The Difference between a Feature and a Benefit

Twenty years ago, few in the technology industry knew the difference between a feature and a benefit. As a journalist at the time, I was bombarded with vendors who visited the magazine to do product demonstrations that showed all the cool features a particular product offered without explaining why anyone would care about that capability. The result was I was always mentally falling asleep. Friends who were software developers sneered at the idea that anyone would need to actually have the benefits explained. Surely any smart person would “get” the benefits instantly upon seeing the features.

In many technology companies, that attitude has changed. Many marketers today understand the need to carefully and precisely explain why a particular capability is important to customers and how it can benefit them.  

Nonetheless, I continue to run into marketers who explain benefits by describing features. In other words, they don’t really understand the difference between a feature and a benefit.

Drills and Holes

So here it is in a nutshell. The feature is the drill. The benefit is the hole.

Here’s a technology example. The feature is “an intuitive user interface that uses Web-type navigation with forward and back buttons.”

One benefit is that the user interface “reduces training and support costs by using a familiar interface that people can learn quickly.”

One Man’s Benefit is Another Man’s So What?

Another point to remember is that benefits are in the eye of the beholder. As you attempt to determine what a benefit is you need to determine the benefit to whom? After all, not everyone receives the same benefit from a particular feature.

For example, if you’re talking to a technical support person, the benefit of an intuitive user interface is that it “reduces annoying calls from stupid users.”

For the end user, the benefit might be that it “allows me to do things myself without having to wait on hold for tech support for 45 minutes.”

So remember, when determining features and benefits think of drill versus hole and that all benefits are in the eye of the beholder.

How well does your company distinguish between features and benefits?

Comments

[Eryn Branham]

This is a great way to put it. Thank you for reinforcing this.

[Caryn Badea]

Good post. I have actually come across this recently as I am writing "vertical" slicks for our business, which is in the technology industry. I decided to really set apart the features and benefits with bullet points. Bullet points make it easier for the reader to read and really understand the content of the piece.

[Igor Mateski]

Thanks for the entertaining read. Coming from a hard-core IT into this, marketing segment, I've seen first hand the tension between spelling out the numbers (features) and taking it for granted that things are self-evident. But from this marketing perspective, thinking in Benefits terms forces people/engineers/copywriters/developers to think from the end-user perspective and communicate likewise.

[Kristian Levey]

Nice post - reminds me of a comment from the head of a DIY chain

He said (along the lines of) that his customers don’t come into his stores because they want a fancy drill, they come in because they want a hole in the wall

[Susan Sims]

Short recap: WDIB vs. WIIFM
WDIB (What Did I Build)
a feature is what the builder added in (how it looked, what it took to do, how awesome it is that builder created it)

WIIFM
a Benefit is what it will mean to the user (what it will do for user, the problem it will solve or avert, the money saved or made because of it)