“Features & Benefits” is an “old saw” in marketing and sales, a way of structuring messages to set the stage for a sales win. But thanks to the order of the words, we tend to have an unfortunate habit of going deep on features and shallow on benefits. This is particularly true with technology where we are often burdened with explaining how a new technology works. We tend to descend to assuming concept interest in products and applications when we have established no foundation of what buyers want and need.
How do we stay out of that trap? Focus truly on benefits! Make the conceptual connection with buyers on benefits they really want and need and then move to sell the system/applications/products.
Our Seven Central Benefits tools is a way to think about this and act on it. It’s a tool that can be used to ideate on your tech merchandise assortments and packaging and a way to organize your presentation of tech options and upgrades to buyers.
Here is a quick rundown on the Central Benefits:
Smart:
- The home automatically provides the light and heat/cooling you need to maximize comfort and convenience
- The home monitors its consumption of energy and water and usage of major appliances and recommends or automatically executes ways to save energy and water
- The home knows what you like to watch on TV and listen to on sound systems and can direct you to your favorites
- The home can predict and request maintenance before break-downs
Healthy:
- Clean air
- Clean water
- Proper temperatures
- Lighting that fits with circadian rhythms
- Sound and music that is harmonious with your moods or helps you shift moods in a better direction
- Means of healthy food preparation and maximizing food safety
- Means of destroying and inhibiting germs, molds and other biological toxins
Safe:
- The home detects potential break-ins and burglaries and alerts you and authorities
- The home detects and alerts you and authorities regarding hazards such as fire, toxic gas flows, and water leaks
- The home automatically provides the lighting you need upon arrival, departure, emergency.
- The home is equipped with cameras for security purposes and situational awareness
Entertaining:
- High-quality audio and video are conveniently available throughout the home, inside and out
- Lighting and other environment controls provide comfort and appropriate mood setting for guests
- Lighting showcases artwork and other valued decorations to best effect before guests
- If desired, AV supports performing, speechmaking, gameplaying and other forms of entertainment in an appropriate, high-quality way
Connected:
- The home has adequate wired and wireless infrastructure to enable high quality of video, internet, and audio wherever needed
- The home can be monitored and managed remotely
- The home makes it easy for you to communicate with friends and family by voice and video
- The home is set-up to ensure strong mobile phone connections
Productive:
- The home has secure, high-speed, high-quality internet and telecommunications connections to facilitate work-from-home and distance learning
- The home features built-in technologies for high-quality video conferencing, collaboration and video presentations, This can include large-screen video displays, cameras, mics, lighting and, of course, high-speed connections
Green:
- The home uses energy and water as efficiently as possible
- And the home minimizes negative environmental impacts such as emissions and use of building materials that harm the environment
We have developed a complete set of discovery questions for the intake stage of the sales process including other merchandising/marketing perspectives like Lifestyle Personas, Product Taxonomy, and Room-by-Room, download our free Merchandising and Marketing Guide.
