FREE is not a Benefit

It’s a feature. We think it’s a benefit because we know what we offer has value. It benefits from our experience and it’s designed to get someone to act on something. Yet our prospects and users have not discovered any of that yet.

You are all familiar with the definitions of features -– a product’s or service characteristics, which are you (read: company)-centered –- and benefits –- what your client, user, partner gets from using your product and engaging your service.

When you say that something is free, you associate that in your mind with a benefit. Why is free a feature instead? It is something you chose to give away, and which the prospect has no idea they need or want. As such, you designed it as the simplest, less time consuming, most canned thing you could do to get someone to sample your product and service.

This is not to take away from the value of what you offer. If you pause and think for a moment, how many times have you attended a free seminar that was designed to get you to buy something? In fact, it was probably designed for everyone in that room to buy something. And here’s the rub: it is by virtue of ease, the most universally applicable thing we could thing about.

But is it the most useful for your audience? For the prospect, user, and client, free is a gift, and as such it becomes a benefit only when it is used, learned, put into practice, and provides results. Yes, even the free books you may receive will not do you any good until you read them and put them into practice.

Free is designed to get people into the conversation, yet if the conversation is about your product and service and not about their problem and need, it remains a feature and never becomes a benefit. I will gladly try this and that, yet that doesn’t mean I will purchase your item or avail myself of your services.

Only when what is offered is an experience that truly speaks to your prospect and user’s needs and wants, you begin to convert free from feature to benefit. It’s interesting to note that in Italian free is gratis (from Lat. variation of gratiis, out of kindness, orig. ablative plural of gratia, which means favor).

So here’s my question to you. What can you do today to make a sampling of what you do go from free as feature to a benefit in your prospects’ minds?

Comments

[Mark Howell]

I think a lot of times we don't work hard enough in the opening moments of designing the seminar to drill down and make this distinction. Isn't it interesting that when we aren't clear on the difference between a feature and a benefit is when we're most likely to initiate an unsuccessful venture.

Interesting post! Thanks.

[Joe Raasch]

Appears this is where the "there is no free lunch" saying comes from. I hear 'free' and my bias is, "No, not free. I am giving up time, effort, opportunity...something...for...?"

When we have our client's best interest at heart...when our intention is to be of assistance in solving their problems and making their dreams come true, our product/service becomes a benefit.

Clients pay for value - possibly the explanation for a resurgence of luxury brands. The profit-minded part of me says, "Hey, we can charge for a benefit!"

[Jay Ferrari]

Grasping the feature/benefit distinction was a recent personal challenge. After a half-dozen years as a newspaper feature writer (there's a tell) the shift to concentrating on benefits took plenty of effort. Once you push past that threshold, however, recognizing benefits becomes easy -- though you still need the features as your point of departure. Clients often show up excited about the products or services they want to market -- and are incredibly proud of their features. Getting them to see through the eyes of their customers, and understand the impact benefit-based messaging has is always a cathartic moment. Using "free" as a point of departure works well. Hell, traffic jams, headaches, and visiting in-laws are all "free", but that's never helped sell me on wanting more.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Mark -- it is easy to get excited about our product and service and forget how the customer will be seeing it, and us.

Joe -- that is the world according to us. What does our customer see? What do they feel?

Jay -- yes, let's get us all in the conversation and then we can take a look at the product and service. As you point out, there are many free things people do not want, even at that price.

[Dawud Miracle]

Valeria, great post. It keeps reminding me that as a business owner I need to constantly look at everything I offer from the perspective of my target audience. Free is a benefit to me, but not to my audience - and you help to make that clearer for me. Thanks.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Dawud:

Even terminology is important. I stopped thinking about people as audience and target. If we're expansive, they will be too. Have you ever noticed that you like instantly people who seem to like you?

Maybe use partner and exchange as mental reminders. Words matter. Think about your name, isn't it fabulous to be called Miracle?

[Dawud Miracle]

Thanks Valeria. I guess I don't think much about my name anymore since I've lived with it my whole life. But it is pretty neat.

I hear you on words. I'm big with semantics - so much so that I can irritate my wife with it. So it's funny you mention about audience or target. Those phrases, and all their cousins, have felt hollow to me for a long time. I guess I just haven't found the terms I like that also clearly convey to people what I'm referring too. Interesting thing to consider. Thanks for bringing it up.