Setting Profitable Prices: A Step-by-Step Guide to Pricing Strategy--Without Hiring a Consultant, + Website

Chapter 6

Analyzing Your Buyer Benefits/Drawbacks Relative to Your Competitors

In-a-Rush Tip

This chapter is critical. Read it all and complete this chapter’s worksheet on at least some of your competitors. If you sell to consumers, you need to complete Part 1 of the workbook. If you sell to businesses, you need to complete Parts 1 and 2. Please note: If you limit the number of competitors you analyze, you may miss key benefits you could add to your product/service.

At a minimum, you need to understand what benefits users get from each aspect of your competitors’ products or services versus what they get from you.

Benefits are not features. Features need to be translated to:

What’s in it for the customer? And it must be from the customer’s point of view, not yours!

Examples:

• Feature: “100 more MB of RAM”
  • Benefit: “Cuts your wait time because it runs three times faster”
• Feature: “Waterproof” mascara
  • Benefit: “Won’t run down your face”
• Feature: “Condensed”
  • Benefit: “We’ve cut all the fluff, so you get all the important content in half the time.”
• Feature: “Half the calories”
  • Benefit: “Eat twice as much without gaining a pound!”
  • Benefit: “Eat what you normally do—and still lose weight!”
• Feature: “24/7 customer support”
  • Benefit: “Your job is safe with us! If something goes wrong, we’ll fix it any time any day!”

Uncovering What Buyers Really Value/Hate about Products in Your ...