The Importance of Benefits over Features in Copywriting
Most website owners and web copywriters make the mistake of emphasizing their products’ features above the benefits it can provide to the customers who buy them. This is contrary to what people expect when they visit a business website.
When people visit your website to see check on your products or services, they are actually trying to find out how your product can benefit them should they decide to purchase it. But if what they see are features, it often turns them off and your potential for a sale is gone.
Here are some reasons why you need to emphasize benefits over features in promoting your product:
Benefits are what your customers will get when they use your product or service. It’s what customers are looking for in exchange for their money. People buy because they believe that they gain something out of the deal.
When people enter a business website, their minds are focused on a particular question of “what’s in it for me?” They want to see how they can be benefited by the products or services that the site promotes.
Benefits offer solutions to problems. It can help to make the customer think that they have found an answer that can help to put an end to their troubles. Reinforcing benefits with features that promotes ease and convenience can increase your copy’s sales potential.
Emphasizing benefits makes your prospects think that they gain something out of their decision to purchase your product. They see your product as a solution. Its features only serve to facilitate speed or ease of operation. It’s not the main reason why people make a decision to buy.
Emphasizing benefits makes people think that you are concerned of their welfare and that you are giving them real value for their money.
Features belong to the product and they are nothing if the product itself is not beneficial. They are not essential in a potential customer’s decision to make a purchase.