If you’re planning to write the copy for your own website, knowing the real difference between features and benefits is critical.

There are millions of websites out there that get this wrong, and lose online sales as a result.

In this article I’ll explain the difference in more detail as well as show you some examples.

Before I go into how benefits and features are different, I think it’s important to mention first that benefits are what help to sell products.

Now, what is the different between a feature and a benefit?

Well, put simply, a feature is a physical characteristic of a product or service.

A benefit is something useful a product or service can deliver to the end user.

When writing for your website, you need to think about how you can get across your features and benefits. Many people confuse the two, and the end result is a customer left asking themselves ‘so what?’

The ‘so what?’ test is a very useful tool, as I’ll demonstrate below.

Feature: Our new vacuum cleaner has our unique RP-80 filtering system.

So what?

Benefit:

You save money by replacing the filter less often.

You can see how the benefit is much more powerful than the feature. This can work for services too, as in the example below.

Feature: Our removals team has a wealth of experience.

So what?

Benefit: Your house move will be quick and hassle-free.

The key to writing your own website copy is to implement the ‘so what?’ test and concentrate on your target customers rather than your company.

Why it matters

Before anyone parts with their money for a product or service they understandably want to know what’s in it for them i.e. what are the benefits?

Listing the features of your products/services is likely to lead to the ‘so what?’ question popping up, especially if you use jargon like in the first example above.

Features tell | Benefits sell.

Take a look at your own website text now to see if it could be improved by having a few more benefits listed.

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When you send out a promotional email campaign or company newsletter, how much time do you spend working on your subject line?

Savvy email marketers know this is the most important part. If you treat your subject line as an afterthought, your efforts could be completely wasted.

Find out more about why your email subject lines matters by reading the rest of this article now.

• Your subject line is your two second pitch

When an email lands in someone’s inbox, you’ve got a couple of seconds to grab their attention and make them want to read on.

Too many small businesses use the subject line for the hard sell i.e. “Buy today to save 20%”. This might create a little bit of interest, but it’s clearly a sales email and also isn’t very specific.

Your subject line should be carefully crafted to make people want to open your email; that’s it. Then once they start to read it, you can give more details about what you’re offering.

• The wrong words can get your emails binned before they’re even seen

Email spam filters are getting more and more sophisticated all the time. Certain words are more likely to trigger your message getting filtered out. These include ‘free’, ‘credit’, ‘cash’, ‘opportunity’ and many more. You can find a list of these here.

• You’re competing against hundreds of other messages

Another reason your email subject line is so important is because of the sheer volume of other messages people are subjected to online and offline every day.

Taking the time over your subject line is essential if you really want it to stand out and get read. By using humour or a question for example, you can get people to stop and click to find out more.

• Email marketing is a cost effective way to get new and repeat business

Every hastily written email subject line is a wasted opportunity. Whether your message gets caught by a spam filter or is deleted without being read, the end result is the same; no sale.

Email marketing is a great way to gain new orders without spending a fortune and the first stage to this being successful is writing a winning subject line.

If you liked this article you may also want to read: The 7 deadly sins of email marketing

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When you’re selling a product online, one thing’s for sure; you’ll have plenty of competitors.

Working out a strategy for how to add value to your offering can stop you getting dragged into a good old fashioned price war, where only the customer wins.

Find out more about the ways you can give your customers more without slashing your ticket prices.

• Offer a guarantee

If you’re competing with other websites on a similar product range, offering a guarantee may help you stand out. For example, if a rival site has the same item as you that’s £5 cheaper but has no guarantee, many potential customers will feel it’s worth paying extra for the peace of mind you’re offering.

• Provide more delivery options

Convenience can also help you triumph over cheaper pricing. Let’s say you’re selling golf balls online. A competitor may charge more than you for delivery and also have a longer delivery period. If you can provide free or very cheap and fast delivery, people may choose you instead as it’s more convenient.

Also, some people may not be in a rush for their new golf balls and this is where extra options come into play. For example, you could charge £5 for next day deliver while giving the option for free delivery if they’re happy to wait 5-7 days.

• Make product reviews and testimonials more visible

People are always looking for bargains, but sometimes a very cheap price can create suspicion. If someone is looking at a site with great prices but no product reviews or testimonials, the lack of trust may put them off.

On the flip side, if your site has user generated product reviews and customer testimonials, people may be happier to pay a bit more.

• Give away something for free with a perceived value

Depending on what you’re selling, you may be able to give something extra with your orders without affecting your bottom line.

An example of this would be an online retailer giving away a free pair of gloves with every order of a high value winter jacket. The actual cost to the company for each pair of gloves given away may be very small, but in the eyes of the customer, they’re getting something useful which could sway their decision on who to buy from.

• Offer a better returns policy

The ease of returning items bought online is a big issue for many people. Take a look at your competitors to see what returns policy they’re providing.

By offering a better policy to the consumer and making this clearly visible on your site, you can inspire confidence that negates any difference in price.

If you liked this article you may also want to read: Why a shipping policy is so important for e-commerce websites.

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Occasionally I like to do a round-up of some of the many great online marketing blog posts that I’ve read.

This week in particular, there were many great articles, so I thought I’d share some of them with you.

In no particular order, here are my top seven posts of the week.

How to Make Your Google+ Page Soar – Kevin K. Lau http://kevinklau.com/social-media-marketing-networks-how-to-make-your-google-page-soar/

12 Warning Signs it’s Time to Invest in a Professional Website Design – Ricardo Bueno  http://www.ricardobueno.com/design-warning-signs/

Are You Making These 3 Pay-per-Click Advertising Mistakes? – WordStream http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2012/02/07/pay-per-click-advertising-mistakes

How SEO Evolved in January 2012 – Attacat http://www.attacat.co.uk/brain/seo-roundup-jan-2012#axzz1lmoox38T

8 Quick Tips for Writing Bullet Points People Actually Want to Read – CopyBlogger http://www.copyblogger.com/writing-bullet-points/

12 Most Effective Ways to Engage on Twitter – OpenForum.com http://www.openforum.com/articles/12-most-effective-ways-to-engage-on-twitter?extlink=em-openf-SBdaily

Have you read any other great blog posts this week about online marketing? Please share the links below.

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It’s one thing having a company blog, but quite another to maintain it.

The day-to-day running of your business can often wipe out your good blogging intentions. However, you need to be aware of these five big blogging turn-offs that will have visitors fleeing your site in their droves.

• Having too many adverts

Having too many adverts on your blog is not only bad for the people who want to read your content; it’s now also damaging for your search engine rankings. See http://searchengineland.com/too-many-ads-above-the-fold-now-penalized-by-googles-page-layout-algo-108613 to find out more.

Why would you go to all the trouble of creating compelling blog posts to then give people the opportunity to leave your site as soon as they find it?

• Rambling posts or rants

If you want to have a rant about a difficult customer or supplier, your company blog is not the best place to do it.

Equally, if you have no clear idea in mind for a blog post, don’t write one. A poorly structured post without any real point will definitely turn people off and reflect badly on your business.

• A weak headline

Poor headlines for your blog posts can also result in nobody bothering to read them. A wishy-washy title such as “What’s been happening this week” is hardly going to make yours stand out when you post a link to it on Twitter or Facebook.

It’s definitely worth taking the time to come up with a title that creates curiosity, grabs attention or makes people laugh.

• Posting when you can be bothered

I’m all too aware how much time running your own business can take up. However, posting a new blog when you can be bothered and then leaving a two month gap isn’t going to win you any fans.

When you make a commitment to blogging, you need to stick to it. A long time ago, I decided I would post three new blogs every week and barring the odd occasion, I’ve stuck to the task.

If you want people to return to your blog again and again, you need to give them something new to read on a regular basis.

• Going off-topic

Let’s say you’re a landscape gardening company with a blog. It’s safe to say people will expect your articles to be about the work you do, suppliers, things happening in the industry etc.

If they arrive on your blog one day and find you’re latest post is about something unrelated such as where you went on holiday or how happy you were to secure tickets for the Olympics, they’re likely to be confused and disappointed.

What other things turn you off reading blogs? Please leave your comments below.

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Selling goods online through an e-commerce website can be a struggle, for many different reasons.

In this article I’ll look at why a transparent and easily accessible shipping policy is so important.

• Building trust

People are naturally suspicious when shopping online and it’s your website’s job to reassure them. Having a clear shipping policy will play a part in people trusting your site and convincing them they are actually going to get what they’ve ordered.

If you don’t have any shipping policy or delivery details on your site, can you really expect people just to order and then hope it arrives soon after?

• Giving people options

When you’re selling online you should never assume that all customers are the same. Some people may want or expect the item to be sent out by next day delivery, while others may be happy to wait for a week.

The more shipping options you can give people the better, so they can choose what’s most convenient for them.

• Stops people wasting their time

It’s important to have your shipping policy on the main part of your site. People don’t want to have to register and go through the buying process only to find out you can’t deliver their item as quickly as they want it.

• To reduce complaints

A good shipping policy shouldn’t just have delivery methods. It should also contain estimated timescales, and what to do if a client wants to return an item, or how long to wait before getting in touch if an item hasn’t been delivered.

The vaguer your shipping policy is, the more likely you are to receive complaints when something goes wrong.

• Increase conversions

Generally speaking, the easier you can make the online buying process for people, the more likely they are to complete a purchase. Of course other factors come into play too such as pricing, photography and product descriptions, but assuming all that is okay, a watertight shipping policy could mean the difference between sales and abandoned shopping carts.

Have you had any experiences of bad shipping policies? Tell me about them in the comments below.

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If you’re one of the many small businesses out there struggling to make an impact on the web, you shouldn’t be afraid to go back to the drawing board.

I’ve seen individuals and companies wasting thousands of pounds on ineffective marketing and being too afraid to take a step back.

Find out the five main benefits of stopping all your online marketing so you can look at things from a fresh perspective.

• Save money

Whether you’re throwing cash at pay per click advertising or watching a monthly investment in link building producing no results, you need to stop.

When things are hard it can be easy to direct more money at a possible solution rather than examining why it’s not working.

In terms of PPC, you might be focusing on the wrong keywords. For link building, you might have chosen a company that doesn’t really know what they’re doing.

• Use your mistakes to your advantage

It’s not always easy to pinpoint exactly where your online marketing may be going wrong. Would you rather hire a reputable local expert or keep spending money and getting no return?

As an example, let’s say you’ve outsourced some link building work to an overseas company. They may have promised hundreds of high quality links for £100 per month, but are their promises too good to be true?

As with most things in life, you get what you pay for when it comes to online marketing. Don’t make the same mistake twice; take a step back and look at where you’re spending your money in more detail, and whether or not this has achieved the results you wanted.

• Adopt a clear strategy

Stopping what you’re doing in terms of online marketing, even for a short time, can help make things clearer.

Work out how much time you have, what online marketing channels have brought the best returns and what your monthly budget is.

A structured and focused approach is more likely to achieve the desired results rather than spending a bit of money on everything and hoping it somehow all comes together.

• Focus on the customer

It’s easy to get caught up in online marketing and forget about the most important thing; your customers.

Does your online marketing really reflect what your target customers are looking for? Are you visible in the places they are spending time online?

By taking everything right back to the start, you can research who your target market are, what makes them tick, where they hang out online, and then tailor your message accordingly.

If you liked this article you may also want to read: Haphazard marketing; are you preparing to fail online? 

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The majority of the small business owners I work with don’t use LinkedIn to its potential.

One of the things I try to encourage is the participation in groups related to their industry. These groups could be made up of people in the same industry, or potential clients you’d like to get to know better.

There are many reasons why this is a good idea. In the rest of this article, I’ll explain some of these in a bit more detail.

• Raise your profile at home and abroad

By taking part in popular LinkedIn groups for your industry, you can quickly and easily raise your profile and that of your company.

Things like answering other people’s questions and joining in with topical debates will get you noticed and help you engage with others.

• Share your expertise

As well as answering questions and sharing your opinions, LinkedIn groups are a good place to share links to your blog posts and company news.

Just make sure you don’t spam the groups you’re involved in as people will soon get fed up. Try to strike a good balance between helping people and sharing your own content.

• Look for new opportunities

In business you never know where an opportunity might spring from. Even being a member of LinkedIn groups with people who are your indirect competitors, you could benefit.

For example, if you’re a wedding photographer, there may be other photographers who’ve double booked, or are looking for expand and outsource work to photographers in other parts of the country.

• Create more traffic for your website

One of the positive by-products of contributing regularly to LinkedIn groups is that it could result in an increase in traffic to your website.

This traffic is also likely to be relevant and targeted as it’s come from a group that’s full of like-minded people.

• Identify potential suppliers

Many small business owners make the mistake of only thinking of LinkedIn groups as a way to generate new leads.

These groups can also be a great way to identify and find out more about potential suppliers, so it pays to check-in regularly.

Have you ever used LinkedIn groups?

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HootSuite is a very useful platform for managing your Twitter account.

It has a range of extra features and time saving applications that can help to enhance your social media presence.

Keep reading to discover why you should give two hoots about this handy online tool.

It’s worth noting that HootSuite can be used to manage Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks as well as Twitter.

HootSuite is not the only platform that does this; you may also want to check out TweetDeck. I’m using HootSuite as the example in this article, because it’s my favourite!

Useful HootSuite features

• Schedule your tweets

It’s not always possible to be in front of your computer or have time to tweet from your mobile. HootSuite allows you to schedule tweets in advance. So for example, if you’ve finished your latest blog post late one evening and are going to be out at meetings all the next day, you can make sure your content gets tweeted at an optimum time.

• Easily track mentions of your name

HootSuite also enables you to set up a stream showing any mentions of your Twitter username. This can be useful for monitoring what people are saying about you or alerting you to any questions people may have asked you directly.

• Set up streams for specific keywords and phrases

This feature is a good way to identify leads for your business. For example, if you’re an accountant, you may want to set up a stream for mentions of “accountant”, “accountancy” and “tax returns”.

This could alert you to people who are looking for your services on Twitter, You can then reply to them and possible pick up some new business.

• Create custom analytics reports

A lot of people think you shouldn’t track your return on investment on social media channels such as Twitter.

It’s always a good idea to see if what you’re doing is working. With HootSuite you can create custom analytics reports to monitor things such as any increase/decrease in your number of followers, who’s mentioning your name, and your most popular links and how many times they were clicked on.

• Manage multiple Twittter accounts at a glance

If you’ve got more than one Twitter account, HootSuite allows you to set up tabs so you can have all the relevant info you need for individual profiles and quickly jump between them. This saves you having to log in and out of Twitter every time you want to check a different account.

These are just some of HootSuite’s useful features. There is a free and pro version available, and I’d recommend any small business owner who’s not using it, to give it a try.

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I’ve seen tens of thousands of small business websites over the years and a large percentage of them have made the same mistake.

Keep reading to find out what it is and how you can fix it.

Okay, here it is; you’re trying to sell your service too hard on your website.

There’s a popular saying that people buy from people. That’s why I believe trying the hard sell on any service orientated website is a complete waste of time.

So what should you do instead?

• Sell a tailored approach

No matter what service you’re selling, your website should be more about how your expertise can provide a tailored solution to a problem, rather than your actual end product. This could apply to anything from website writing to monoblock driveways.

Encourage people to fill a form in on your contact page with a suitable time for you to call them. Show your potential clients you’re willing to do the groundwork to get their business, rather than just push your services down their throats via your website.

• Tone down your message

The choice of words on your website can make it seem like you’re trying the hard sell, or equally, inspire confidence in your potential clients.

A very simple tip is to banish the word “we” and use “you” more instead. This will appeal more to people reading your website pages and show them you’re not just focused in taking their money.

• Back up your approach with testimonials

Generally speaking, people don’t like being ‘sold to’. They’d much rather have a discussion and feel like they’re making the right decision based on your advice.

If you want to establish a reputation for being a company that listens rather than tells its clients what to do, you can reinforce this through the use of testimonials on your site.

As well as having a dedicated testimonials page on your website, it’s also a good idea to have one featured on each page.

If you’re selling a service online, take a look at your website now to see if any of these tips can help.

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