It never surprises me to see how often companies fail to focus on their customer in their marketing messages.  Take, for example, the real estate agent whose ad campaign starts with “WE NEED LISTINGS – LIST WITH US”.  Who cares?

Quite frankly, if I am thinking of selling my home, do I look for the agent who “needs  my listing” or the agent who can sell the house?   Should I feel sorry for the agent who needs my listing to put food on the table for her family, or send her kids to private school?  Will the agent who has lots of listings work harder or smarter to sell my home, or just be able to brag to other agents about how many listings she has acquired?

Feature-oriented marketing is used to describe what a particular product or service includes while benefit-oriented marketing tells the consumer why they need it.  Examples:  turbo-charged engine vs. gets you where you’re going fast;  comes in five colors vs. with a color to satisfy every member of the family;  security system installation vs. never worry about your family’s safety again.

So, how do you incorporate benefit-oriented marketing for your business?   I’ll help by providing some examples using a few of my own business services.  The first are feature-oriented.

• Online newsletter design and maintenance
• Photo editing
• Database development

Here is the same list defined as “benefit-oriented”.

• Online newsletters that provide instant and ongoing customer communication without costing an arm and a leg
• Photo editing designed for fast uploading to the internet will make your property outshine the competition
• Database development to help you identify your customers and be able to seamlessly mail any marketing piece.

Using benefit-oriented marketing as part of your overall marketing strategy will help you to continue to put your customer’s needs first.