Features are not benefits
Don’t get me wrong. Features are important. Someone needs to know what your gizmo does, whether it’s wireless, ready to heat, has a removable basket, provides a washable lifetime filter, or whatever.
But a prospect isn’t going to buy your product or service based on its features.
The prospect will buy based on the benefits the product or service provides.
For more information, see the Bredemarket page on benefits.
In addition to benefits and features, you may (or may not) want to get fancy and talk about advantages. For more information, see the Bredemarket page on advantages.
Additional information on features
Here is a sampling of what John E. Bredehoft of Bredemarket has written on the topic of features.
(8/12/2025) When You Reduce a Product’s Feature Set
When engineers engineer products, they naturally pack in as many features as possible. Why? Because engineers, um, calculate that prospects desire a wide array of features.
Proposal managers and product marketers know the truth. Some prospects find too many features to be undesirable.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2025/08/12/when-you-reduce-a-products-feature-set/
(1/24/2025) Integrations Are a Feature
Hey tech marketers, “we have a lot of integrations” is a feature, not a benefit.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2025/01/24/integrations-are-a-feature/
(12/11/2023) When You MUST Focus on Features
Bredemarket has consistently preached benefits, benefits, benefits, since customers want to know what’s in it for them. Customers don’t care if Bredemarket has been in business for three years; they care about how Bredemarket will facilitate consideration of their offerings.
But Tamara Grominsky, in her article “High-Converting Homepages,” points out one significant exception to the “benefits over features” rule—or, in alternate terms, the “outcomes over capabilities” rule.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/12/11/when-you-must-focus-on-features/
(10/8/2023) Your Prospects Don’t Care About Your Technology
Adopt a customer focus and talk about things that your prospects care about, such as how your product will solve their problems.
- Do your customers require better ease of use, speed, accuracy, or other benefits? Do the features of your technology provide those benefits?
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/10/08/your-prospects-dont-care-about-your-technology/
(8/11/2023) Blog About Your Identity Firm’s Benefits Now. Why Wait?
However, if your identity/biometric blog post merely consists of a list of features of your product or service, then you’re wasting your time….
If your post simply states that your new latent fingerprint station captures print evidence at 2000 pixels per inch, most of your prospects are going to say, “So what?”
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/08/11/blog-about-your-identity-firms-benefits-now-why-wait/
(7/16/2023) Which Words Should Your Marketers Use? My Four Suggestions.
For example, let’s say that the message you want to give to your prospects is that your company makes wireless headphones.
Features are important to you. Benefits are important to your prospects. Since the prospects are the ones with the money, listen to them and talk about benefits that change their lives, not how great your features are.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/07/16/which-words/
(6/12/2023) Why Apple Vision Pro Is a Technological Biometric Advance, but Not a Revolutionary Biometric Event
These three are cataclysmic world events that had a profound impact on biometrics. The fourth one, which occurred after the Boston Marathon bombings but before COVID, was…an introduction of a product feature….
- Touch ID, September 2013. When Apple introduced the iPhone 5s, it also introduced a new way to log in to the device. Rather than entering a passcode, iPhone 5S users could just use their finger to log in.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/06/12/vision-pro-not-revolutionary-biometrics-event/
(10/30/2022) Six questions your content creator should ask you
A list of features will not make a difference to a customer who has specific needs. Do you meet those needs?
More at https://bredemarket.com/2022/10/30/six-questions-your-content-creator-should-ask-you/
(5/4/2022) Is Calendly customer focused?
You probably noted that these were stated as benefits rather than features. If Calendly were to say, “We offer Scheduling Gizmo 2800,” Conductor could reply, “So what?” But when Calendly said that its solution delivers organic traffic and higher return on investment, Conductor paid attention.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2022/05/04/is-calendly-customer-focused/
(5/10/2021) Communicating benefits (not features) to identity customers (Part 1 of 3)
Over the years I’ve had occasion to ask people to suggest some benefits to include in a document. Sometimes I’ve received responses that are similar to these:
- This product is dual-purpose and supports both detection of speeders and detection of red light runners.
- This product captures latent fingerprints at 1000 pixels per inch.
- This product was a top tier performer in the recent NIST tests.
- This product can complete its processing in less than two hours.
- This product can complete its processing in less than a minute.
- This product can complete its processing in less than a second.
These are all nice statements, but these aren’t BENEFIT statements.
These are statements of FEATURES.
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