4 ms·

It's not perfect though. If you make a brochure full of quarter-inch holes, a customer still won't buy your bits. I think in one of the two Steve Jobs movies t

by erikb 9y ago

It's not perfect though. If you make a brochure full of quarter-inch holes, a customer still won't buy your bits. I think in one of the two Steve Jobs movies the Pepsi guy explained it quite well: He shows how people open a Pepsi, drink it, and then feel whatever is important to them. What you need to do is actually present your features, but in a way that the customer believes he can achieve his benefits easily with it. Of course to be able to do that, you first need to understand the benefits the customer cares about. 1. present technical features -> be seen as weird nerd. 2. present benefits -> be seen as glitchy sales guy. 3. present features that let customer think about benefits -> sell products.

chii 9y ago
> 3. present features that let customer think about benefits -> sell products. i.e., manipulate them psychologically to believe that the product is very suitable (when in reality, it may be a piece of shit).
myYCaccout 9y ago
> 3. present features that let customer think about benefits -> sell products. I see this trend and it actually makes me furious. If I want to buy a GPU, I want to see the stats and how it compares to other products, not how many headshots i can make with that particular GPU. I'll see these ads on billboards, on tv etc and think of the greasy marketing people that want to trick me into buying their stuff. If the ads are to obnoxious I'll actually make an effort to avoid that brand ( looking at you Apple and Coca-Cola)
- erikb 9y ago
  Yeah, a GPU producer advertising to you should not list the headshots (benefits) but present its stats (features) in a way that you can consider yourself which benefits you gain from buying it.
- i_cant_speel 9y ago
  I honestly feel like Pepsi and GPUs fall into different categories. With Pepsi, the customer usually already knows what it does for you so explaining the benefits isn't as important. So instead do telling customers what they already know, they associated good feelings with their product. A GPU is different in that different GPUs perform significantly differently so explaining the stats is much more important to a buyer.
  - pm24601 9y ago
    > With Pepsi, the customer usually already knows what it does for you ... make you fat? (I love pepsi :-) )
- icebraining 9y ago
  Arguably, that's not a problem with the type of marketing, it's just that they shouldn't be showing them to you, but to people who don't know that a new GPU can improve their gaming experience. It's one of the most annoying things with ad targeting: even if you let them spy on your whole life, it's still so fucking terrible at actually showing relevant ads.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- rocqua 9y ago
  You show the benefits to convince someone they need a product of this kind. Then, for the discerning customer, you show features to convince them they need your specific product.
- akvadrako 9y ago
  I would call this a mix of consumerism and marketing failures. People used to buy CPUs based on how many Mhz they advertised, but Mhz is just a proxy for what you really care about: performance. This resulted in sub-optimal CPUs like the Pentium 4. At the same time, I don't see why anyone would trust a "headshot" benchmark; that seems too subjective. For gaming, consistently high frame-rates of accurately rendered scenes might be a goal; GFLOPS is just a proxy.
- r00fus 9y ago
  GPU vendors presumably should have game titles that are co-promoted so a prospective customer would know that a) they'll want a good GPU for game/title and b) if they buy this GPU they can expect baseline usability for a that game or game-equivalents. Why else does someone buy a GPU? Given the niche market, the generic consumer positioning may not make as much sense.
- webnrrd2k 9y ago
  I'm not a marketer, but I think there are some important differences worth examining here... First, there is clearly a big difference between marketing to a technical crowd like HN, and marketing to the general public. Also, marketing products that are 99.9% similar will probably be bused on non-technical features exactly because the products are so similar. Also, I think benefits are more broad and emotional. For example, a lot of auto ads are clearly about how a certain car will, for example, get you laid. Or at least get you an attractive female companion. that's the benefit. Not that it is more reliable, or scores higher in Consumer Reports ratings. The HN crowd is more technical, so puts more value in Consumer Reports ratings, but many people don't actually care. They may think they do, but, when it comes to actually spending money, they don't.
dade_ 9y ago
3. Present (business) outcomes. It depends on who you are working with and all three approaches can be appropriate for a single deal, but varies based on the audience. Generally I see technical salespeople that refuse to think beyond specs, and sales that get trained on business outcomes and can't shutup about KPIs and NPVs to a technical buyer. It is painful on all sides these days.
hunterjrj 9y ago
"A thousand songs in your pocket"
- erikb 9y ago
  Which lets you think about listening all songs you like wherever you go. The benefit is listening to your songs. "1000 songs" is a feature (size) represented to entice imagination. 1. nerd feature: 10 Gig MP3 Player (I don't know what was the measure back then or how much a song takes, replace with whatever is a reasonable number) 2. benefit: listen to all your songs everywhere 3. presenting features to entice imagination: 1000 songs in your pocket.

by erikb 9y ago

chii 9y ago

> 3. present features that let customer think about benefits -> sell products. i.e., manipulate them psychologically to believe that the product is very suitable (when in reality, it may be a piece of shit).

myYCaccout 9y ago

> 3. present features that let customer think about benefits -> sell products. I see this trend and it actually makes me furious. If I want to buy a GPU, I want to see the stats and how it compares to other products, not how many headshots i can make with that particular GPU. I'll see these ads on billboards, on tv etc and think of the greasy marketing people that want to trick me into buying their stuff. If the ads are to obnoxious I'll actually make an effort to avoid that brand ( looking at you Apple and Coca-Cola)

erikb 9y ago
Yeah, a GPU producer advertising to you should not list the headshots (benefits) but present its stats (features) in a way that you can consider yourself which benefits you gain from buying it.
i_cant_speel 9y ago
I honestly feel like Pepsi and GPUs fall into different categories. With Pepsi, the customer usually already knows what it does for you so explaining the benefits isn't as important. So instead do telling customers what they already know, they associated good feelings with their product. A GPU is different in that different GPUs perform significantly differently so explaining the stats is much more important to a buyer.
- pm24601 9y ago
  > With Pepsi, the customer usually already knows what it does for you ... make you fat? (I love pepsi :-) )
icebraining 9y ago
Arguably, that's not a problem with the type of marketing, it's just that they shouldn't be showing them to you, but to people who don't know that a new GPU can improve their gaming experience. It's one of the most annoying things with ad targeting: even if you let them spy on your whole life, it's still so fucking terrible at actually showing relevant ads.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rocqua 9y ago
You show the benefits to convince someone they need a product of this kind. Then, for the discerning customer, you show features to convince them they need your specific product.
akvadrako 9y ago
I would call this a mix of consumerism and marketing failures. People used to buy CPUs based on how many Mhz they advertised, but Mhz is just a proxy for what you really care about: performance. This resulted in sub-optimal CPUs like the Pentium 4. At the same time, I don't see why anyone would trust a "headshot" benchmark; that seems too subjective. For gaming, consistently high frame-rates of accurately rendered scenes might be a goal; GFLOPS is just a proxy.
r00fus 9y ago
GPU vendors presumably should have game titles that are co-promoted so a prospective customer would know that a) they'll want a good GPU for game/title and b) if they buy this GPU they can expect baseline usability for a that game or game-equivalents. Why else does someone buy a GPU? Given the niche market, the generic consumer positioning may not make as much sense.
webnrrd2k 9y ago
I'm not a marketer, but I think there are some important differences worth examining here... First, there is clearly a big difference between marketing to a technical crowd like HN, and marketing to the general public. Also, marketing products that are 99.9% similar will probably be bused on non-technical features exactly because the products are so similar. Also, I think benefits are more broad and emotional. For example, a lot of auto ads are clearly about how a certain car will, for example, get you laid. Or at least get you an attractive female companion. that's the benefit. Not that it is more reliable, or scores higher in Consumer Reports ratings. The HN crowd is more technical, so puts more value in Consumer Reports ratings, but many people don't actually care. They may think they do, but, when it comes to actually spending money, they don't.

dade_ 9y ago

3. Present (business) outcomes. It depends on who you are working with and all three approaches can be appropriate for a single deal, but varies based on the audience. Generally I see technical salespeople that refuse to think beyond specs, and sales that get trained on business outcomes and can't shutup about KPIs and NPVs to a technical buyer. It is painful on all sides these days.

hunterjrj 9y ago

"A thousand songs in your pocket"

erikb 9y ago
Which lets you think about listening all songs you like wherever you go. The benefit is listening to your songs. "1000 songs" is a feature (size) represented to entice imagination. 1. nerd feature: 10 Gig MP3 Player (I don't know what was the measure back then or how much a song takes, replace with whatever is a reasonable number) 2. benefit: listen to all your songs everywhere 3. presenting features to entice imagination: 1000 songs in your pocket.