When does someone buy something? What causes someone to seek out a product? The obvious answer is that it solves a problem he or she has. It makes his or her life easier or allows them to do something they couldn’t do before.

But often, sales people are focused on the product itself and not what it does for someone; this brings us to the distinction between features and benefits. Features are things such as the number of pages in a book, the nutrition content of a food, or the chemicals of a medicine. Benefits, on the other hand, are things such as feeling 10 years younger, being about to play with your kids again, or waking up with no back pain. Ultimately, a person with back pain doesn’t really care about the chemical composition of a treatment; they want to wake up without pain. Benefits sell, not features.

Benefits focus on the feeling of a product, and that is important. As Carl Buchner said, “They may forget what you said — but they will never forget how you made them feel.” When you meet someone in person, you are warm and seek to establish connection. The same principle should apply to email, yet those principles don’t carry over. The key is to connect to someone and relate to them, and follow up with something targeted that fits their needs. Do your research; show that you understand what their needs and concerns are through the data you’ve gathered. Then personalize, being customer centric by showing the benefit to them. It sounds simple, but it takes a lot of effort. But it can and should be done.