Features vs Benefits | How They Differ, How to Write Them, Plus Examples

Product features vs benefits: Which ones are better? And what about bullets?

Make no mistake, features, benefits, and bullets matter a lot on your sales and opt-in pages. Without them, creating curiosity and piquing the interest of your potential customers is slim to none.

What marketers don’t understand is how to tell features and benefit examples apart, and when to use them. Sometimes we see pages with tons of features, but no benefits.

OR they have bullets, but they’re written in ways that aren’t helpful to the customer or potential lead.

In this article, we're going to talk about feature  and benefit examples. We'll start by comparing features vs benefits. Then we'll see how bullets come into the picture. I will also give you 5 practical steps to make sure you’re writing out your features, benefits, and bullets correctly.

Product Features vs Benefits Defined

After seeing a product that piques your interest you spend most of your time checking out the features and benefits. This tells you what you need to know.

Every day it seems like we are hearing about new products and how they're designed with the "latest technology." But what about the time you're interrupted and cleverly provoked to buy something you were never thinking about until you saw the ad or sales page? 

What was it that piqued your interest? Was it the "latest technology" Or did it have something to do with how it could improve your life or generate a result you desperately need.

It was probably a combination of both. Moreover, it's why product features vs benefits need to be distinguished so you can be sure to include them on your next product or service for sale. 

Product Features

Features are your short phrases that showcase your product or service. They can be descriptive or technical.

For example, a microwave being "1.7 cubit feet" and a jacket being "a universal fit." These product features are often bolded when reading through a product on a sales page. Notice how there's nothing really "punchy" or grabs your attention about those features.

I emphasize short because any longer than 3 to 5 words, and you’ve misunderstood what a feature is. They’re short because you want to draw attention to important information that your leads can identify pretty quickly.

To do things quickly, such as scan your sales page is very important as it can take a lead only a few seconds to be uninspired and close your offer. That's why features are often written as bullet points, but they’re not necessarily your punchy, grab your attention kind of bullets that I'm going to talk about down below.

The Product Benefit or Result

If a product or service fails to mention how it could improve your life or generate a result you desperately need you'll lose interest.

That's why you need to be sure to also include the positive impact your product or service has on your customer.

This is the benefit.

The benefit is 100% necessary if you wish to reach the most amount of customers, including new ones or first timers.  However, I will say that rattling off a list of features vs benefits may seem pretty impressive to a young teenager and his or her friends who've already familiarized themselves with the company or product.

The length of a benefit can be anywhere from about a line or two to as much as a couple paragraphs long. There’s no exact science with creating them.

Benefits help your customer understand why a particular feature is important. Moreover, features are telling the customer WHAT they're getting, and benefits tell customers WHY they should get it. 

The Result/Benefit Is Your Biggest Reason to Buy

Don't forget, when we have reasons for doing things we are more likely to do it. This backs the power of the word, "because" as authors often publish books and articles referring to Dr Ellen Langer (1978 study) as proof of its power.

Well, the same thing applies to understanding why you should buy something when reading through the features and benefits.

It's because when you're given a reason to buy something (the "why"), you're more likely to buy.

So, although I told you earlier that it's probably a combination of both features and benefits that pique your interest in the middle of a buying decision.

...Well, 9 times out of 10 it's the benefit or result that sells you.

How to Pinpoint The Best featuers and Benefits

To pinpoint your best benefits, especially if you find your self with more than you'd want to write out, no problem. Just take the features you have and ask yourself the "so what" question for each one. Then keep asking until you can't think of anymore that make sense.

What will eventually happen is that the same benefits will begin to show up. Those are the benefits you're looking for.

iPhone 12 Product Features vs Benefit Example

For example, the iPhone 12 has some new features compared to the iPhone 10 or 11. The iPhone 12's improved features include:

Say we pick "Night mode." So what?

Well, you can take pictures at night. So what? 

Never miss a shot all day long. So what? 

Leave your more expensive camera at home. So what?

You can take your photos anytime, anyplace. So what? And on and on and on...

Eventually, you'll run out of benefits. 

The benefits I pinpointed were the ones that kept repeating at the end; The go anywhere; Do anything; And take super precise shots. In the process, I was able to eliminate several that overlapped and didn't have deep enough "whys."

What Most People Forget When Writing Features and Benefit Examples

Something else to add to the feature vs benefit equation is the "HOW."

If you can’t show your potential customer how a benefit helps them, then it’s pointless to include it. That is if they are unfamiliar with your company or brand of products.

With that said, most people include features when writing out their sales pages. Good marketers include the benefit. However, it's the best that include the question or problem that their benefit can answer or fix.

For example…

I noticed on a jacket for sale and one of the features said, “molded zipper garages.” I realized I had no idea what "molded zipper garages" meant or why I would I need that?

This goes to show that if I was selling this particular jacket, I would want to write the benefit of these kinds of zippers. And like the best would do, I’d be sure to include the problem these kinds of zippers solve within my benefit (the how).

...Because I’m sure there are others out there like me that have no idea what "molded zipper garages" mean. And the more questions your lead or potential customer have to question, the further away they get from buying your product or service.  

Product Bullet Points

Like mentioned earlier, bullets need to provide quick bits of information that your readers need to retrieve relatively fast.

Moreover, your bullet points can be one - two liners that are punchy and grab your attention kind of bullets. They need to leave your leads and potential customers extremely curious about what it is you have to offer. You want to leave your customers curious. This will help you land the sale. 

I also said they can be used to list out features, but they're not your punchy, grab your attention kind of bullets when done that way.

For example, let's say the features of a random product or service are "uses steps," "ten tips," and "solution patterns." Again those features just don't have any emotion to them. 

... But watch what happens when I add what we learned about features vs benefits.

• How to use steps that tell your readers what's next without backtracking
• The ten tips that you must include on every sales page to pique the most curiosity & avoid boring pages 
• How patterns of solutions and problems keep things interesting and your customers from leaving

You see the features; i.e., "uses steps." You see the benefit; i.e., "tell your readers what's next." And you see the problem addressed; i.e., people backtrack.

5 Steps to Writing "Punchy" Bullets

Let's go back through features vs benefits in these next 5 steps with a more practical product feature and benefit example. Our made up example will be called, “Easy Online Publishing.”

Step 1: Describe Your Product

Easy Online Publishing is a computer software program that can design WordPress article. The software can design with speed, working off only a template that the end user creates. 

This template works as a "plug and play" template so that all you have to do is create your article outline. From there it searches the Internet on over thousands of articles that match your "plug and play" template. It then rewrites your own 100% unique article automatically.

The program comes with videos that show you how to have a full-blown article posted with images-and-all in just 5 minutes or less.

This software has the ability to include hyperlinks to other relevant pages. It can place your keyword phrases throughout your article for better SEO optimization. And it can post articles allowing you to choose the best one.

Step 2: List The Features From Your Description

After a more thorough run down of your product, you should find a list of several features. For our made up product, we have the following features:

• Designed WordPress articles
• Header and Footer concept designs
• Include inbound and out bound hyperlinks
• Split test title functionality
• Keyword phrase recognition
• Font File transfers
• Image importing and exporting
• Paragraph body structure tutorials
• Automatic table of contents generator

Step 3: Add the Benefit That Describes Each Feature

Let’s look at the first feature I came up with: Designed WordPress articles.

The benefit written underneath that feature on my opt-in or sales page could say...

Let's look at the second feature: The Header and Footer concept designs

The benefit could say...

Step 4: Add The Problem to Each Benefit

Back to the feature, "Designed WordPress articles." The problem doesn't have to come before the benefit. An example problem could read:

And the feature, “Header and Footer concept designs.” The included problem could read:

I like to use these in my scripts for video sales letters and in various sections on my sales pages.

Step 5: Using the Feature and Benefit Examples to Write "Punchy" Bullets

Take what you wrote in step 4 to create the best “punchy,” curiosity driven bullet points. If you do it right, you'll find that they have a magical way of leaving customers wanting to learn more.

To begin, start by writing a feature you’ve already listed out in step 2. However, find a way to make sense of it with either a “How” or “Why” in front of it. Finally, include the problem your potential customer or lead can avoid.

How or Why + Feature" + Benefit + How it helps the customer or problem they are avoiding

For example, going back to "Designed WordPress articles." To turn that into a "punchy" bullet, we could say:

Summary

I hope these can be some basic steps to help you start writing better features, benefits, and bullets

If you are curious whether you should use all three on your pages, I'd say yes. But it’s up to you with what works best for your business.

Again, these product features vs benefits show what your product or service is made of sort-of speak, but it’s the bullets that build up the curiosity your potential customers will want answers to.

I'll Help You Attract Leads and Sales

If you're interested, I also help people market and attract leads and sales even if they don’t have a product to sell. I do this through a free transformation program.

It usually lasts several weeks, but it's packed with free resources to help you learn what it takes to build an online business from scratch. Just head over to my training hub where you can learn more about it and see if the next video training series is available.

Otherwise, check out my other articles for more valuable content designed to help you build your online business from scratch.