Features and Benefits

I know, it sounds like a simple thing, but I'm amazed at how many marketing professionals forget this basic distinction. Every product, service, or in the case of our specialty, every urban district, has features and corresponding benefits. The features are the actual characteristics of the product/service. The benefits are what it does for the consumer.

Copywriting guru Bob Bly illustrates this distinction perfectly in The Copywriter's Handbook (Henry Holt, 2005). He uses a simple pencil to exemplify the difference between features and benefits. A pencil's feature, for example, is that it is hexagonal, and the benefit is that it won't roll off your desk. Another feature is that it is 7 1/2 inches long, and the benefit is that it ensures long writing life. Get the picture?

So why don't more marketing messages focus on the benefit of a product or service, rather than the feature? Because it can be difficult to take the intellectual leap from describing a feature to extrapolating a benefit. Marketing professionals become enamoured with the feature, and describe it eloquently, even lovingly, without every putting themselves in the customers' shoes. But by failing to outline the benefits, marketers make the customer work harder than they need to. And if the customer gets frustrated in looking for the benefit, they'll ignore the message, and the product/service.

So try this exercize, from The Copywriter's Handbook. Take any household item, and create two columns--one for features, one for benefits. Write down as many features of the item as you can. This should be easy--you're really just describing what you see in front of you. Now the tougher part--for every feature, come up with a corresponding benefit. If you can do this, you can sell any product or service.