Linking features to benefits

The features of a product (workflow, integration, single sign on, etc.) drive benefits that can be measured but are not benefits. I was going through an exercise a few weeks ago with the marketing team from a large vendor. The marketing folks were convinced that each of their product features would be worthy of its own mention for the value it would deliver. Unfortunately that’s not the way it works. There are really only three types of benefits an organization can realize: increased productivity, reduced cost, and possibly increased profit. Increased profit is a tough one because unless it’s a new opportunity it’s likely an outcome of increased productivity or reduced cost so you need to be careful about double counting. To clarify the difference, a useful exercise for your marketing team (and the one I used) is to ask everyone to complete the value sentence when mentioning a feature. For instance, “our new workflow will increase the productivity of your managers” or “because it’s a SaaS solution we’ll eliminate your current hardware support costs.” With this approach it won’t take long to list all the benefits of your solution and map the features that justify each of the benefits.