A lot of people these days are trying their hand at internet marketing, and many, in fact most, don’t seem to be having a lot of success. – OK, granted, a lot of these people might be bringing in a few dollars a week – and something is better than nothing – but if asked if they could leave their day job and live off their online efforts – no matter how strenuous those efforts may be – most would be forced to answer “No”.

There are probably a number of reasons as to why they’re not doing so well with their online business, maybe even too many to list here in a number of cases, but certainly one of the major fallacies I’ve noticed with some internet marketers is that they’re not promoting the product in the correct manner.

Which of the following two advertisments would entice you to purchase a computer, assuming that you were looking for a new one?: –

Advert #1) Presenting the new “U-4-7” model PC from Acme Computers.
This machine boasts not just 1, but 2 separate 1TB hard-drives, in addition to its 8GBs of 1000MHz DDR3 RAM. – And it doesn’t stop there, because the processor architecture is the very latest offering from Intel; featuring 4-cores with hyperthreading technology running from their own individual internal caches. As if that wasn’t good enough, there’s also a top-of-the-range professional DX-11-capable graphics-card fitted, 14 USB sockets, four fire-wire connections, two eSATA ports, optimal hyper cooling technology utilising 3 case-fans pumping heat from the heat-spreader fitted to the all-new 2oz copper motherboard from Gigabyte Technologies. – All this for only £399.99!

OR

Advert #2) The new “U-4-7” model computer from Acme Computers maintains the standard of supreme technical excellence that you’ve come to expect from this company; so you know that your new system is going to last and last. Not only does this machine promise to last for a long period of faultless efficiency, with a vast amount of internal working memory, but it also incorporates a large amount of disk-space, so that you’ll be easily able to store all of your movies, mp3s, iTunes downloads, and all the rest of your files safely, and still have room to spare. The U-4-7 utilises one of the latest multi-core processors, ensuring that all your computing is executed speedily and efficiently. With an abundance of peripheral sockets; you’ll be pleased that you can plug almost anything from a printer to an external storage medium into this digital powerhouse. The U-4-7 also includes the latest heat-transference technology to ensure that no matter how heavily you’re using it, there is very little chance, if any, that it will overheat in any way. You want e-value, not de-value: This machine will serve all of your computing needs for a long time, and best of all it’s fully-upgradable by a trained technician – so it’s in a way future-proof too! All this sensational value and quality will only cost you the low price of only £399.99, saving stress on your finances too!

#2 tells the customer what’s in it for them in terms of normal usage. It gives them a reason to buy it. #1 just says that it has a load of tech-stuff in it; which is what anyone would expect in the case of a computer anyway.

A very important rule of marketing; not just internet marketing but all marketing, is: –

As you’ve just seen above in the two examples; features don’t sell the product. The customer isn’t that bothered whether it has an Intel or an AMD processor fitted in most cases. – The customer wants to know that it does its job just as well as any other machine, if not better, and they also want to know what’s in it for them: Why they should purchase this product.

To convince the prospective customer to purchase you need to provide a reason to do so. If the customer can see that doing so will make their life easier then they’ll consider it. If not then there’s a good chance that they’ll look elsewhere for a product that does make their life easier. Sometimes the customer will ask about the features, but continue to stress the benefits even in such a case.

Do you purchase on benefits alone, or do you also like to know about the features too? Please comment.