Getting people to your website is just one small part of having a successful online business. Assuming that you’re in business to make money, and that you make money by selling a product or service, then the goal after getting someone to your site is to convince them to buy something.

To make a sale, you need to first understand why people buy things. What is it about a particular product that causes them to say to themselves, “I’ve gotta have that, and I’ve gotta have it now!”?

In this series of articles, we’ll discuss the psychology behind the sale, helping you to create a website that is conducive to converting lookers into buyers.

Sell the Benefits

The very first thing you should understand is that people don’t buy something because of its killer features. People buy something because of what those killer features can do for them. A speed freak doesn’t care that a sports car has a 500 horsepower, 6 liter V8 engine. He cares that when he steps on the gas pedal, it goes really fast and he can smoke everybody off the line.

And that, my friend, is the difference between features and benefits. A feature is descriptive of what the product is. A benefit is descriptive of how the user benefits (thus the term “benefit”) from using it.

You can look at features as what creates the benefits:

Feature: A processor that has a super-duper high clock speed.
Benefit: Super-duper productivity from your employees.

Feature: Clothing made from the fabric of Superman’s indestructible cape.
Benefit: You’ll never have to buy new clothes again.

Sometimes the benefits of a particular feature can be less obvious:

Feature: An SUV designed by a world-famous rock star.
Benefit: Make your friends jealous.

As you look at the features and benefits list above, you might think to yourself, “Gee, some of those benefits aren’t really important to me.” That’s an excellent point, and a very important discovery that you’ve made regarding selling the benefits.

Not everybody buys a certain product for the same reasons. The person that buys the super-duper fast processor might be a gamer who just wants to build a gaming computer that’s faster than his buddy’s. If he’s not a business owner or manager, he probably isn’t that interested in increasing employee productivity.

In selling the benefits, keep your target market in mind. What is it that they want in a product? Teenage girls want to be cool while their mothers want practicality. But depending on the product, it could be the other way around. Get the idea?

In Part 2 of this series, we’ll cover psychological “switches” that tell someone to buy. Flip the right switches, and you virtually guarantee yourself a sale.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 5:13 pm and is filed under Making the Sale, Features and Benefits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.