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Written by Editor
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Monday, 08 August 2005 |
Product Basis
Product features
- Features are product characteristics
- Examples include size, color, horsepower, functionality, design, hours of business, and fabric content
Product benefits
- Customer needs served by product features
- Less tangible but answer the customer’s question—“What’s in it for me?”
Product features are usually easy to define because they are objective, whereas product benefits can be hard to define because they are subjective—they exist in the customer’s mind. Those that provide emotional or financial rewards are the most compelling product benefits.
Emotional rewards basically allow the buyer to feel better in some way. Products that deliver financial rewards allow the buyer to save money or make money.
Discovering product’s benefits
- Put yourself in your customers’ shoes
- Talk to customers directly
- Conduct surveys about customer’s needs and perceptions
- Hire an independent firm to conduct a focus group with a sample group of customers to test product for usability and desirability
- Examine previous customers’ profiles
Evolution of product benefits
- Ask customers for suggestions on how to improve product
- Pay careful attention to customer complaints and prospect inquiries
- Watch your competitors
Understanding your product’s features and benefits is extremely key to running a successful small business. You will be able to describe your products in terms relevant to your customers. You will be able to make distinctions between your product and the product of your competition. You will also be able to effectively choose pricing and positioning strategies.
Once you know about the features, you can develop several strategies that will help you increase profit and ensure your business runs more smoothly and is overall more effective. First, you should identify yourself as the first business to offer a new product feature. Second, you can modify or improve your product’s features, creating the impression that your company cares about satisfying its customers. Third, features can be grouped into different product models and prices, escalating from a basic model to a "fully loaded” model.
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