Whenever someone mentions advertising or sales you can be sure phrase "features vs. benefits" will come up in short order. Everyone knows that phrase. Everyone knows that features don't sell, benefits do. However, exactly what is a benefit and how do you turn features into them?

Let's get some definitions set forth first. A feature is an attribute of a product or service. Web site hosting companies will often tell you there package offers "catch all" email addressing. That's a feature. That type of email is a mechanical part of hosting package.

To determine benefit, you look at how catch all email adds value to customer. In other words, "What's in it for me"?

The customer doesn't care about mechanical feature of hosting. What they do care about is how catch all email can improve their life. Catch all email allows anything typed before "@domainname.com" to go through system and make it to "primary" email box. The benefit of catch all email is that even messages with a misspelling in them make it through so you stay in contact with your customers. Every online business owner cares about that.

One of most effective ways to derive benefits from features is to address problems or concerns your customers have. Let's turn our attention to ebook industry for a moment and define some concerns these customers might have.