Features vs Benefits
Marketing is a very important tool in a successful business. It aims at identifying and satisfying consumers and their needs. It involves the process of selling and persuading consumers to purchase a product or avail themselves of a service.
One of its most useful tools is advertising which is the communication medium used to persuade consumers to patronize a certain product or service. This is done through print, television, mail, the Internet, or through mobile phones.
Advertising helps promote the product or service and make it instantly recognizable and familiar to consumers. A good advertisement promotes a product or service and usually involves letting the consumers know about their features and the benefits that they offer to those who purchase the product or avail themselves of the services.
Informing consumers about a service or a product’s features is the first step towards catching their attention so that they may eventually decide to purchase a product or avail themselves of a service. A feature is defined as anything in a product or service that you can see, feel, and use. It refers to the characteristics of a thing or product that distinguishes it from others. It includes everything about the product, what it has that similar products of other manufacturers don’t have or don’t offer.
In purchasing items and in choosing companies for certain services, consumers are first drawn to the product or service by its features so it is what companies usually advertise. A milk advertisement may include low fat as one of its features, and this alone can draw consumers’ attention. But then the advertisement would be more effective if it will also include the benefits that the consumer obtains from the product. A benefit is the advantage or advantages that a consumer enjoys as a result of buying the product. Being low fat is one of the milk product’s features, but giving the consumer nourishment and the protein he needs while keeping his body lean and fit are the benefits that he can get if he purchases and consumes the product.
The benefits will serve as triggers that will entice consumers towards purchasing the product or hiring a company’s services. In a way, it offers to solve the consumers’ problems and help make their lives easier and better.
Summary:
1.A feature is anything in a product that can be seen, felt, and used while a benefit is the advantages that a consumer gets as a result of buying a product or availing themselves of a service.
2.A feature serves to inform consumers about a product’s characteristics while a benefit serves as a trigger that will encourage consumers to purchase a product or avail themselves of a service.
3.Features include things that inform consumers how a product is used while benefits include things that make consumers see how their lives can be made better if they use a certain product or service.
4.Features are the rational factors that lead consumers to purchase or avail themselves of a service while benefits are the emotional factors that prompt consumers to avail themselves of a product or service.