What You’re Actually Selling Video Transcription:
Thomas Green here from Ethical Marketing Service. It’s going to be a quick one today but if you can absorb this principle. It’s one thing which has the ability to make a significant difference to the response rates in your marketing. “what you’re actually selling”
I wanted to revisit features vs benefits but in the context of your main businesses product. Or service rather than individual instances within your marketing message.
If we take some examples and then you will know what I mean. If you think about anyone who at least was in the travel industry. They would typically not sell their services features directly, they would sell the experience of going on holiday. That’s an example of a business where they are not selling the features which would be turning up hours before your journey. Waiting around doing lots of queuing and then then taking you from A to B. They are selling the benefit which is, if you buy our service, you get to experience that holiday you want.
It’s a very powerful concept because the people who are marketing their business using just what it is. Instead of what it will do for the prospect. By analogy are trying to sell people to get on an overcrowded plane and eat microwaved ready meals instead of marketing the holiday. Or experience that the prospect will get from using their service.
Another example if you think about the life insurance industry. If you were going with features. You would heavily emphasise cost per month to the customer, the term, the payout amount, the terms and conditions. Excluding the compliance regulations for a moment. Because I think it’s the case that they do have to cover those things. If you were to sell the benefits, it’s looking after your loved ones when you can’t do it anymore. Which is a much more powerful drive to someone who is considering taking out a policy. I know because I literally bought a policy after watching a YouTube Ad showing sons and daughters who had lost their fathers too soon which particularly resonated with me.
I would encourage you to think about what you are actually selling about your business, is it the features or is it the benefits?