby (mattress). Sunkissed, healthy skin (hyaluronic acid). Movie theatre sound in your living room (speakers).
The value the customer gets is the emotional reaction to those outcomes. It’s how they feel after what happens, happens. Feel well-rested when you wake up (mattress). Feel more confident in your skin (hyaluronic acid). Quality time with your children during movie night (speakers).
The goal of your marketing should be to start with the value to generate an emotional connection, use benefits to show them why they’ll feel that way and then introduce the feature to show how they’ll get there.
Enjoy mornings again after a restful sleep thanks to our coil-over mattress.
Is way better than:
We build our mattresses on a coil-over base.
When you start your marketing with value-based messaging, you directly address the core question a person always asks when first interacting with a brand/company: “why should I pay attention to what you have to say?”
Give them a reason to care. The problem they have isn’t that they need a coil-over mattress. It’s that they are getting terrible sleep. When they see something connecting with their loss of sleep, they are more likely to listen to what you’re going to say next because they can relate to the problem you’re addressing.
Focus on their problem. Think like your audience. Don’t tell them what you do. Show them how they’ll feel. Take them through their decision-making journey.