Marketing 101 tip: Selling The Outcome Whether you're selling lake front property, or life insurance, you want to remember that what you're really selling is the dream. The dream of life on a lake. The dream of security for your family. Cigarette manufacturers don't sell cancer. They sell sex and fun and pleasure. What do polar bears have to do with soft drinks? Nothing. Except that it gives the soft drink manufacturer a chance to remind people how good there product is cold. They're not selling soft drinks. They're selling refreshment. Determine the outcome that your customers can achieve and then target all of your marketing toward that goal. Marketing has moved from product-driven to relationship driven. Customers buy first emotionally and justify later with logic. How many times have you heard someone tell you about some new thing they bought. “Look at my new phone!” as they proudly show off its many features. And then they start justifying it. “Sure, it was expensive, but I can replace my camera and PDA and ipod with this one gadget. So I think it was worth it.” You’ll hear this with cars, houses, furniture, insurance, etc. They really bought whatever they bought because they felt like it. It appealed to some emotional or aesthetic sense. It made them feel better about themselves in some way. Take a look at your own marketing efforts. Are you selling the dream? Are you painting pictures of eventual outcomes? Or are you making the typical marketing mistake of trying provide logical reasons to buy your products or services? Is that the way you buy? With logic? Now, having said that, there are times when you want to use logic. That's when what you're selling is an intangible. Car insurance for example. The more intangible the item, the more you want to quantify it. "Save 15% or more in 15 minutes." That's a concrete thing that people can hold on to instead of the more nebulous idea of car insurance.