Writing tip - stress the benefits, not the features

When writing content that needs to be persuasive (whether that's to encourage a purchase, sign up for a course, attend a lecture, etc) it's important to appeal to the emotions of your reader. You need to be answering the question "What's in it for me?", by telling your readers how they will benefit, rather than just listing features.

Think of a glass of water - you could describe it in terms of features (wet, cold, transparent) or benefits (thirst-quenching, refeshing, healthy). What sounds more appealing?

The Apple website is an excellent example of benefits over features. Although they produce electronic gadgets which by their very nature are packed with features, the main focus of the site is about the benefits for the purchaser. The iPhone and iPod pages are all about benefits: you can take your whole music library with you, keep up to date with your friends by being able to use Facebook anywhere, find a nearby restaurant when you've got a pizza craving, etc.

The specific details of the features are all there too (you need to be able to back up any benefits you claim) but that's not the first thing you see. If I really want to know, I can look at the technical specifications page to find out that it has a 480 by 320 pixel screen with 163 pixel per inch resolution, but most people won't know or care what that means - they want to know the benefit: that their photos will look fantastic.

Even something as dull as a wireless keyboard can sound more exciting when you focus on the benefits (your desk will be clutter-free) rather than the features (it uses Bluetooth to connect to your computer wirelessly).

If you only focus on features, you risk two things:

• Your audience might not make the leap from the feature to how they will benefit from them, especially if the features are technical or use a lot of jargon.
• They might make the leap, but you've now given them an extra uncessary step of making the mental connection between the features and what's in it for them - you've made them think.

So how are you selling your department / course / college? Are you stating the benefits or just the features?

Learn more

Interested in learning about writing effective web content? Come along to one of our Writing for the Web sessions on 30 April or 24 May 2010 for more practical tips.