The Right Way to Do Marketing: Benefits vs Features

by Milton Lewin

Marketing is something that I’ve long been fascinated by, and I am a strong believer in its broad and essential value. But despite the vast potential the area has, and its absolutely crucial role in the success or failure of most enterprises and people, it is often poorly understood and executed. Below are a few marketing-related observations and thoughts that I have gleaned from my career.

Benefits vs. Features

One of my favorite mantras is: People buy benefits, not features. Yet most companies, and people, sell features and not benefits (the next evolution in some product areas is going from Benefits to Experiential, but that’s for another post). The examples I always use are:

When was the last time you saw a commercial for a deodorant that said “Use our product and you won’t stink”? Never. Yet that feature is the only reason people buy the product. Instead you see “Use our product and people will like you better.” or “Use our product and you’ll get a better job”.

How many beers advertise by saying “Drink our brand — it will quench your thirst and you’ll get a little buzz”? None that I know. What you see are hot models in swimsuits, or a group of people having a really great time together. The message is that if you drink our beer, you’ll be cool and popular and you’ll have a better experience.

By choosing particular brands you’re promised all sorts of (highly desirable) benefits. And yet, people and companies are constantly and wrongly selling their features — “I’m really smart”, “Our product does X and Y (or does X and Y better than anyone else’s version)”, “We have more varieties than anyone else.” But I know a lot of smart people. So what if your product does X and Y — is that motivational and beneficial enough for me to buy it? Even if your product is better than what I’m currently using, is it better enough for me to switch, or to even consider using my ultra-valuable time to evaluate your product/company/service?

Why should I buy your product (or hire you)?

You must be clear about how you can make money for me. Or how exactly you will make me, or my company, more successful. Or how you will help me to do something that I couldn’t do without you. Quite simply, what specific benefits will inure to me from using your products? Will I save money? Will I make more money? Will I be happier? Will my business be tangibly and demonstrably improved? If not, then why should I consider it?

All people really care about is “What can you, or your product or service, do for me?” So whether you’re selling something or looking for a job (i.e., selling yourself), it MUST be clear to the buyer what benefits they will achieve from this purchase. And if you can’t — succinctly — make those benefits clear and compelling enough, don’t expect the customer to figure it out for you.

Are you constantly striving to learn from your customers?

Companies talk about how they’re formulating marketing strategies, but often too much of their efforts involve internal resources only. It is unfathomable to not be doing everything you possibly can — that can mean a broad range of things or just one or two simpler efforts — to learn from your customers — former and current — and prospects. Endeavor to learn truly why they did business with you, or why they didn’t; how do THEY think you’re different from your competitors? What specifically do they like about you? Do they do business with you (and your salespeople or other company representatives) because they want to or because they have to? And that’s just to start. How you effectively gather this information is for another discussion, and the art of doing so is not to be minimized; if you need to pay to outsource this, do it.

I have often asked companies questions like those above and heard “Oh, we know that people like us because of ___ and ___” or “We’re different from our competitors because of ___ and ____”, but in reality they don’t actually know, they think they know. And that difference can be a true impediment, or even fatal.

At one of my prior roles overseeing Marketing for a mid-sized hedge fund, one of the first things I did was to create a list of questions for each institution that had invested in our fund in the past few years. While investors choose managers primarily based on performance and returns, that’s far from the only criteria; there’s a saying: Invest in the firm, not in the fund. (or, as I used to say, if it was only about performance let’s just include our wiring instructions with our performance numbers and wait for the money to roll in) By getting answers from our actual investors to several questions, the gist of which was “What, other than performance, were the reasons that you chose to allocate to this fund?”, we had our Marketing pitch and outline created — and, importantly, validated — for us.

Are you making it as easy as possible for your customers to do business with you?

I am always fascinated by how often the answer to that question isn’t a genuine, defensible and emphatic Yes! Think about your own company; then think about other companies that you deal with as a customer. Would things be different if this question were asked more frequently? And if it were asked of more people in the various chains and touchpoints that can affect that answer?

Again, the concept of benefits and features is crucial. In fund investing there are basically an infinite number of investment vehicles for investors to consider; nobody has to invest in any individual fund. So if a fund is going to get seriously considered, the investor has to understand and buy into how this fund will benefit their current portfolio, how it complements their other funds, what sort of performance they should expect from it under what scenarios, and more. Basically — how will investing in this fund help me to do my job better? What benefits will I derive from investing in this fund, and are they compelling enough? But, as always, it is the responsibility of the fund and person doing the marketing to ensure that those benefits are communicated effectively and compellingly. Simply putting facts in front of a prospect and expecting them to see the benefits — as obvious as they may be to you — is a very ineffective strategy.

Marketing is much more than most people and companies realize

Marketing isn’t simply capital-raising, or getting your name out there, or selling the most units that you can, or coming up with the right brand image, etc. It is ALL of those things, and much more. It is your corporate culture, how the phone is answered, how your website looks, how people — internal and external — describe you and your company. It’s having a true and constantly monitored Marketing Plan. A good marketing department, and its people, are as much a source of valuable and useful information back to the appropriate departments and personnel as they are conduits of information for the company. Many of the best marketing meetings with prospects are primarily information gathering exercises, not simply one-way opportunities for selling. Is your marketing department and personnel (and, more importantly, your marketing mindset) intimately involved with new product development? With certain hiring decisions? With corporate strategy sessions? Or is it viewed as a silo with only one goal? The wrong answer to any of these questions is a significant missed opportunity.