MARKETING EXPOSED

They made me take piano lessons as a kid.  Because music was important!  Or something like that.

Whatever.  I finally convinced them to let me quit by the 9th grade, after about 7 years.  Just when the lessons were really starting to work.

But how might my motivation to stick with it have been different had the message all along been that learning piano would be my ticket to joining a cool rock band in high school?

Do you think painting a vivid emotional picture would have had a lot more stickiness than some nebulous factual point about music being important?

Damn.

So, are you painting sticky emotional pictures about what people want to buy, or just giving ‘em the plain ole facts about what you sell?

If you run a restaurant, are you just selling food? Well, sure you are.  But people are more likely looking for the ambiance of a special evening out, or maybe just a break from cooking and cleaning up.

If you own a fitness center are you just selling fitness and health?  Well, yes.  And that is important (like music).  But the reality is most prospective members are really hoping to look better in a swimsuit for an upcoming beach vacation, or wanting to lose weight for an impending 20-year reunion.

Even if you sell something as mundane as a 1/4 inch drill bit at your hardware store, are you just selling a small piece that fits in a toolbox?  Technically, yes.  But actually someone is buying a hole.  A specific hole needed perhaps as part of a deck project, or for a parent to hang a precious piece of art created by her daughter.

Stop thinking as you ordinarily do about what you sell.  Focus instead on the emotion-filled need that is the ultimate motivation behind why people buy.  Wrap any messages you communicate around that motivation.  That’s shifting the focus away from you and your business right smack into her and her world.   That’s an approach likely to capture and hold her attention.

Emotional needs matter.  Product specs and details don’t.  Except when a spec or detail can directly connect to that emotional need.

Can you turn your product/service thought process upside down and think more about why people want to buy as opposed to just what it is you’re selling?  Or go even further around… As a consumer, have you ever later regretted not buying something because you didn’t realize it could have done for you what you later learned it did for your neighbor?