{"id":1015,"date":"2015-10-08T14:34:01","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T14:34:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/?p=1015"},"modified":"2025-01-21T10:28:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T09:28:19","slug":"features-vs-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/features-vs-benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"Features vs. Benefits \u2013 How to Present Your Product in a Cold Email?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve been talking with our users<\/a>\u00a0about the copy of their emails. It seems like they often struggle to tell the difference between the feature of their product, and the benefit this feature will bring to their potential client. Or rather, they feel like writing about features will automatically make the prospect think about benefits \u2013 just like they do when they write about their product.<\/p>\n

Well, the problem is the prospects, especially in outbound sales, often do not have that special ability to see the benefits while reading about features. That\u2019s why it\u2019s important we talk benefits instead of features when communicating with our potential customers. Here\u2019s how to learn the difference between the features and benefits and how to write about benefits instead of features in your cold email<\/a> pitch.<\/p>\n

Our perspective vs. prospect\u2019s perspective<\/h2>\n

If we want to write awesome cold emails, the first difficult thing we have to\u00a0learn is to see through our prospect\u2019s eyes. This will allow us to understand their pain points and needs \u2013 which is the key to discover possible benefits our product or service can bring them.<\/p>\n

The second thing we\u00a0need to learn is understanding our addressees. We need to imagine what they think and feel when they read an email we sent them. That\u2019s the reason why we carry out research on our prospect group \u2013 to understand them better even before we start communicating.<\/p>\n

So here’s what we usually do:<\/h4>\n
    \n
  1. We do some\u00a0research<\/a> of our prospect group.<\/li>\n
  2. We write a nicely personalized and customized intro<\/a> of our cold email, on the basis of our research.<\/li>\n
  3. We write a pitch<\/a> that is basically a fixed list of our product’s features, and it’s the same for each of our prospect groups.<\/li>\n
  4. Our prospects get the email, open it, read the intro \u2013\u00a0because it’s about them, and they like reading about themsleves, like we all do.<\/li>\n
  5. Because they like what they’re reading, they go\u00a0on and what they suddenly come across is a list of features they cannot refer to whatsoever. That’s when they lose their interest.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If our pitch\u00a0is fixed, i.e.\u00a0we don\u2019t have to change anything to send it to different groups of prospects, it means it is not customized enough, and it probably means that in such an email, we focus too much on ourselves and our product instead of focusing on our prospect and on the\u00a0exact problem our product solves for them.<\/p>\n

    Example<\/h3>\n

    Just to make sure that the above doesn\u2019t sound like theoretical mumbling, let\u2019s take an example. Say we\u2019re selling a newest digital imaging software. We want to reach out to different companies who could make a good use of our product. As a result of our research, we choose two prospect groups:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. photographic studios<\/li>\n
    2. digital marketing agencies<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      We figure both of those groups could use our software to professionally process pictures. And we know that our software allows to do it better, faster, and cheaper than the popular pieces of software of the same type.<\/p>\n

      So what do we write about in our email?<\/h4>\n

      First of all, we would probably come up with a nicely customized and personalized intro, adjusted to the two groups of prospects separately, or perhaps even more specifically customized to additional subsegments.<\/p>\n

      So far so good. The next step is the pitch. And that’s the tricky part.<\/h4>\n

      Because we’ve just written a well-personalized intro, we feel like we’ve done our job paying attention to our prospect. So we think to ourselves, ‘OK the first part was about them, now it’s going to be about us. After all, we’ve got to tell them what we are all about’.<\/p>\n

      So our pitch goes\u00a0like this:<\/p>\n

      We\u2019ve came up with a digital imaging software that makes processing photos faster. It offers a full range of functions within a simple interface.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      Now, what do you think of this pitch? Is it about features or about benefits?<\/p>\n

      Dividing the pitch into pieces<\/h2>\n

      We’re still on the same example of a pitch. Let’s see step by step what it actually says about what we offer:<\/p>\n