As an author, you should treat the marketing of your book as a serious business. If you write nonfiction, you should know how to distinguish your book’s features from its benefits, and it’s easy.

Features describe the tangible characteristics of a product, while benefits appeal to the satisfaction that a customer gets.

People search the Internet to look for products and services they need. There’s a gap in their wants that needs to be filled. This can also come in the form of information. The strategy for you is to key in on people’s problems and present yourself as the answer.

Once you have identified your market’s needs, your goal is to create a list of benefits that they will reap from taking advantage of your product. You need to filter these benefits down to the basics to trace your key benefit. You do this by putting yourself in your customer’s place. Just like them, you’re also a customer. Ask yourself what’s in it for you if you use the product you’re selling? Think of its core benefit and think of how it will help you in the long term.

Jot down all the features and benefits your readers can get from your product in order to become more specific with your market. In addition, here are some further definitions and examples to help you with the difference between features and benefits:

Simply put, a feature is the tangible form of the product, what it is and what it offers. For example, a smartphone features a 24 megapixels front camera. This gives the advantage of better picture quality compared to other smartphone cameras with lower megapixels. The benefit, on the other hand, is how this product helps you. In the case of our example, you don’t need to buy a bulky professional camera. All you need is to pull out your smartphone for instant clear photos.

Here’s another example. Let’s say that you’ve written a business book about options trading, specifically, binary options. This type of book has plenty of opportunities and has a timely market since everyone these days is dipping their toes in binary options.

The problem: Many retail and amateur traders think that binary options are as easy as guessing if the market will trend up or down. Just like FOREX and stock trading, many traders lose money in binary options because they have no effective trading strategies.

Okay, so now you were able to point out the problem. Let your book serve as the solution. Here’s how you can introduce and sell your book to the market highlighting its features and benefits.

Feature: A comprehensive guide on teaching traders how to formulate effective options strategies through fundamental and technical analysis.

Advantage: Helps traders to become more informed and trains them to time their entries and exits more effectively.

Benefit: Traders acquire the skill of minimizing their losses, and they can apply what they’ve learned on other forms of trading like stocks, commodities, and indices.

Be sure that you’re positioning all the features and benefits that your book offers. Appeal to people’s feelings. The best marketers in the world appeal to feelings because human emotion is a powerful mechanism that drives them into action.