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Yes and no. I'd say it's more about speaking the same language as your audience. Part of the issue is (for example): Do most people care about how many cores t

Yes and no. I'd say it's more about speaking the same language as your audience. Part of the issue is (for example): Do most people care about how many cores there are? That speaks to your point about benefits vs features. But the other issue is: Do most people know what a core is? This is often referred to as dumbing things down, but that's pretty condescending. The person you're "dumbing things down" for may be a chief surgeon at a major hospital, someone who is probably smarter and more accomplished than most of us. They just might not care to spend their mental energy on understanding computer technology, in much the same way that I don't much care to understand biology or medicine. So when I say it's about "speaking the same language as your audience", I mean speaking in terms that relate to what's important to them. If you're selling to a mass audience, you have to speak in such a way that doesn't assume any expertise or interest in technology. You have to give them a reason to care. Most people don't care about the thermal performance of their laptop. But they can probably relate to being annoyed by how loud the fan gets or how hot the machine gets on their lap. They can relate to having the battery die, waiting for apps to load, closing apps because the machine can't handle having so many things open, etc. But you also have to provide justification for those benefits. It's not enough to say "it's quiet" or "never gets hot", because for a sizeable portion of your audience, they need to understand WHY it's quiet. Which means you still need to talk about the features. All of which is to say that a better axiom than "sell the benefits, not the features", in my arrogant opinion, is "Meet people where they're at." That's what makes good copywriting so hard. You have to write in such a way that meets your audience where they're at, without actually knowing where they're at, and without being so simplistic that you insult their intelligence.

davidivadavid 6y ago
That's definitely important but doesn't encapsulate the lesson of "sell the benefits, not the features" which is a deeper insight into human motivation that gadget-enamored technical people tend to completely overlook (people don't care about artifacts, they care about the results they get from them). Also note there are ways to circumvent the "without actually knowing where they're at" problem, that's why marketing funnels have been invented.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > That's definitely important but doesn't encapsulate the lesson of "sell the benefits, not the features" which is a deeper insight into human motivation that gadget-enamored technical people tend to completely overlook (people don't care about artifacts, they care about the results they get from them). That's not true, the only reason technical people can overlook “sell the benefits, not the features” is that people (including, usually, the tech people that overlook it) do care about “artifacts”. Sometimes because they understand the domain well enough to understand the impact on function and benefit from the “artifact” and don't need someone else spinning a narrative about benefit for them, sometimes because the “artifact” itself is a status/aspirational item for them. The actual lesson of “sell the benefits, not the features” is not “people care about results not artifacts”, but that motivating action in others who aren't inherently motivated to that action without effort on your part requires understanding their individual interests and providing a narrative connecting the action you desire with their interests. It is not a lesson about what people care about, but about what you need to do to get what you want once you understand what they care about.
  - davidivadavid 6y ago
    > Sometimes because they understand the domain well enough to understand the impact on function and benefit from the “artifact” and don't need someone else spinning a narrative about benefit for them, sometimes because the “artifact” itself is a status/aspirational item for them. That doesn't contradict, but actually supports the fact that people don't care about artifacts in themselves. Either they understand the function/benefit and that's what they're looking for, or they want them for status/aspiration (which is just a special case of the former, since status and aspiration are other functions among many). > The actual lesson of “sell the benefits, not the features” is not “people care about results not artifacts”, but that motivating action in others who aren't inherently motivated to that action without effort on your part requires understanding their individual interests Yes, and their interests are the function and the results people get from the artifact. >It is not a lesson about what people care about, but about what you need to do to get what you want once you understand what they care about. Erm, yes. "Sell benefits, not features" is a piece of marketing advice telling you what to do to get results (like any piece of advice). That's missing the point. The question is why does it work. And the reason it works is for the aforementioned reasons: people care about results and functions, not artifacts.

davidivadavid 6y ago

That's definitely important but doesn't encapsulate the lesson of "sell the benefits, not the features" which is a deeper insight into human motivation that gadget-enamored technical people tend to completely overlook (people don't care about artifacts, they care about the results they get from them). Also note there are ways to circumvent the "without actually knowing where they're at" problem, that's why marketing funnels have been invented.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> That's definitely important but doesn't encapsulate the lesson of "sell the benefits, not the features" which is a deeper insight into human motivation that gadget-enamored technical people tend to completely overlook (people don't care about artifacts, they care about the results they get from them). That's not true, the only reason technical people can overlook “sell the benefits, not the features” is that people (including, usually, the tech people that overlook it) do care about “artifacts”. Sometimes because they understand the domain well enough to understand the impact on function and benefit from the “artifact” and don't need someone else spinning a narrative about benefit for them, sometimes because the “artifact” itself is a status/aspirational item for them. The actual lesson of “sell the benefits, not the features” is not “people care about results not artifacts”, but that motivating action in others who aren't inherently motivated to that action without effort on your part requires understanding their individual interests and providing a narrative connecting the action you desire with their interests. It is not a lesson about what people care about, but about what you need to do to get what you want once you understand what they care about.
- davidivadavid 6y ago
  > Sometimes because they understand the domain well enough to understand the impact on function and benefit from the “artifact” and don't need someone else spinning a narrative about benefit for them, sometimes because the “artifact” itself is a status/aspirational item for them. That doesn't contradict, but actually supports the fact that people don't care about artifacts in themselves. Either they understand the function/benefit and that's what they're looking for, or they want them for status/aspiration (which is just a special case of the former, since status and aspiration are other functions among many). > The actual lesson of “sell the benefits, not the features” is not “people care about results not artifacts”, but that motivating action in others who aren't inherently motivated to that action without effort on your part requires understanding their individual interests Yes, and their interests are the function and the results people get from the artifact. >It is not a lesson about what people care about, but about what you need to do to get what you want once you understand what they care about. Erm, yes. "Sell benefits, not features" is a piece of marketing advice telling you what to do to get results (like any piece of advice). That's missing the point. The question is why does it work. And the reason it works is for the aforementioned reasons: people care about results and functions, not artifacts.