Feb 29 2008
Feature or Benefit?
I’ve been doing some research for an article that I am writing. It is required that I look at a number of software providers in a particular vertical market. I was doing some research on remote printer management software programs. There seem to be an unlimited supply of this particular type of software available.
Well, for my research, I needed to know why I would choose their product over their competitor. I want the business case for the benefit of their product.
What I notice more than anything is they are very good at putting a feature list but not very good at putting the important business benefits where I can find them. In fact, the feature list is incredibly long (many pages on many) but the benefits aren’t easy to understand. I have to infer from the features what the benefit of their product is. Or, in some cases, what the core positioning of their product is.
Let me give you an example (without naming names so as not to offend).
- Insert & Append Bytes
Inserting
You can insert bytes (using our built-in byte editor) or a file before the print job data.
* Set the printer to a specific mode (useful in pass-through printing)
* Send an overlay to the printer, such as a form or watermark
* Insert a custom banner page or report header
Appending
You can also append bytes (again, with our byte editor) or a file after the print job data.
Example uses include:* Return the printer to the “normal” mode
* Append a document trailer
- Banner Page Support
[Product] asks whether a banner page should be inserted into the data before printing. This selection is used for raw and filter type queues. The drop list offers three choices: suppress banner, always print, and when requested.
* Suppress banner: RPM will not insert a banner page
* Always print: RPM will always insert a banner page
* When requested: RPM will insert a banner page when requested by the client
In this particular example, there are another 30 features like this. If I don’t understand the basis of their product, how much time do you think that I am willing to spend on this? If I just happen on the site, how much time will I spend learning what they do and applying it to what I need?
Here is a thought… feature your benefits first and show your features last.
Here is a better thought. Have your home page on your website show a simple positioning statement that can show the benefit of your product in one or two key sentences. For the remote printer management industry, try something like this:
Remote Printer Management can help reduce your printer management costs by up to 43%. Our software can provide you with key improvement in the following three, key areas:
- Remote printer setup and configuration management
- Automated meter reporting, error reporting and low toner reporting
- Cost containment and load balancing reports and recommendations
How about that for something concise? Now your customers would know what your main purpose is and what is in it for them in a very simple and understandable fashion.
Couple that with good design and navigation and your product will be far more marketable.
Corey Smith
Co-founder of Resumango where you can build a better resume for free
Corey, I completely understand your points… I have been conducting research for my company on software tools to assist with managed print services for about 16 months now. As with many business situations, and you can appreciate this, we must understand “they why”…
I find that many software companies just don’t get it! They always start off the demo the same way… what do you hope to get, now let me show you a demo! Yawn… what a waste of time.
I had to learn the business reasons and what technology could bring to the table so it was almost like I had to take the whole process in little baby steps. I spent many times going back and forth between the operational stakeholders and the software vendors trying to match need to feature. This has got to be why consultants make so much money; they have the rosetta stone.
I tell you, what made the situation even more difficult was that I am a strategic thinker and as I began to get my head around the 800 pound gorilla that these tools helped to manage, it was amazing to me that these software companies had a thought to fill a need many moons ago, but they too are still learning all of the in’s and out’s of the huge market of printer fleet management.
Great observations in your article, Corey!