Why You Need to Highlight the Benefits of Your Business to Appeal to Your Customers

Benefits are the reason your customers buy your products – but how do you highlight them at the heart of your marketing strategy?

We all have problems to solve, after all, that’s half the reason we buy anything. Bored? Buy a videogame. Hungry? Grab a burger to go. In this article, we explore the following ways that highlighting the benefits of a product or service can appeal to prospective customers:

• Benefits solve people’s problems
• Make your benefits easy to digest
• Outline benefits to help relate to customer needs
• Benefits help you earn loyal customers

Read on as we delve into these factors and provide some key practical examples.

Highlight benefits because they solve people’s problems

We’ve all had problems at one point or another – so when marketing products/services don’t sell for what the are, sell them for what they solve. Highlighting benefits allows potential customers to visualize themselves using your product to solve their problems, but to successfully leverage this tool you need to put yourself in the customers’ shoes and consider how your product solves their issues.

Drawing a blank? Here are some prompts that could guide you to the answers you need:

• Who is your target market?
• What do they like to do?
• What do they need to do?
• What blockers are stopping them from doing what they need/like to do?

Once you answer these questions you should know exactly what benefits to focus on. But you’re not done yet. Now you need to worry about how to present the information so it’s visually appealing to a digital audience.

Make your benefits easy to digest.

Take a moment and think back: when did an advertisement last catch your eye? Chances are it wasn’t littered with bulky paragraphs and long drawn-out explanations.

When you’re excited about a product/service it’s tempting to rattle on and cover all he bases, but this is more likely to turn people off rather than generate interest in your business.

The world operates at the click of a mouse nowadays – and the benefits are helpful because they go straight to the point.

Not sure how to layout your benefits in the most efficient and eye-catching way? Make sure your copy is scannable by ticking these boxes:

• Clear headings
• Bold text
• Power words
• Bullet points
• Lots of white space

Benefits tell the reader what problems a product solves right there and then, either so you can get on with your day or intrigue you to learn more. Such an inbuilt filtering process is a great way to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Still feeling hazy on the benefits? Here’s a great example we found on the web:

This site compares fuel cards – a credit card used to pay for fuel – but the product’s benefits are the main selling points driving consumer interest.

For example, the main banner highlights the key benefits of fuel cards such as:

• Saving money with discount fuel
• Reducing admin time with digital invoices

Rather than delving into the technical (and rather mundane) intricacies of how fuel cards work, we now know straight away they can save businesses time, money and effort.

That’s a lot of bang for your buck from one bullet point, especially considering the key sales page (get a quote) is right underneath ready to catch any interested buyer.

By highlighting scannable benefits through your marketing efforts you’re more likely to pique people’s interest and drive them to buy.

Outline your benefits to show you understand customer needs

Stories sell – and whether you’re promoting a service or product, crafting a story around your business helps you connect with your audience.

But first, you need to know the difference between spouting off features and taking time to understand how you can help people.

• Features: brag about how amazing you think your product/service is, but often these are wasted words and the customer won’t care.
• Benefits: solve people’s problems, they put customers at the centre of the equation, and everyone gains from the transaction of information.

No matter if you’re selling football boots like this page:

People want to buy from other people and the stories they tell. By outlining benefits you authentically connect with your audience and avoid corporate spiel.

Based on Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle theory, you should use benefits to answer why and how you’re doing something, rather than ticking off features to describe what it is you do.

Earn loyal customers by listing benefits in your marketing plans

Customer loyalty is a big part of running any business.

While it’s great to attract new customers, holding on to old ones gives you a solid foundation to grow your business.

But how do you create a loyal customer base? By keeping in contact and reeling them back in by sending powerful product/service benefits. There are numerous delivery methods:

• Social media posts
• SMS and Rich Media Messaging
• Email newsletters

But whatever method you choose, your product/service benefits grab peoples’ attention and lures them back into your store time and time again.

They why of it all outlines your core beliefs – and the how fulfils your core beliefs, which are both connected by you highlighting benefits and solving customer needs.

From sending product/service benefits to your contact chain to outline and presenting them in a way which appeals to customers, highlighting the benefits of your business is a great way to generate sales.