Tips and ideas for how to tell the difference between features and benefits in your marketing!
Small Business Marketers are Selling The Steak Instead Of Selling the Sizzle!
What the heck does that mean? Well it means that as humans it is SO much easier for us to sell the features of a product than to figure out the benefits to our target audience.
I saw a BRILLIANT commercial this weekend. You tell which is steak and which is sizzle...
The carefully selected, high quality ingredients in Purinaa® Dog Chow® brand Dog Food Complete & Balanced provide 100% of the essential nutrients your dog needs to help stay happy, healthy and satisfied throughout his long, healthy life.
- Contains 23 vitamins and minerals
- Formulated with high quality protein
- Great Taste
HMMMM...VITAMINS AND MINERALS ARE GOOD, PROTEIN IS GOOD
or
A groundbreaking 14-year study by Purina researchers showed that dogs fed to an ideal body condition** throughout their lives had a median life span of 1.8 years longer - and were considerably healthier - than their littermates.* And although the dogs in the study generally developed the same health conditions as they aged, treatment for those conditions was delayed approximately two years for the lean-fed dogs.
MY DOG WILL LIVE 2 YEARS LONGER? I LOVE MY DOG - I WANT THAT!!!!
Make sure you take a look at your small business marketing, are you selling steak or sizzle? Have a non-industry friend look at your marketing, see if they would be excited to buy you product if they didn't know you!
Post your link on Facebook and ask your online friends if they would buy it. DO NOT be sad if you get criticism - just take that and fix it!
Julia Fishel says
Thanks for breaking this product vs. benefits concept down in to a way that finally hit home. It's a newer concept for me and one I have to force myself to wrap my brain around (it feels unnatural) and still forget often enough. The dogs living 2 years longer concept is so simple that I'll have no problem 'registering' it and thus, hopefully will put it to good use on a consistent basis.
By the way, I'd like to know if Purina will make cats live longer, too. Since I've never heard Purina address the issue of cats living longer does that suggest that their cat food isn't so hot? Why am I attracting 90% more buyers (dogs) to my blog than sellers (cats) when I assume I'm being fair and balanced? What does one do to address the lost cats?
By the way, The Pinellas Peach is braced and ready to take on you and your readers' unfettered constructive and brutally honest criticism should you opt to bash us about a bit. We'd be scared, but honored more so!
Julia Fishel's last blog post..Are You on the Edge of a Dunedin Short Sale?
Tara Jacobsen says
I think that you are doing everything right on your buyers (dogs) BUT buyers are looking for what you got - listings! And then they notice you and how cool you are. Sellers don't tend to go online to look for agents, they go to open houses and see how the agent there is doing (sellers beware - mostly there are buyer's agents at open houses - do your homework!) or they get postcards at their house or they need a CMA and then go find an agent. Keep being nice to the cats with everything you are doing and it will click!!!
PS - they did not say cats would live longer BUT I WAS on the dog chow site!!!...:)
ankit says
You have given interesting perspective in this article.
ankit's last blog post..India doing well in New Zealand
Isis says
A very sorround sound blog here... aaah what I meant there was you keep a good balance.. :).. I for one had a small dog.. Not of a particular breed just a street dog who I used to feed ocassionally...Turned out she would go nuts on anybody who tried to approach me.. Geesh!