If you’ve never written a sales page, it can be confusing and even overwhelming to understand all the components that make up a successful one. A few of the things you might find on a sales page include headlines, calls to action, bullet points, testimonials, and guarantees. But that’s not a complete list for creating your sales-generating sales page.
Features vs. Benefits
Often, it’s one particular sales page component that confuses and frustrates newbies and sometimes even seasoned copywriters. That’s the not-always-obvious features and benefits section on the sales page.
Let’s look at an example to point out the difference between the features and the benefits of a new coaching product that you just created. If you want to share all the great things about your brand new coaching program, you might include phrases such as:
- 6-week self-study course
- Includes workbooks and live training
- Members’ only discounts
While these are all good points, they’re pretty ho-hum. That’s because they’re features, not benefits. They tell us about the program but not why we should buy it.
The ‘So What’ Question
Benefits, on the other hand, answer the question “so what” when asked of the features.
“6-week self-study course.” So what? Why should your reader care about this feature?
- Because she’s busy and needs to work on her own schedule, not yours.
- Because she’s already studied shorter, less comprehensive courses and needs more in-depth information.
- Because she prefers to learn on her own, not in a group.
“Includes workbooks and live training.” So what? What are the benefits of these features–workbooks and live training?
- Your student can put what she learns into action using workbooks.
- She can get her specific questions answered during live training.
- She can work through complex issues with the help of the group.
As you can see, benefits go much further than simple attributes, such as length and format. They show your prospective client not only what’s in the program, but why the product is exactly right for her, at this specific moment in her life and career.
Features and Benefits Together
Features and benefits work together in sales copy as two halves of a statement, like this:
“6-week self-study course so you can learn at your own pace when it’s convenient for you.”
In fact, this powerful feature/benefit combo is often the basis for the bullet points you see in sales copy, and the format of them makes them easy to write, too.
The ‘Why Behind The Why’ Question
Wanna learn a huge copywriting secret that will help you discover the benefits of your new product or course? Simply list all the features of your product, then for each one, ask yourself “Why?” Why should the reader care?
But don’t stop there. Dig deeper to uncover “the why behind the why” and you’ll soon be crafting truly irresistible sales pages that convert far better than you ever dreamed.
In the example above, the why behind the why might be, “so you don’t have to spend precious family time on webinars that have been scheduled to benefit someone else.”
Now, not only is your prospective client working at her own pace, but she’s also freeing up time to spend with her family since she gets to pick the time she’s doing the course work. That’s a great benefit she won’t find with a lot of other courses.
People Buy Benefits
It’s easy to list all the features of your product or coaching program, but far more difficult to uncover the benefits that will drive sales. When you truly understand the difference though, it becomes easier to spot the benefits. And since people don’t really buy products or services–what they actually buy are the benefits, once you make this shift in your copywriting to highlight the benefits, your sales pages will convert more easily.
Money-Making Sales Pages
If you want to easily understand all the components of money making sales pages and quickly set up one in a weekend, there is a fantastic resource over at Coach Glue.
Not only can you use this planner to build your own sales pages, but you can also customize it, brand it and actually sell it to your readers if they also write sales pages. That’s because the planner comes with a license that allows editing, branding and monetizing. So this is a resource that potentially could even pay for itself!
Too many coaches find themselves stuck when it comes to writing sales pages. Understanding the difference between features and benefits is one of the biggest game changers in creating an effective, money-making sales page.
Now that you understand the difference between features and benefits, grab the planner and don’t let the fear of creating sales pages hold you back anymore.
*This content contains affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy on our Legal Stuff page.