F-A-B SELLING! (Features, Advantages And Benefits) What Are They And How Are They Different?

Let's be blunt: most prospects are not necessarily any more interested in your product or service per se than you are in Bulgarian politics - until, that is, one of them has a tangible impact on either of your lives: the point is not to concentrate on the features to such an extent that you neglect to translate them into buying motives.

Nevertheless, it's good to have a clear understanding the differences between features, advantages and benefits.

Features are the set, objective facts or characteristics of your product or service that remain the same whether the prospect buys or not.

F-A-B SELLING! (Features, Advantages And Benefits) What Are They And How Are They Different?

Advantages are statements about what product or service can do or the function it performs but, as they are not directly linked to a specific customer need, they are far from being the whole story.

Benefits are statements which explicitly demonstrate how your products or service meets the needs of the prospect -describe the individual value the advantage has for this particular prospect as defined by his unique goals and priorities. The key is to focus on the selected features that offer a clear advantage to your prospect and link them his objectives, making the benefits crystal clear.

The more you can personalise the 'benefit' to appeal to your customer and tailor your message so it relates to his explicit needs, the more powerful the sales pitch. Get to your customer's needs directly by asking questions about their problems, probing the potential effects and implications of using (or not) your product or service - which benefits are they looking for specifically?
This will allow you to step into the prospect's shoes and gain insight into his specific, explicit needs and those areas that would produce genuine benefit -ask yourself as the client what's in it for me? The focus of your communication should be on how your product or service can solve, address or improve on the areas of difficulty that the prospect outlined.

Your customers might want to know features, so that they can see what's included in the price, but it's the benefits that actually sell your product or service. Develop every product feature into a tangible benefit, an end result that satisfies a customer problem or need.

Top Tips

o Feature and advantage statements are useful in selling low value or transactional products/services, but ineffective with high value, complex sales.

o Benefit statements have a positively impact on the outcome of high value, complex sales.

o Only benefit statements which are directly relevant to the customer are of value.

o Benefit statements must address a specific need to be of value.

o The four types of benefits are: productivity gains, increasing revenue; reducing costs and enhancing image.

F-A-B SELLING! (Features, Advantages And Benefits) What Are They And How Are They Different?
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Article written by Juliette Denny at the http://www.sales-development-zone.co.uk

Internet Promotion - Advantages and Disadvantages

The emergence of globalise trade, increase in foreign investment and cross-border transactions have put many small businesses under pressure to find innovative ways to continue to market their products and services. This is especially difficult given that they often operate on tight marketing budgets.

In the quest for cheap marketing alternatives, these small businesses continue to use conventional marketing tools such as newspaper, magazine, radio and television advertisements, unaware of the advantages that Internet Promotion offers. All too often, these entrepreneurs focus on the disadvantages of Internet Promotion and fail to adequately take advantage of the opportunities that it presents. Moreover, their preoccupation with conventional marketing strategies is driven by a misconception that these are cheaper than Internet Promotion.

To most small business entrepreneurs, marketing or promoting their products or services via the Internet can be a daunting task. However, with adequate information small businesses can benefit significantly from Internet Promotion while minimising the disadvantages that it presents. In fact, it may prove to be the marketing strategy that generates the highest return on investment.

Internet Promotion - Advantages and Disadvantages

The Advantages

Cost Effective and Enduring Marketing Strategies

The Internet has become the information superhighway for the buying public. Most persons prefer the hassle free transactions that Internet shopping can offer. As a result, the Internet has become the most powerful selling tool. Internet Promotion offers cost effective ways for small businesses to enhance their product or service distribution networks. For example, the use of portals can help create new marketing channels and logistics, or provide better or faster product access for customers.

In comparison to other forms of marketing, Internet Promotion presents the advantage of reduced budget and storage costs, when compared with printing brochures, producing television or radio advertisements or managing a call centre. It presents a fast and cost effective option for penetrating new markets.

Market Penetration

With millions of person using the Internet to search for products and services, small businesses can penetrate other markets at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing methods.

Websites act as virtual storefronts, allowing businesses to stay open 24/7. Internet Promotion gives a business greater visibility, thereby creating more opportunities for increasing its customers at relatively low cost. Never before has it been easier for an upstart business to be able to reach out to literally millions of potential customers and to position themselves for success, without the need for costly infrastructure and overwhelming marketing costs. Thanks to the Internet, new businesses can become popular almost overnight.

Low Cost, Instant Communication

Email makes business communications instant, whether the customer or business affiliate is across the street or across the globe. It makes it easier for customers to maintain contact and readily facilitates repeat purchasing. An effective online strategy can therefore turn a small web business into a virtual cost saver and income-generating machine. The net result is that the small business can gain significant competitive advantage in a given market.

Many online businesses have therefore resorted to the use of ezines, blogs, pop-up ads and other online marketing tools to let customers know about new products or services as well as provide information relevant to their respective industry. The benefits of this strategy are two fold. Marketers can effectively heighten brand awareness for relatively new products on the market whilst strengthening customer relationships, with shorter time frames.

Content is Timeless

Internet Promotion also provides the advantage of being enduring. Whereas participation at a trade fair or conference loses sales impact, once it is over, and an advertisement in a newspaper or business magazine may quickly lose its sales generating value within a day or two or as soon as the next issue is released; Internet Promotion is often timeless. Apart from the dates and sometimes prices, much of your website content remains valid years after.

Real Time Statistics For Measuring Success of Promotion Campaign

One of the most significant advantages of Internet Promotion is that its success is measurable. Marketers can use tools that provide real time statistics, on unique visitors, repeat visitors, click through rates (CTR) on advertisements, thereby allowing them to evaluate the effectiveness of a promotion campaign. This enables marketers to determine what works for their particular market and to make timely changes in their marketing strategies.

Time Saving

Another important advantage of Internet Promotion is that it saves time since it generally does away with counselling on product uses and benefits, service information and sales administration. Visitors can access "frequently asked questions" to help themselves, and can buy online, without the involvement of staff. This saves time and money. So, whether 10 or 10,000 visitors visit the site, the increased cost is marginal whilst the savings can be immense.

But like any business approach, Internet Promotion is not without its risks and weaknesses.

Disadvantages

Difficulty in Attracting Customers

Small business may not have the resources to pay for paid directory inclusion, pay per click inclusions and often have to rely solely on search engine optimisation or word of mouth to drive traffic to their sites. With millions of businesses selling the same product and services, competing with more established businesses can be frustrating and costly venture for small business.

On the other hand, larger companies can offer promotions, pay for directory inclusions, implement pay per click campaigns as well as employ the "who is who" in internet marketing to develop campaigns that generate traffic and leads.

Difficulty in Evaluating Legitimacy of Transaction

Another notable disadvantage of doing promoting businesses online is that it may be difficult for the businesspersons and consumers to thoroughly evaluate the legitimacy of a transaction. Small businesses are particularly vulnerable to thieves using stolen credit cards and stolen information to do online transaction.

With Internet credit card and identity fraud on the rise, small businesses are forced to finance costly security measures to reduce their vulnerability to fraudulent transactions.

Salespersons and Customers are Isolated

Another disadvantage of promotion via the Internet is that the customers and businesspersons are isolated. There is little personal contact between customer and salesperson prior to and after the sales is closed. Thus, the prospect for repeat sales may thus be diminished. Entrepreneurs are therefore compelled to adopt marketing strategies to drive online users back to their site.

From all indications, it appears that the advantages of Internet promotion, far exceed the disadvantages. With adequate knowledge, entrepreneur can benefit significantly from Internet promotion, especially small business owners.

More and more, the growth and outreach of the Internet's, its ease and accessibility for customers is becoming inevitable. Small business would therefore be well advised to start their web advertising function in order to improve their competitiveness online.

Internet Promotion - Advantages and Disadvantages
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Carla Lendor has been involved in Internet Marketing from 2000. She is a co-publisher of eXplosion!, a newsletter which offers guidance to small online businesses. She is the co-founder of Caricom Single Market Economy, a blog with discusses the challenges faced by Caribbean businesses in the CSME. Visit Patant Consultants International or Caribbean Vacation Resorts [http://www.jewelsinthesun.com/] for more information.