Author: Franz Malten Buemann

I’m a huge homebody who prefers the ease of shopping online from home. However, the problem with buying items online is that I can’t try on, measure, or get a good feel for the product until it arrives at my door. So, before deciding to purchase, I always check the item’s product attributes to ensure it’s right for me.

Product attributes play an essential role in the decision-making process for buyers. They’re also crucial for marketers when promoting or advertising a product. Read on to learn more about product attributes, their importance, and how to incorporate them into your marketing strategy.
What are product attributes?
Product Attributes vs. Product Benefits
Why You Need Product Attributes
Product Attributes Examples
Use product attributes in your marketing strategy.

Product attributes fall into two categories: tangible and intangible. Tangible attributes are physical attributes that the senses can perceive, such as color, shape, size, and texture. Intangible attributes are characteristics that can’t be perceived by seeing or holding the product.
For example, take a look at this Victrola record player system.
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Tangible attributes of this record player include its red color and retro-inspired design. Intangible attributes would be Bluetooth capability and recording software allowing buyers to convert vinyl to MP3.

Product Attributes vs. Product Benefits
While product attributes describe the products, product benefits describe what customers stand to gain from the product. For instance, let’s go back to the record player example.
As I said earlier, a product attribute of the record player is its Bluetooth capability. A product benefit is that this capability allows users to stream their favorite music wirelessly.

Why You Need Product Attributes
Including product attributes helps consumers get a feel for your product and what it can do for them. Attributes also influence the potential buyer’s decision and allow them to properly weigh their options when looking for a product that suits their needs.
Helpful product attributes can improve the customer experience by making their decision process more manageable.
Product attributes are also necessary because they can boost your brand’s discoverability online. Marketers can and should incorporate keywords into product attribute descriptions so people searching these terms are more likely to find your product.

Product Attributes Examples
Below are a few tangible and intangible product attributes from several companies and brands.
1. Quality
Quality is a critical product attribute to include in your marketing because consumers want products they trust will work. Product reviews, manufacturing data, and the use of durable materials are just some ways you can demonstrate a product’s quality.
An example of a quality product attribute can be seen in this cat tree made by FRISCO. The cat tree is described as a “heavy-duty tree” made with sisal posts and is “designed for your cat to climb, play, nap, and scratch just the way they like, as much as they like.”
Best for: When your target consumers want a long-lasting, durable product or a high-quality customer experience.
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2. Design
Design refers to the product’s appearance. For example, the amethyst engagement ring below comprises a cushion-cut amethyst, a 14K yellow gold band, and “sparkling twists of round diamonds” for a “regal design.”
Best for: When aesthetics and style are a core value for your consumers. It’s also a great opportunity to optimize for keywords. For example, the ring’s description includes key search words such as “cushion-cut,” “amethyst,” and “yellow gold band.”
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3. Price
Price is an excellent attribute to include in your product’s description, especially if you’re emphasizing how much a consumer can get at a cost-effective rate. For instance, Canva mentions it offers free use of its design tools and lists all the things users can access at zero costs.Best for: When your product is available at a lower price point than your competitors or if your product is available in budget-friendly options.
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4. Verification and Safety
Again, consumers need assurance that your product is trustworthy, credible, and safe. One way to prove those points is to include verification and safety attributes. Philly’s Phinest Roofing, a Philadelphia-based roofing company, proves its credibility by emphasizing the 40 years it’s been in business and its status as a certified roofing company. It even has the company’s license number features on its website for potential customers to verify.Best for: If safety and reliability are top concerns for your target audience.
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5. Marketing Claims
Marketing claims are product attributes that reference your product’s performance, and they can be in the form of statistics or data. To generate an accurate and compelling marketing claim, brands invest in research groups and customer surveys.
An example of a marketing claim is Lysol promoting that its products kill 99.9% of germs.
Best for: Showing how your product outperforms competitors or highlighting its effectiveness.
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Use product attributes in your marketing strategy.
Product attributes help consumers make confident and informed decisions about their purchases. They also contribute to an easier and more enjoyable customer experience.
Most importantly, they build trust in your brand and help to ensure you’re marketing your products to the right people. To better market your product and delight your customers, include product attributes in your strategy.

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I was laid off from my perfect-fit job as a virtual assistant in 2015 because the company imploded overnight. When it happened, I never would have imagined ending up where I am today—running a multi-million dollar business that employs hundreds of military spouses just like me.At the time, my life felt like a bad country song. I was three months pregnant and had made the decision to start a family based on the solidity of being a dual-income household, which was suddenly no longer true. Given how hard it had been to find this job in the first place, I wasn’t confident I’d be able to find another quickly—military spouses are one of the highest unemployed demographics in the U.S. because of how often we have to move. My husband had been deployed two weeks before the layoffs, so I was on my own trying to process all of this. I was a hot hormonal mess and definitely let myself cry a lot of tears that first day.And then I started to turn things around, because I didn’t really have any other choice. At first, I started working for myself as a freelance virtual assistant (VA). Before long, I had more work than I could handle. Two years later, I launched Squared Away with the goal of eventually employing as many military spouses as possible by matching them with companies that need flexible support. After five and a half years of bootstrapping my business, we recently crossed $20 million in gross revenue, work with over 900 clients, and employ over 390 military spouses—numbers that still surprise me every day.For anyone else looking to take stability into their own hands in the face of economic uncertainty, here are some of the strategies that have helped us scale fast but also sustainably over the past five years.We built the company based on a real needFrankly, I think part of what has helped my business succeed is that I didn’t walk in with the goal of being a CEO of a big company. I didn’t even walk in with the goal of starting a company. Instead, I set out to meet needs I saw. Initially that was my own need to have an income, along with the needs of the clients of the company that laid me off who expressed interest in continuing to work with me. This kicked off my initial stint of self employment.A few years later, one of my clients came to me expressing a need for more support. His company was getting ready to expand, and he wanted more VA capacity. On the flip side, I was seeing a need from other military spouses in my network for flexible, stable, fulfilling jobs like the one I had. So many friends came to me sharing how they couldn’t find any jobs that worked for them, and asking how I did it. Seeing the overlap of those needs is how the idea for Squared Away initially came about. “Military spouse Michelle Penczak got tired of getting turned down for jobs, so she did something about it. Now she runs a $5 million company that helps women just like her.” @michellepencz @kelseyopel & co-founder @ShaneMac #squaredawaylife #startuphttps://t.co/c4bl09Hzdd— Squared Away (@gosquaredaway) June 11, 2021

Walking the path of entrepreneurship from the headspace of wanting sustainable careers for myself and those like me, as well as seeking to meet others’ needs, helped me identify real opportunities for natural growth instead of trying to force something.We focused our marketing on impactWhen people hear about our growth, they’re often surprised to hear that we’ve spent less than $1,500 on paid marketing over the past five years.Instead, we keep our marketing targeted toward communities for which we think our type of flexible VA support can have the most impact. Over the years, we’ve partnered with predominantly female founder organizations like Dreamers & Doers, Chief, and TheLi.st to share information about our services and offer discounts to members. As a female founder myself, I know how valuable it can be to have a little extra help when working toward a mission you care about, so I felt like we could garner a high level of interest from this cohort. In terms of our marketing messaging, we also focus on educating customers about the impact that delegation can have. Our emails and social media posts will share ideas for tasks to delegate, advice for how to communicate when delegating, and other actionable tips. By providing free help up front, we create immediate value for customers and give them a taste of how much we could do for them if they sign on. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Squared Away (@awaysquared) Finally, we’ve always made sure our mission to employ military spouses is front and center, which I think helps people feel more emotionally connected to our brand and excited to be a part of something bigger. When we can say, “Hey, you’re going to be ten times less stressed than you were before and, by the way, you’re supporting a meaningful cause while you’re at it,” that’s a much more enticing pitch than just another subscription you have to pay for.We’ve held a high bar for quality to encourage referralsWord-of-mouth has always been our biggest marketing channel: 85 percent of our new clients come from referrals. While we do encourage this by giving a referral credit to our existing customers, I think the bigger reason they’re excited to share us with other business owners is because of the quality of work we provide.For starters, we are very picky about the VAs we’ll hire. Everyone who wants to join our team goes through a rigorous application and training process where we’re constantly assessing whether they exhibit our pillars of over-communication, extreme attention to detail, the ability to think outside the box, and being a team player—and only about 10 percent of those who apply make it. As hard as it is for me to turn away military spouses given our mission, I know keeping our quality bar high is critical to long-term success (and we give feedback to those who don’t get hired to help them in their employment journeys).We also won’t match just any client with just any assistant. We always want to find the best fit on both sides so that our employees are excited to give their all to each client they’re working with. This occasionally means we have to ask clients to wait a little longer until we can identify the right match, but clients have expressed they appreciate the thoughtfulness behind our matching process.There were certainly moments where I could have scaled faster by matching incoming clients with whoever we had available or hiring assistants that weren’t quite to our standard. But I’d rather grow more slowly while keeping our clients happy so they keep wanting to work with us, and keep wanting to sing our praises to others.We’ve intentionally grown more slowlyOnce we launched and saw early success in the first year, there were certainly many people who encouraged me to scale faster. I could have raised money to hire a huge influx of virtual assistants so I could be ready at a moment’s notice to staff up new clients. I could have paid for big marketing campaigns to get a ton of new clients.But I didn’t want to take the same path of the company I had worked for previously, growing too fast and then having to lay people off when things didn’t work out as planned. Instead, I’ve taken a more incremental approach to growth.Congrats to @michellepencz and the @gosquaredaway team to kick off 2023 passing $20m in total revenue pic.twitter.com/6sCXPYW3Yu— Shane Mac (@ShaneMac) January 2, 2023

I think of it almost like a teeter totter approach, seesawing back and forth between growth on the client side and the staff side to keep things balanced. If we find ourselves with more clients than assistants, I can slow down our marketing funnel and focus more on recruiting, reaching out to military spouse forums or groups and asking our VAs to refer friends. If we swing the other direction, I can slow recruiting and ramp up marketing, increasing our social media or email pushes and reminding clients about our referral program.Yes, this means we occasionally find ourselves with minor growing pains—short stints where we’ve had to ask clients to wait a little longer than we’d like to find their perfect VA, or where we haven’t had enough work to fill our staff’s schedules. But those little imbalances are much easier to correct than they would be had we swung way too far in one direction like so many rapidly scaling companies seem to do.It makes me think back to the company I was working for before this all started. If they had taken a more incremental approach to growth, maybe they never would have had to lay me off in the first place—but then I’d never be where I am today. It’s hard to believe one of the worst days of my life turned into this incredible opportunity, and I hope I can keep offering stability to myself and my community for years to come.

Hey Redditors, Have you heard of ChatGPT? The cutting-edge language model developed by OpenAl? This Al tool has the ability to understand natural language and generate human-like responses, making it a game-changer for businesses looking to improve their customer engagement efforts. With ChatGPT, businesses can provide personalized customer service, automate lead generation and qualification, gather customer feedback and insights, promote their products and services, and educate and onboard customers in real-time. All of these capabilities can help businesses build better relationships with their customers and drive conversions and sales. So, if you’re in the business of customer engagement and are looking for ways to enhance your campaigns, consider incorporating ChatGPT into your strategy. Let me know what you think about this powerful tool in the comments below! Thanks for reading! ChatGPT for Customer Engagement Campaigns: 5 Benefits submitted by /u/Popular-Sympathy-696 [link] [comments]

Data show that 58.4% of today’s working-age internet users buy something online every week. If you’ve started an eCommerce business, that should be music to your ears. It means there’s a ready market for your products.  However, to make the most out of this opportunity, you must first come up with an eCommerce marketing strategy.…
The post How to Build an eCommerce Marketing Strategy appeared first on Benchmark Email.

Some online businesses worried about the negative reviews about their business. What marketing strategy should you use when someone leaves a bad review? submitted by /u/Annie132306 [link] [comments]