Benefits vs Features

Marketing that focuses on the features of your products and services talks all about your company. The quality, the attention to detail, how clean you get items, how great your team is, your turnaround time, your pick-up and delivery division, your state-of-the-art production workshop, and your fancy texting and email communications.

These features are all important, just like the engine, tires, and suspension are to a car. However, you care about these things much more than your best clients do. They are more interested in how the products and services you offer help them or make them feel.

That is why, with your marketing, I will encourage you to talk about the benefits to your client of doing business with you. This is much more important to your client than your features are. Why? Because it puts the focus on your client instead of on your company. And clients LOVE when the focus is on them. You see, even your most affluent clients need help solving their problems.

The primary benefits of using a dry cleaner have always been #1 saving time and #2 increasing self-confidence. But there is a new benefit that has recently emerged, and that is #3 family health. If your marketing talks about these benefits, instead of the features of your products and services, your client will understand that you are creating solutions to some of their problems – like a shortage of time, a lack of self-confidence, and questioning whether they have a clean environment for their family at home. And this will go a long way in earning their trust. They will know you care about them.

In addition to these three core items, another benefit is how you make your client feel. In all relationships, we want to feel appreciated, feel important and feel included. Never forget these things – both in business and in your personal life. When a relationship breaks down, it is always because one or more of these things is missing. Take the proactive approach and work hard to have your best clients feel appreciated, important, and included.

Have you ever been to a fine dining restaurant where the host or hostess knows your name when you walk in the door, takes you to an excellent table, the manager welcomes you by name, and they ask about your family or work? Wow! That is how you feel appreciated, important, and included all at once. You feel like you are part of the restaurant’s family. 

You can present this same level of benefits to your clients. Get to know your clients’ wants, fears, desires, and opportunities. Get to know their challenges and problems so you can help solve more of them. Know their name and use it regularly. Include clients in your newsletter, emails, and social media posts.

Putting your focus on the benefits of doing business with you rather than the features of your products and services is so important in delighting your clients and building trust with them. You are focusing on them. And not on you. Big difference. And most importantly, it shows that you care.