Make the benefits shine.
Fields of Lost Leads
Tag Archives: benefits
Communicating Benefits Over Features, Revisited and Repurposed
In 2021, I wrote a series of posts on the topic of communicating benefits, not features, to identity customers. The first post in the series is here; click at the top of the post to view the other three parts. (And yes, it was originally supposed to be a three-part series, until I wrote a fourth part on a company’s distinct voice.)
But if you don’t want to wade through four Bredemarket posts, just wade through the following two words:
So what?
But if that’s too short for you, I plunged into the Google NotebookLM world and repurposed the four posts as three separate pieces of content: an infographic, a podcast, and a video.
The benefits over features infographic, “Winning the Identity Customer”
I’ve never created a NotebookLM infographic before, so I was interested in seeing how this would turn out.
It’s busy, but ALL infographics are busy. And I like how it visualizes the response-time differences between rapid DNA, biometrics, and computer aided dispatch, where “real time” can mean very different things.
We on the AFIS side learned this the hard way when we introduced ourselves to our new colleagues.
“Hi, SCC folks, welcome to Printrak. You’re joining a company that sells REAL TIME AFIS that delivers results within one minute! Aren’t you impressed?”
The ex-SCC people responded, gently disabusing us of our pretensions to speed.
“Hello, new corporate overlords. We provide computer aided dispatch systems that send police, fire, and medical personnel to crime scenes and emergency sites as soon as possible. If our CAD systems took AN ENTIRE MINUTE to dispatch personnel, PEOPLE WOULD DIE. We use really powerful computers to get personnel dispatched in a second. Enjoy your real time AFIS…amateurs.”
So the company Printrak learned that it needed separate benefit statements, depending upon the product line the company was promoting at any given time. The CAD customers received one set of benefit statements, while the AFIS customers received a separate set.
Because there are different benefits for different “hungry people.”
The benefits over features podcast, “Sell the Outcome, Not the Math”
Unlike infographics, I’ve created multiple NotebookLM podcasts over the years. If you’re not familiar with NotebookLM podcasts, they have two distinct…um…features.
- The podcasts feature a male and female speaker chatting with each other about the subject matter.
- The podcasts are relentlessly positive. If you are feeling down in the dumps, upload your resume to NotebookLM and have the two speakers talking about how wonderful you are.
Anyway, here’s how the two speakers treated my source material.
The benefits over features video, “Stop Selling Features”
Again, I’ve created multiple NotebookLM videos, such as this one on avoiding false differentiators.
Despite the fact that I haven’t been able to customize the video so it doesn’t have the NotebookLM “look.” One identity/biometric company is sharing these videos, and I can tell immediately that it’s NotebookLM content.
Nevertheless I wanted to see the video that I got.
And I finally figured out that if I explicitly upload specific pictures into NotebookLM, they can appear in the final video. Look for this one at the three and a half minute mark.
Other formats
Perhaps I’ll experiment with some of the other output available in NotebookLM, although there are some formats that I will probably never use.
- If I’m going to create a slide deck, I’m going to create it myself.
- I don’t really have a use for flash cards, mind maps, or quizzes. Unless you, my readers, REALLY REALLY REALLY want to be quizzed on benefits and features.
But I now have these three pieces of content. And perhaps the next time I discuss this topic, I can drag the infographic out of my WordPress media library.
And I now have more content to add to Bredemarket’s YouTube channel.
How I Use Those Seven Questions (Or Five of Them, Anyway) With Bredemarket Clients
Bredemarket’s “Seven Questions Your Content Creator Should Ask You” provides an ideal framework to launch work on a piece of content.
For one thing, they’re easy to remember: why, how, what, goal, benefits, hungry people (target audience), emotions.
So I use these questions in actual client work.
Using these questions with a Bredemarket client
Again, this isn’t just ivory tower stuff. I actually USE these questions. Here’s an anonymized example of how I recently used five of these seven questions to launch a new client project.
The questions I asked
- Why is this document needed?
- How will this document be used? As a download? As introductory text within proposals? As a demo script, video script, or webinar script?
- What funnel stage(s) should this document address? Awareness? Consideration? Conversion?
- As a related question, what is the primary goal of this document?
- Who should be the target(s) for this document? Decision-makers? Technologists?
- Approximate document length?
Just between you and me, “approximate document length” is one of the questions I ask AFTER I’ve asked my initial seven questions. I normally don’t talk about my other questions (if I tell you about them I will have to kill you), but they’re there.
The questions I didn’t ask
And no, I felt no driving need to ask about the benefits of the document. The chief benefit is more sales of the product that the document will describe.
And in this case I didn’t ask about emotions. Perhaps I’ll address that once I have a better feel for the document and start writing it.
It’s too early to say how these questions will shape the final content, because I just asked them. But I believe the answers will give me a rapid head start on creating the client’s deliverable.
So what?
But you don’t care about my client (unless you ARE my client and are reading this). You care about YOUR content.
How can my question process help you create stellar content and more sales of YOUR product?
If you want me to annoy YOU with a lot of questions (in the same way that I annoy my existing clients), set up a free meeting.
What is a bridge? (2026 edition)
4th Sector Innovations is no longer in Ontario—they paved paradise, put up a parking lot.
But bridges are just as important in 2026 as they were in 2021.
“Without a bridge, you’re stuck at one place and can’t get to the other place. Or you can try to get to the other place, but you may get very wet.
“Businesses need bridges to connect with their customers. When the bridges are erected, the customers understand what the businesses can do for them. If the customers need those particular services, they can buy them.”
This is critically important when the business is extremely technical but the customers and prospects aren’t. How does this amazing technology benefit the customers? Do they make more money? Do they keep their cities safer?
Bredemarket can help you build those bridges.
(Picture credit: By Anneli Salo – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15716878)
Postscript: so now you know why I may be humming this song at Euclid and D.
Sadly, or perhaps happily, Joni’s casual guitar tuning before “Big Yellow Taxi” reminded me of this Neil Innes classic.
Wooing Your Prospects
I tangentially referred to Rachael Wheatley’s article “Six steps to woo your clients” in a caption for my own post “Your Prospects Don’t Care About Your Technology.”
We were both saying the same thing, but from different perspectives.
Here’s part of how Wheatley put it.
“Focus on care and concern – reach out, offer help, stay true to your company purpose and values.
“Meet your customers where they are – both where they ‘hang out’ now, and to meet their current concerns.”
But it’s important to remember why you’re doing this.
“Building a good marketing plan helps motivate your audience to take the next step. And, in the end, to say “yes” to what you’re offering.
“But of course, they need to want to come. Your intent needs to be authentic. It will be if you genuinely believe that you can offer them value (and they recognise that) and you want to be in the relationship for the long term, not just to make a quick sale this quarter.”
Earlier this week I signed a contract with a former client from the first stint of Bredemarket (2020-2022). I had to end that contract because my then-new employer Incode competed with my client.
But then Incode became my ex-employer, and eventually my former client came back.
And I was happy they came back.
Focusing on Care and Concern
I’ll color this in and provide resolution tomorrow.
Dry To The Bone
You’re not gonna hear this song about dry fingerprint ridges on Top 40 radio. But for a select few biometric product marketers, it highlights a critically important issue.
Why?
Because dry fingerprint ridges, while not a common worry among the general populace, ARE a concern among law enforcement, homeland security, financial institution, and other professionals who depend on high-quality friction ridge capture to solve crimes and identify people.
And these people desperately need products that accurately capture fingerprints in challenging conditions.
And the product vendors need to communicate their product benefits to potential vendors. (Whoops, I mean prospects.)
That’s where Bredemarket comes to save the day.
Not with music.
(Thankfully.)
Through Bredemarket, I work with you to develop the customer-focused, benefits-oriented words that move your prospects toward your fingerprint capture solution.
If you want prospects to buy your identity product, schedule a free meeting with the biometric product marketing expert.
And…I couldn’t resist one more.
In Biometric Product Marketing, It’s All About the Benefits
How does your biometric product captivate your prospect?
Let Bredemarket, the biometric product marketing expert, help your firm speak to your prospects. Schedule a free meeting.
How Do You Talk About the Product “Plumbing”?
There are a variety of hungry people (target audiences) who look at your product marketing content. And they all have different needs.
- When talking about an elegant water fountain, some readers only care that the fountain works.
- Other readers want to know HOW it works. Issues such as support and maintenance are critically important to these folks, but matter little to the first group who simply wants a working fountain.
If you are forced to speak to both target audiences in a single piece of content, how do you do it?
Very carefully.
My preference is to discuss the high-level benefits at the beginning of the content, and save the more technical uptime details and/or feature lists for later in the narrative.
Unless you are ONLY speaking to technical folks, leading with the “plumbing” kills your content. Someone who wants their police agency to solve more burglaries will fall asleep at a mention of 1000 pixels per inch fingerprint resolution or NIST-compliant lower palm print image dimensions.
Stay light, and only go deep to buttress your lightness.
Bredemarket 