B2B audiences choose benefits not features

Products and services are as important to marketers as the air we breathe – without them we cease to exist. If there were no products or services to sell, we’d be out of a job. So, when it comes to marketing, you need to have an intimate understanding of the products you are working with. Before we delve deeper into this topic, let’s just establish that there is no such thing as a ‘boring’ product. When marketers say a product is ‘boring’ this just highlights that they haven’t looked hard enough for that golden nugget of information. This process of finding something cool, unique or engaging in every product is vitally important, because if you don’t believe in the product neither will your audience.

A good starting point

Whether you’re an agency that sees new products every day, or an in-house team that’s been working on the same offering for years, there is always something new to learn or uncover. Let’s say for example, you’re marketing a cloud storage solution. The client or product team talks about gigabyte storage amounts and top-level security. On the face of it, this looks like it’s going to be a long day’s work – but not necessarily. Firstly, take this input as a starting point and nothing else. Your job now is to start researching. What does the company’s website say? Do they have brochures? Can you speak to their salespeople? Is there a contact within the research and development (R&D) department you can speak to? What about case studies? Have you used the product yourself? Can you organise an online demo? These are just some of the ways you can get beyond the ‘features list’ and get a real understanding of what you are dealing with. By doing this level of research you are likely to start uncovering interesting facts – especially if you manage to speak to the R&D or salespeople. If we return to the cloud storage product, a discussion with the product developer may just happen to uncover the fact that the top-level security feature mentioned earlier is actually the same level of security that’s used by the country’s military. This means that the product now has ‘military-grade’ security – and that’s pretty cool. If the tool is secure enough to protect military secrets, it’s certainly going to be good enough to protect the audience’s work schedules and invoices. 

The search continues

Being a marketer means becoming an investigative journalist and a hard-nosed detective. When you receive a new client or marketing brief, you enter a world where nothing is as it seems, and everyone is a suspect. Ok, this may seem a little over the top, but the point is valid. Clients and senior product people get caught up in the features of a product or service – which is totally understandable. But as every business is doing this with every product, the marketplace is awash with lots of companies saying the same thing about their offering. To help an organisation truly stand out from the crowd, you need to be finding the things that people aren’t saying, and identifying the USPs that have otherwise been overlooked. This is why interviewing and chatting with the likes of salespeople and product developers gives you unique insight. Look at the information from a different angle. Translate information from the specs sheets into figures that tell a real story. For example, a washing machine that has a lifespan of 30,000 cycles can be translated to 8 operating cycles per day, every single day, for over 10 years. This means you’ve uncovered the fact that a washing machine that was marketed as being able to last 30,000 cycles (a fairly ambiguous fact), can now be marketed as a machine that’ll last 10 years!

Get to the benefits

If you’ve ever worked with an experienced copywriter, you may have heard the phrase features, advantages, and benefits (or sometimes FAB for short). This comes from an understanding that features don’t mean much to buyers, it’s the benefits that make them buy a product. For example, telling people that a laptop has a rapid processor means very little. But, if you tell them this means the computer can do many things at once without slowing down, you can start to get their attention. But this is still only in the ‘advantages’ space. What you need to do is get them to the realm of benefits i.e., this laptop enables you to work faster, finish sooner, and spend more quality time with your family. What you’ve done is take a feature, identified the advantage this gives the user, then developed this further into what it actually means to the buyer – and it’s the latter part of this process that makes all the difference to your marketing. You’ll notice that by the time you get to the benefits section of this exercise you are likely dealing with emotions. ‘It saves you time you can spend with loved ones’, ‘it saves you money you can use to treat yourself’, ‘it can simplify your life and give you peace of mind’. These feelings and emotions are the real ammunition for marketers and copywriters as they typically generate the best engagement (while making the writing more engaging).  

Call the professionals  

At first, the features, advantages, and benefits exercise is something you’ll likely need to do on a piece of paper divided into three columns. It may seem difficult and even laborious to begin with, but that’s ok. Over time, you’ll perfect the ability to do this translation from features to benefits in the blink of an eye. The alternative, of course, is to work with a high-level strategic copywriter who operates in the FAB space in the same way that other people breathe. That is to say, an experienced copywriter will be able to hold a conversation with you whilst simultaneously translating features into engaging benefits in their mind. A good writer will also likely be crafting an engaging narrative that your audience will adore, all whilst you are speaking. This expertise and capability means that while you turn your attention to the marketing activities you have planned, you can rest assured that the campaign messaging will not only help you stand out from the crowd, but has the ability to generate the maximum levels of response and success.

To find out more about making products and services stand out in a crowded marketplace, speak to Keystone Copywriting today by emailing kenneth@keystonecopywriting.co.uk or call 0330 043 7177