20+ differences between features and benefits (Explained)

When purchasing a product, such as a notebook computer or a refrigerator, a customer has an unfathomably large number of options available to them.

As a result, it’s tough to decide, but one may limit the options based on features and benefits after determining how much money they have to spend. The qualities of a product are defined by its features, which might be technical, physical, or descriptive.

Benefits, on the other hand, explain to consumers why they should buy the product or service, i.e., how it will benefit them or improve their lives. 

Benefits, not features, are frequently stressed to salespeople. However, the line between the two can sometimes be a little hazy. A sales representative’s performance depends on their ability to distinguish between features, advantages, and benefits.

A holistic marketing approach must include all three factors to demonstrate a company’s value to potential customers.

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Key Differences:

Features

1. Your sales presentation will be more credible and believable if you provide product or service features.
2. A feature is a description of what the product or service being offered by the firm is or has rather than a description of what it does or does not have.
3. Simply put, a feature specifies the “what” of your product.
4. The characteristics of the product are based on real-world data.
5. Physical, technical, or functional details may be expressed in the product’s features.
6. The product itself possesses the characteristic; in other words, the product possesses the feature.

Benefits

1. Providing clients with tangible examples of how your product or service can improve their lives is one of the primary functions of benefits.
2. Only the value or consequence that a company’s product or service brings to the consumer may be considered a benefit to the customer.
3. “Why” a prospective client should care about a certain product feature is referred to as its benefit.
4. An emotional connection is formed between the target audience and product advantages, allowing them to relate more easily.
5. The product’s advantages are the enhancements, conveniences, and benefits the client will receive from using it.
6. Benefits are found in the customer’s day-to-day life, such as finding solutions to problems, making it easier to do work, and so on.

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Comparison Between Features And Benefits

Parameter	Features	Benefits
What it means	The product’s inherent characteristics are referred to as its features.	What a customer wants from a product are the advantages.
What it focuses on	It pays more attention to specifications and facts.	It pays more attention to emotional connection and relatability.
Purpose	It provides your product or service’s specifications	Enhancement of the customer’s life or business.
Example of a product	Waterproof fabric, pockets that are insulated, and two pockets that are hidden.	Because of the waterproof fabric, the user will remain dry and comfortable even amid torrential downpours. In addition, insulated pockets will keep the wearer’s hands warm, while hidden pockets will enable customers to conceal their mobile phones, money, and other valuables.

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Major Differences Between Features And Benefits

What Exactly Is a Feature?

To put it another way, a feature is anything your product already has. For example, SaaS firms often provide functionality in the form of software that allows customers to do specific tasks. Other product characteristics include razors with five-blade heads, power drills with interchangeable bits, refrigerators that can generate crushed ice, and so on. You get the picture.

WordStream Advisor’s 20-Minute PPC Work Week, for example, is a sophisticated system of unique, individualized suggestions based on users’ account data that highlights areas of AdWords and Bing Ads accounts in which quick changes may be made. One of WordStream’s most useful features is its ability to streamline the paid search process for small-business owners strapped for time.

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Advertising using Features:

1. Ads promoting new automobiles are the most aspirational of all. But, because of the focus on features, here is where Apple’s ingenuity comes into play.
2. Even if the benefits of having a vehicle, such as dependable transportation, regardless of how vital they are to the average person, it is understandable that people would want to get a new automobile. 
3. So many automobile commercials and marketing efforts focus on the features rather than the vehicle itself. 
4. Also, this is effective if the advantages of these characteristics are readily apparent, as they frequently are in the advertising for new automobiles. 
5. One reason is that having a better view of the surrounding area from numerous angles makes parallel parking and avoiding hazards much easier.
6. Having these characteristics doesn’t necessitate an explanation of how they will assist. The consumer electronics industry does “lifestyle” marketing better than any other industry. 
7. The “unboxing” films on YouTube first focused on toys but have now expanded into consumer electronics. These films demonstrate that feature-driven marketing, when executed effectively, has the potential to achieve remarkable results. 
8. Mobile gadgets live and die by their features. Apple, maybe more than any other company, has perfected the art and science of feature-driven marketing over the past decade. 
9. In many ways, today’s iPhone 7 is slightly different from its predecessors, even though it is thinner, lighter, and “sexier.” 
10. Smartphones are smartphones, and there aren’t many significant variations between them. 
11. To Apple fans, the difference between the iPhone 6’s ARMv8 Typhoon CPU and the iPhone 7’s A10 Fusion chip with an incorporated M10 motion coprocessor is a huge one. 
12. Various marketing materials say how much quicker Apple’s gadget is than others, but in general, features and not advantages are important in this industry.

What Exactly Is a Benefit?

When a potential consumer decides to buy your product or service, it’s because of the positive outcomes or results they expect from utilizing it.

However, contrary to popular belief, customers seldom purchase products simply to purchase them; instead, they seek solutions to their issues. 

Let’s say that the umbrella in question has indestructible spokes or a wind-resistant structure, which means it will keep you dry even in high gusts that would otherwise destroy a weaker umbrella.

Aspirational or lifestyle items and services can be a little more difficult to pin down, as the “issues” that motivate people to buy them tend to be more abstract. Still, in general, this idea remains true.

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Advertising using Benefits:

1. In recent years, the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market has grown enormously. In practice, Slack is a great illustration of this idea. 
2. Many software developers have turned to benefit-driven marketing messages as software firms migrate away from one-time license pricing models to subscription-based agreements. 
3. The actual selling point of this wildly popular communication platform is the time it saves, not the plethora of useful tools and services it gives. 
4. If you’re considering a new messaging platform, the graphs above are what you need to know about Slack’s features page, not just what it can accomplish. 
5. WordStream employs this strategy as well. Yes, we’re proud of our goods, but we also realize that prospective clients want to know how our software may benefit them.
6. As with any service-based business, many SaaS providers utilize benefits-driven messaging in their campaigns since customers don’t buy into these firms for their own sake.
7. SaaS organizations commonly combine feature-oriented information with benefits-oriented marketing to better communicate their value propositions. 
8. This enables SaaS providers to simultaneously emphasize their products’ features and explain how these features will benefit consumers. 
9. Only the financial services industry understands the significance of benefits-driven marketing. Banks don’t attract customers with their swanky logos. 
10. Rather, customers join accounts because of their perks, such as lower interest rates on their credit card balances. 
11. A great example of this approach in action may be seen at Square, a mobile payments startup subsidiary of American Express. 
12. This is another excellent illustration of how product feature information may be used with marketing focused on advantages. 
13. The material on Square’s site makes heavy use of active verbs and short, snappy sentences to drive home the product’s simplicity and advantages.

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Contrast Between Features And Benefits

Definition: 

• Features- What a product performs or is capable of doing is referred to as one of its features. Features can be either technical or descriptive in nature.

• Benefits- On the other side, benefits describe why features are essential for consumers, how they enhance customers’ lives and assist customers in addressing challenges they face, and how these improvements serve customers.

True Meaning: 

• Features- What something genuinely is may be deduced from its characteristics.

• Benefits- A benefit is anything that the consumers are able to do or accomplish as a result of the feature.

Application: 

• Features- Customers should be given information on the features of the product so that they may make an informed purchase decision.

• Benefits- The consumer is compelled to complete the transaction as a direct result of the benefits, which act as motivating factors.

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Importance of features:

1. Because they provide the consumer with the evidence that supports the claim that you are making, features are equally as crucial as advantages. 
2. Consider having a discussion with your target audience that goes something like this when creating your copy: “This is what you can feel [benefits/emotions] with our product, and here is how we accomplish this for you [features].” 
3. For instance: “We guarantee the best-fitting and most flattering jeans for you so that you may feel amazing no matter where you wear them.
4. ” How? Because we provide more than X different combinations of leg and waist lengths, we can ensure a fit that is as individual as you are. 
5. An excellent way to improve your copywriting skills is to first analyze your product in terms of its features, effects, and feelings.
6. Then combine these aspects in a way that allows you to compose copy that packs a powerful one-two punch of emotionally compelling benefits and rock-solid features.

Used For: 

• Features- The features offer information and provide facts.

• Benefits- The merchant and the buyer are able to form an emotional connection through the use of rewards.

Comprises Of: 

• Features- Typically, a product’s features will contain information regarding its technical aspects.

• Benefits- While advantages describe why these technical aspects are significant and useful for the consumer, features explain why the client should care about the product.

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Identifying benefits:

1. First things first, it doesn’t matter how amazing your product is or how many features it has to offer if the buyer isn’t interested in purchasing it. 
2. When making a sale, you should emphasize the benefits of the product while reassuring them about its characteristics. This is far simpler to say than it is to do. 
3. There are a few creative approaches that may be used to explain the benefits of a product, which is a challenge that is faced by many marketers. 
4. One approach is to describe the characteristic at the beginning of the phrase, followed by the advantage, and to transition between the two using the words “which means.” 
5. Let’s return to the example of the drill and try to make it more clear. 
6. A helpful strategy, but one that can get tedious at times and does not make it easy to obtain the end reward, which is something that all consumers unconsciously seek. 
7. Imagine for a moment that you are trying to market an electric kettle. 
8. The kettle has a variety of different functions, but the most important one is that it can bring water to a boil very quickly. 
9. A fact about the product is that it possesses all of its attributes, including this one.

iPod Example: 

• Features- Features a hard disk with a storage capacity of 5 GB, an output amplifier with 60 mW, a FireWire connector for synchronizing with a computer, a standard 3.5 mm headphone socket, and an interface consisting of a scroll wheel and button interface.

• Benefits- You may take one thousand pieces of music in MP3 format with you everywhere you go on a gadget that is compact and easy to carry.

Animal Care Example: 

• Features- A play area that is 2,500 square feet and has five dog handlers on each shift. Free dog snacks, oversized beds for napping, and other amenities

• Benefits- Each dog will have a positive experience at the daycare because of the following: an expansive play area that makes it easier for them to roam about; five dog handlers working each shift, which ensures that each dog receives enough attention; dog treats; and sleeping cots.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

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