WORKSHOP: how to use the properties, characteristics, and benefits of marketing and copywriting
By: Alex Koma
Tags: Writing, Blogging, Marketing, Blog, Copywriting

How to use the properties, characteristics, and benefits of marketing and copywriting

An interesting trend. New copywriting sites and blogs are springing up like mushrooms after rain. On the one hand, this is good, because the direction is developing. However, the other side of the coin is the quality of most resources. Many of them simply rewrite superficial things and even manage to distort them to such an extent that they do nothing but harm.

For example, many of you have heard about the properties of a product and its benefits for the consumer (if you haven’t heard, it’s not scary, I’ll explain everything further, tell you and show it). If you ask most copywriters and marketers what should be indicated in the text: properties or benefits, most of them, without batting an eye, will answer: “Of course, benefits!”

Moreover, now many copywriting training “gurus” repeat like a mantra: “Benefits, not properties, benefits, not properties …” As a result, dozens of “Zombo-writers” come out of such training who are obsessed with benefits, but who do not bother to think about whether the benefits are appropriate in their particular case. However, let’s talk about everything in order.

Characteristics, properties, and benefits

Each product or service has its own characteristics. Some features are important for suppliers, others for consumers, others for manufacturers, etc. All these features can be conditionally divided into three large groups:

Specifications

Properties

Benefits

Sometimes it happens that one feature is included in 2 groups at once. For example, a characteristic or property can itself be a benefit. Further, we will consider this point with examples.

1. Characteristics

Characteristics are numerical parameters that characterize a product or service. Here are some examples of characteristics for three areas — home appliances, auto, and online advertising.

Characteristics

The strength of the characteristics lies in their specificity and certainty. The disadvantage is that certain segments of the audience do not understand what these characteristics mean.

2. Properties

Properties are the characteristics of certain goods or services. This also includes various functions, chips, and goodies. As a rule, properties are based on characteristics and can include them. Please note that properties can be both concrete and abstract. In the case of abstraction, it is better to supplement them with numbers.

Let’s look at what properties can be in our examples, based on the described characteristics.

Washing machine

Washing machine

Vehicle

Vehicle

Contextual advertising

Contextual advertising

3. Benefits

Benefits are what a person ultimately gets in a language he understands. The last 4 words of the previous sentence are key. And this is where the main highlight lies. The same product can have different benefits for different groups of people. This nuance is the most common mistake of novice copywriters. They show benefits, but not what their buyer is looking for. This mistake is especially common in the B2B segment, where companies buy goods in bulk to then sell them at retail to end consumers.

Let’s take a closer look at examples.

a) Washing machine

This is a typical example. Household appliances can be purchased by both wholesalers for sale and end consumers. The first is interested in the profit from the sale, and the second — in the quality performance of the functions assigned to the device.

Consequently, the benefit sets for different audience segments will differ. Take a look.

For retail buyers

For retail buyers

For wholesalers

For wholesalers

See the difference? Let’s take a look at the following example.

b) Vehicle

I chose a car as an example for a reason. The point is that a car belongs to a special category of goods, in which the characteristics themselves can be advantages for certain segments of the audience. Our car is abstract, and different people can buy it. Let’s compare the benefits for professionals and ordinary buyers.

For professionals

Professionals are well versed in the automotive market. Moreover, they are guided most often by characteristics. This means that for them the characteristics will be an indicator of benefits (this is the main criterion that professionals rely on). The same is true for a variety of equipment purchased by technicians. They are interested in characteristics. Let’s do it again.

Specialists who buy complex technical goods are primarily interested in characteristics, not benefits! Benefits can be shown differently, focusing on buying from you and not from other sellers.

For professionals

For ordinary users

To illustrate the differences in this example, let’s take a “simpler” group of people.

For ordinary users

This table shows only 5 bundles of characteristics with benefits, but with a real sale, there are many more. It is also worth remembering that to save money, people prefer to buy cars with diesel engines, and here you also need to show your benefits (savings on spare parts, simplicity, and cheapness of repairs, etc.)

c) Contextual advertising

When we talk about any advertising in principle, here you need to understand that this is a B2B segment, where the main motivator for action is the return on investment and economic feasibility. Naked calculation. This must be understood and distinguished from the B2C segment, which has completely different values.

Contextual advertising

What to include in promotional materials?

There is a simple rule: you need to indicate what interests the person and what contributes to the achievement of the goal. If you don’t know what to specify, try using the link:

PROPERTIES BENEFIT based on CHARACTERISTICS.

At the same time, characteristics and properties can be used both together and separately, but in both cases in conjunction with benefits.

Please note: if your product is the same as that of your competitors, then you are showing the benefit not of the product, but of purchasing it from you.

For example, if your distinguishing feature is that you are an official representative of the manufacturer, then the benefit for your client is saving money due to a lower price (say, 10–15% compared to competitors).

A few more examples of the implementation of the formula for consolidation.

Saving up to $100 per month on electricity thanks to energy-saving bulbs, which give the same light as incandescent lamps, but consume 4 times less power.

100% return of receivables without any extra effort at the expense of the debtor. Just one call to the “One Window” service of “Wall Street Kind of Investors” LLC, and the problem is solved.

Quiet and pliable neighbors, thanks to the Infrabass function with a frequency of 10 Hz and a power of 300 watts in Shardex speakers.

66 of your favorite movies or 12,500 songs are always with you on one flash drive with a capacity of 100 GB.

Send photos in 1 click to all social networks: the application works with JPG and PNG files.

You get the idea. Proceed from the task that you are facing and the audience to which you deliver your advertising message. I have a special setup for such cases. I called it the “ATHYW” installation. It stands for “Always Think With Your Head”. Believe me, it will be a little more difficult, but more reliable.

Once I came across a text that was selling a foot massager. This massager was designed for American 110-volt outlets. A man in pursuit of profit, without batting an eye, concluded: energy savings are 2 times compared to analogs (without indicating the voltage of the network). A gross mistake that, at best, will result in a search for an adapter for an outlet with a transformer, and at worst, will make it necessary to buy a new device.

Another point: not always turning properties into benefits is the best solution. For example, if a person chooses a refrigerator, and he needs the NoFrost function (he initially knows what it is). Explicitly indicating the presence of this function (in fact, a property), and you make it easier for a person to choose. At the same time, if you turn it into a benefit and write it down in detail, the required criterion may get lost in the mass of the text, and a person will consider that this function does not exist. The result is predictable — a lost customer.

Another example: You are selling headphones. Of course, you can use all your epistolary skill in describing the sound, but knowledgeable people need not this, but the frequency range.

Moral: Give people the information they need to make a decision. Benefits are good for persuasion, and properties and characteristics are good for targeted searches.

Remember this and let your texts sell!

Yours sincerely, Alex

P.S. Try to write down the characteristics, properties, and benefits of your products and services. Which one is the most important for your clients? What benefits do you use to detach from your competitors?