As a successful author interested in building a business off your book, you must understand the difference between features and benefits. Features are tangible and benefits are intangible.

Features describe what a product is or has based on physical/tangible characteristics. On the other hand, benefits are feeling oriented.

Remember that the reason that people come to the Internet is because they have wants and desires and want to be satisfied. This is the *sole* reason that people come to the Internet. The key for you is to market to people's problems and present yourself as the only credible solution.

Once you know your market's problems, you will create a list of benefits that they will experience from dealing with you. You want to distill this list of benefits down to their very essence, which gives you your key benefit. You do this by playing the Which Means What? game with yourself (choose a benefit and ask yourself Which means what? to get down to the base benefit)

Your assignment is to record all the features and benefits that your product will provide to your target audience.

What is the difference between Features and Benefits? Here are some Definitions to help!

Definitions
Feature = What a product IS or HAS
Advantage = What your product DOES
Benefit = How your product HELPS you

Example
Let's look at the example of a pen. Let's say you design a new fangled pen using a proprietary ink formula that you have developed.

Feature: Has non-blotching ink
Advantage: Won't leave blotches of ink and hence smudge marks on a page
Benefit: Saves you the frustration of making a mess by smudging blotches of ink. Saves you the frustration of trying to get your ink to flow properly. (Which means what?) Saves you money since you don't have to purchase pens as often.

You are now going to create a Benefits vs. Features comparison for your book.

An Exercise:
List every possible feature and benefit that your product offers your target group. Make sure that includes everyone. The key with successful marketing is to focus on the benefits, especially those that make you different in the market place, while meeting your market's needs.

Remember, the most successful marketers in the world sell feelings. This is because they know the secret to making money from other people: People buy based on the emotional experience it creates for them and then justify their purchase rationally.

Position all the benefits of what your book, product or service does for someone. Then distill the key benefits that you offer the market place.

When you discuss your benefits use lots of subheads and bullets in the copy that you use in order to position them powerfully.

In fact, if you can get testimonials from people you have helped, have them list all of the problems you have helped them resolve and them look at the benefits of solving each of those. Have those writing testimonials for you key on the problems and the corollary benefits.

This is the best way of selling feelings. Focus on the benefits of your book, product and service and let others tell stories about how you solved their specific problems.