Questions to Ask Yourself
What are your products and services? Are you crystal clear in regards to your products/services what the benefits are versus features?
The Human Factor
It is important to remember that people don’t mostly buy features, the purchase BENEFITS. It’s the “human factor” of what your products/services offer that will best connect your future customer to your wares, digital and otherwise.
It’s All About Feeling
Think of it this way. Although it is nice to know what the features of your products/services are, ultimately what matters most often for the consumer is how your products/services makes her or him FEEL inside. We are emotional people and connect with the feel-good element when making choices. That’s why car commercials often focus less on the technical components of the vehicle and more on what the lifestyle will be if you own this automobile. And lifestyle involves feeling good about how you come across to others.
Big Companies Versus Small Ones
Knowing the difference between features and benefits of your products/services can literally make or break your marketing campaign. If you are a large company, you have the luxury of brand building and can create absurdist campaigns, so customers remember your brand with not so much of a focus on features or benefits. But if you’re a small business or an emerging artist of any kind you usually can’t afford the absurdist approach. You need to let your future customer know how she or he will feel using your products/services and what the components are.
Results are Important
The message is don’t ignore the benefits. Make the benefits clear even if you think they have an understanding of what they are. Features are the factual part of the equation, but the benefits answer the very important question “What’s in it for me?” You may have heard that money doesn’t necessarily buy you happiness. So a high value can be put on happiness and satisfaction on a product or service. If you can “show” don’t “tell” what the benefits are you are in a good position. In short, benefits are…RESULTS. Benefits are the outcome of the product/service. The EXPERIENCE. You should always be striving to have the customer have a good or even great experience by using your products/services.
Heal Their Pain
Another important thing to note is that getting rid of a bad experience toward a good one is more valuable than just listing all the benefits. You need to solve their problem. You need to take them out of their painful condition. Again, you are selling various forms of happiness to overcome a state of not feeling good about oneself.
Know Your Audience
None of this means anything if you don’t know SPECIFICALLY who your audience is. Because how can you possibly craft a campaign for your product/service if you don’t know and understand who you are making it for. It’s also a good idea is to – if you can – make it clear that your product/service is highly concentrated, and you just get what you need and are not paying for fluff. If you are a business or artist who can customize the user experience all the better. People like to feel that others understand them and appreciate it when someone seems to.
Explore Your History
If you are already in business and have done marketing before for your products/services, it is a good idea to go over your past promotional ventures. Some of you will find that you’ve been stressing features all along and not benefits. How can you reinvent your marketing so it is benefits based? What are the three steps?
3 Substeps to Understanding and Pursuing Your Audience
As we just mentioned it all starts with the phrase “Know thy customer.” This is the first of three very important aspects. (1) know your audience (2) be willing to change your point of view and (3) what are the results of using your product and service? How do you get to know your ideal customer? You put yourself in her or his perspective. You imagine walking in their shoes. How is your product/service taking away pain for them or making them happy?
Can You Handle the Three Substeps?
So if you (1) know who your audience is (2) are able to view the world from their perspective, and (3) are clear on the benefits/results, you are further ahead than most. Pat yourself on the back.
Climbing the Mountain
But now you have another big mountain to climb. How are you going to get your message regarding your products and services in front of your audience online? Some of you will be chiming in “internet traffic” and you will be correct. But how do you find and then harness that traffic? Others of you could be thinking S.E.O. (Search Engine Optimization) and you’d be right in offering this option.
The Problem with S.E.O.
The problem with search engine optimizing is that search engine sites do what they do based on algorithms. And as you probably know algorithms change. And the search engines like it this way because it means that others don’t exactly know what the formula is to get traffic. Therefore the search engine can charge you to advertise to your ideal prospect. To put it another way, it is more profitable for search engines if they hold all the cards when it comes to traffic.
Paid Versus Organic
And yes, there is a chance that your social media sites could be part of your traffic plan. As you see, there are two kinds of traffic, paid and organic. We strive for our clients to create for them as many organic opportunities as possible but sometimes paid advertising is the way to go when it comes to traffic and being able to be very targeted. If the latter proves true, your secret formula for success could be paid traffic, then digital tools (what USAcreate.com custom creates for you) and finally, results.
The Tools
To help you get a sense of what a products/services page looks like (as well as a possibility you might want to buy!) please go here to see how we promote our offering of complete turnkey marketing packages with tools as well as monthly promotion programs.