Should you show features or benefits on your sales pages?
Jason Cohen asked this on Twitter and I replied there but, as usual, I discovered I had more than the limited Tweet-quantity of words to share.
Buyer’s Journey
Starting with “features or benefits” is positioning the issue as a “what should I do” problem, not a “what does my prospect want or need” situation, and that is bad.
- Where is your prospect in the buyer’s journey?
- How much research have they done so far?
- Do they even know they have the problem you solve yet?
There is a BIG difference between someone who is comparing offers and someone who is seeking out a solution. Someone very early in their discovery might not even know the terms you would use on a features list.
My friend Jonathan has been helping me get into the Gunpla hobby. If you haven’t heard that term before, join the club, because until I started researching I knew them as plastic Gundam model kits. There is a LOT of jargon in that hobby, which Jonathan patiently walked me through.
If I don’t even know the correct term for the hobby, and I am looking at pictures of cool pew-pew-pew fighting robots (apparently they are not even robots), is there any point in telling me your kits are Perfect Grade versus Master Grade and how much more articulation you offer?
People buy on emotion and justify with logic
Benefits speak to our needs, wants, desires, fears, lusts, hates, and our joy.
The old saying is true, I don’t want a drill I want to hang my picture up.
But once you have decided you need to solve a problem or achieve something, and you have worked out what process and ingredients might work for you, THEN you will start comparing price, features, logistics and timing.
How many times have you paid extra to get something on Amazon with fast delivery rather than the same thing, cheaper on eBay?
Did you ever buy something in a tiny package at the nearby Dollar Store even though Costco likely has the item in bulk which would save money longer term?
When you buy furniture, do you start with the size or with the design? Does it depend on where the furniture is going to go and what the purpose is?
What I recommend
My answer is to do both.
Tell people what they will get AND how you deliver it.
Even better if in doing so you can introduce how you are different to the competition.
“No mess, no spills, no waste – Unlike our competitors products that put more paint on your carpet than on your project, you will never spill a drop with our patented container designs. Never waste precious paint again with our proven and guaranteed single serve zero spill paint droppers.”
Bottom Line
Speak to where your most-wanted target customer is at RIGHT NOW, and give them the information they need, in the language they use. Heck, give the information they don’t even know they need.
Then take them to the next step in their journey.