# How to sell "benefits", not "features"



## Reckless Tees (Feb 24, 2007)

I have been doing a lot of reading about marketing/sales and I now understand that you must sell your benefits to the customers, not the features. My question is, how does one convey benefits or sell benefits on a website? I don't want my site to be a sales letter and it most definitely is not structured as so. Any ideas how a website can sell its benefits without sending the "buy me now" message?


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## daveM (Mar 29, 2008)

Feature: "this sofa has scotchguard"
Benefit: "you're guaranteed to never get stains on this couch for 5 years"

A feature requires the prospect to already know something-- in this case that scotchgurd is an anti stain treatment-- and is from the manufacturer's, or the salesperson's, POV. A benefit explains the feature from the prospects POV. 

In other words, they are the exact same thing, just from a different Point of view: yours vs theirs. To look at it yet another way, "what's in it for the customer" = "their benefit".

website, in person, on phone, in a biz letter, the sales pitch is the sales pitch -- it's all the same, communicate w/ benefits, not features. 

d


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## Reckless Tees (Feb 24, 2007)

I understand the difference Dave. My question was, how do I go about showing/telling these benefits on a website like mine? I have very litte (if any) text on most pages.


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## daveM (Mar 29, 2008)

Reckless Tees said:


> I understand the difference Dave. My question was, how do I go about showing/telling these benefits on a website like mine? I have very litte (if any) text on most pages.



Sounds like youre going to have to add text to it pretty soon if you want to actively sell benefits OR features.

d

BTW youre doing yourself a huge dis-service by not having text on your pages --- it's the only thing google can rank you by. I bet your google rankings are pretty dismal for "tshirts _______" ( fill in the blank with your local town's name.) Unless of course youre the only shop in a one horse town

where are you in this list?
phoenix t shirts - Google Search

OR this one?
funny tees - Google Search

or this one?
phoenix funny tees - Google Search


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## Reckless Tees (Feb 24, 2007)

well i don't have NO text. and I know what my benefits are...they are listed in my t-shirt rating box on each page. if you look at one of my pages you will see what I mean


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## daveM (Mar 29, 2008)

Reckless Tees said:


> well i don't have NO text. and I know what my benefits are...they are listed in my t-shirt rating box on each page. if you look at one of you will see what I mean



I havent looked at your site, Im just mentioning common "best SEO practices" to counter your statment that you have mostly images on your website. 

The SEO assumption (granted from a couple years back when I was comsuming daily reads of current SEO techniques) is that google ignores "most" pages with less than 50 words of text as that used to be an older "trick the search engines technique" that some doorway pages were using to get better rankings. So the engines built in a way to counter that based on a particular minium word count. 

Personally I have no first hand knowledge with minimum count pages, as I purposely place least 300 words on every page I want google to rank well...

...so, 'too little text' is more than likely the same as "no" text in the eyes of Google. ( and probably the other big 2 engines.) But your mileage may vary on it depending on how competitive your keywords are.

Maybe someone a bit more current in their 'on page' SEO chops and word counts can chime in with where the recent dividing line is for well ranking pages?



to relate this it back to your original question: Think of how many tee-shirt industry 'search terms' you would be using on each page explaining benefits in text on your pages ---- those are the very same words your potential customers will be typing into their google searches AND the very same ones Google could better rank your pages for...

...I just found it kind of ironic that youre trying to improve sales conversions to visitors on your site using 'benefits' instead of 'features', but are reluctant to add text that would not only help sales, but more importantly, allow google -- to help you out by sending you many more visitors to explain those benefits to. YMMV.


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## daveM (Mar 29, 2008)

If I were in charge of designing a 'funny tshirt sales' site, I would write up the benefits in an obvious and humorous way. I mean, you know, they are just tee shirts after all, pretty much every one gets the benefits of them. (Other than pointing out pricing benefits of yours, over your competitors or such details -- of course I am assuming youre selling the same brand of tees, just w/ diff designs, as 1000s of other sites are, and NOT making your own)

It's not like you are trying to upsell someone from a hyundai to a Bentley where it requires a few hours of conversation and sales BS.  



So in your case I would probably do the benefits in a very humous style, maybe like so:

"each shirt guranteed to have two sleeves and a neck hole."

"left sleeve free! with every right sleeve sold."

"all shirts guaranteed to double as a car chamois within 10 years"

etc, etc. You know, use a style of verbal/textual humor to match the style of t's youre selling on that particular page. Dark humour, goofy humor, infantile humour, whatever. Make it all cohesive and compelling. Once you captivate the visitor the sales go up.


Humourous objects should have funny sales benefits/pitches to compliment them, IMO. That kind of overall theme -- matching your goods & your sales pitches -- will convert more visitors to customers by making them LOL while reading your site copy. 

Again, YMMV. Just how I would ride that particular pony.


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## Heath (Oct 24, 2007)

People buy into benefits over features because they want to know, "What's in it for me?".

As t-shirts are quite simple, they don't have many features, but there's plenty of benefits.

You need to think of why people would want each of your designs, what's it going to do for them? What human need will it fulfill?

Try these benefits I just whipped up:

"Pull the ladies with ease in these tees."
(This benefit presses the 'desire for sex' button.)

"Swan around town like a pimp in this fitted beauty."
(This benefit presses the 'desire for sex, money and power' button.)

"You will make at least 3 friends with this shirt."
(Although it's funny, this benefit presses the 'desire for acceptance' button.)

If you don't want go so deep, you can always just have a page listing the physical product benefits titled, "Why Buy From Us?". 

To get a benefit you just put "which means" after the feature. Eg.

All of the T-Shirts at Reckless Tees are:

100% Cotton - which means super comfort and durability.
(This benefit presses the 'pleasure' button.)

Carefully Screen Printed - which means quality reproduction. The design will last the lifetime of the t-shirt with minimal fading!
(This benefit presses the 'save money' button.)

Hope this helps!


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## Reckless Tees (Feb 24, 2007)

Awesome comments guys and tons of good info! Thank you so much. I definitely need to do some thinking and rewriting of some pages.

Just to comment back to Dave, my rankings are doing fine in google and yahoo (considering how few years I've been in business) although they always could be better. I think you are right that I need to find a way to cleverly and humorously incorporate more text. Thanks dude!


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## tshirtn00b (May 23, 2008)

Just don't lose the photo for the 'OMFG' contest on the home page! That pic rocks! 

Also, how are you checking your page ranking on Google and other search engines?


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## Reckless Tees (Feb 24, 2007)

I go to google and type in the search word/phrase and see where I'm at


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## Junky Chris (May 26, 2008)

Another nice feature to have on your site is a gallery of your customers. Put a icon or link where customers can submit pictures of themselves to your site. When people see other people wearing the shirts and in different environments (backgrounds) it makes the experience that much better. 

You'd be surprised to see people seeing a shirt on another person with a funny pose or face and it actually makes them want to do the same and most cases buy the shirt. 

You can also do a monthly drawing where the most creative picture gets a free shirt from your site or a custom T, etc..


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## inkie (Jun 28, 2007)

daveM said:


> So in your case I would probably do the benefits in a very humous style, maybe like so:
> 
> "each shirt guranteed to have two sleeves and a neck hole."
> 
> ...



Dave, these lines are really funny and they'd be great for a humorous t-shirt site! Thanks for a good laugh.

Inkie


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## SunEmbroidery (Oct 18, 2007)

I agree about adding text. These T's will make you feel..., etc. Pictures of people wearing your T's can also show the benefits and back up those pics by adding keyword alt tags for Google.


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## AustinJeff (May 12, 2007)

Why do people wear your shirts? My guess is to be funny and to shock people. But you don't even have to guess, since you are wisely asking your visitors this question already!

So assuming people wear them to be funny or shocking, have a contest where people submit stories about incidents that happened while wearing your shirts. Maybe post the best one each week and have visitors rate it. Top rated story after X weeks wins the big prize. I would suggest offering a fairly big prize -- part cash, part shirts -- since your real goal here is to collect a bunch of good stories. And sure, some will be made up, and many will be from non-customers, but it doesn't really matter.

I like the contests you are currently running, and I think something like this would be well-suited for your site.

Good luck.


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## retrô (May 7, 2008)

Take care not to be heavy site to open. 
Many photos without speed not advance. 
Put words in the mouths of those who want to buy. 
Time is money. 
Talk to a person of the age of its audience. 
Successes ...


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## Reckless Tees (Feb 24, 2007)

Thanks Austin. I like those ideas a lot! Good stuff.


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## myles (Jul 14, 2008)

Great comments! 

Regarding the previous SEO questions, content is still king and it's still advised to have about 300 words of text for search engine to crawl. The SEO game is finding a balance between design and SEO functionality/friendliness. Unfortunately, out of the tens of thousands of SEO firms in the country, I'd say less than 10% perform well. Fyi, in my professional opinion (I work as an SEO consultant for an SEO firm), I would never work with a small firm or individual if you are trying to rank high for head terms such as shirts, tshirts, etc. Having a dedicated team is the way to go. Unfortunately, for excellent SEO, it will cost you several thousand dollars a month.


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## TripleT (Apr 29, 2007)

I know this is an old thread, but since its been brought back to life (and it's a good topic), let me add my 2 cents.

A tag like: each shirt is guaranteed to have two sleeves - may be a funny line, but that is not selling benefits. 

If anyone is interested in the technique of selling benefits for T-shirts, read what Heath wrote above. That's an excellent example of the concept.

By the way, a lot of members post comments like - "I don't want to sound like a salesman..." But if that's how you feel, you have completely missed the boat. This is business and you are a salesman whether you know it or not.


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## billm75 (Feb 15, 2007)

daveM said:


> If I were in charge of designing a 'funny tshirt sales' site, I would write up the benefits in an obvious and humorous way. I mean, you know, they are just tee shirts after all, pretty much every one gets the benefits of them. (Other than pointing out pricing benefits of yours, over your competitors or such details -- of course I am assuming youre selling the same brand of tees, just w/ diff designs, as 1000s of other sites are, and NOT making your own)
> 
> It's not like you are trying to upsell someone from a hyundai to a Bentley where it requires a few hours of conversation and sales BS.
> 
> ...


 

Dave, I like the sales pitches you have there....can I borrow one or two?


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

TripleT said:


> By the way, a lot of members post comments like - "I don't want to sound like a salesman..." But if that's how you feel, you have completely missed the boat.


I completely disagree. When people say things like that, the key thing they're saying is "I don't want to *sound like* a salesman", not "I don't want to *be* a salesman".

As most marketing books cover, each generation is more and more immune to marketing. Having grown up with it, they can spot (and reject) shonky marketing a mile off. Make no mistake, this *is* a generational issue. With many customers if you *sound like* a salesman, you will fail. And feel dirty inside - no-one wants to feel like a hypocrite, so many people don't want to sell in a way they'd hate to be sold to.

The key to selling is to do something that works - considerably easier said than done. Personally I think part of that is staying true to yourself, and not selling in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable. That discomfort probably indicates you're being inauthentic, which isn't a recipe for success.

The fact is different techniques will work for different people, but just as it's difficult to sell a product you don't believe in, it's difficult to sell a product in a _way_ you don't believe in.


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## CUSTOM UK (Jun 28, 2008)

Hi. You are selling tees that amuse Mike. The *feature* is that they are amusing. The *benefit* of amusement is that it brings smiles to people's withered faces and introduces a feel good factor. 

I honestly cannot think of a better benefit in a product than to make people smile and feel happy.

If you *must* add a verbal benefit, go for "all our tees look great with beer and pizza stains".


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## TripleT (Apr 29, 2007)

Solmu said:


> I completely disagree. When people say things like that, the key thing they're saying is "I don't want to *sound like* a salesman", not "I don't want to *be* a salesman".
> 
> As most marketing books cover, each generation is more and more immune to marketing. Having grown up with it, they can spot (and reject) shonky marketing a mile off. Make no mistake, this *is* a generational issue. With many customers if you *sound like* a salesman, you will fail. And feel dirty inside - no-one wants to feel like a hypocrite, so many people don't want to sell in a way they'd hate to be sold to.
> 
> ...


 
Hi, Lewis - Perhaps we're trying to say the same thing.

Of course, "shonky marketing" is not the way to go. And if you're saying things that make you feel "uncomfortable" or "dirty inside," you are a very poor salesperson in deed.

I'm sure the vast majority of members on the Forum believe in their products - so that is not an issue - so, the real question is: what are some ethical sales techniques we can use to take us to the next level of "salesmanship"?

The OP's question about the technique of selling benefits not features hits that point home - and it is a classic sales approach - which, no doubt, many members have never even heard of before.

There are some great sale tags and some funny lines on this thread (all good), but Heath (IMHO) really explained this proven technique beautifully. 

His comment, "Which means..." is a simple phrase which will increase the impact of the presentation without making anyone feel like a "hypocrite."

Here's a link to a short article on what it really means to be a true salesperson. There's no need to, "sell in a way (you'd) hate to be sold to."


The Ultimate Sales Skill - SalesLinks Bulletin from Mentor Associates Sales Training


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