To compete for the attention of today’s customer, you need to be selling far more than just a product, especially when you have so many other brands, products, and services to compete with. In-order to attain and keep this attention, brands must be creative and sell far more than a product an experience.
Selling experiences is one way that leading brands are achieving the goal of capturing and keeping their customers’ attention.
After all, it is experiences that are remembered long after a product has been used, stopped working, or become outdated. Think about Apple everybody remembers the experience they had with the first iPhone and each and every version of the iPhone since then. That’s because Apple are not just selling a phone but are selling an experience.
Selling an Experience
It is all in how you make your customers feel. Customers are buying the experiences they get from the products and services they purchase. Long gone are the days of our customers simply buying products and services based on price or on the product or service alone.
Why else would millions of people fork out five dollars for a cup of coffee at Starbucks or another specialty coffee shop when they can buy one for just a dollar elsewhere?
It is all about perception and how you make the customers feel when they purchase your product or service, that will keep them coming back for more.
Tips for Selling an Experience
It does not matter what it is that you are selling. As you will see below, it can be anything from a college education to energy drinks or a dress to painting classes; every product or service should come with its own experience and it is down to you, the brand operator, to control this experience.
Here are some tips you can take advantage from to begin selling experiences, not just soulless products.
1. Utilize the power of video
Because a lot of your brand storytelling will take place online, it is important to find a way to reach your customers without losing the real-world sense and tangible feeling. Video, therefore, is one of your most useful assets.
Also, the human brain is hardwired in a way that means that video leaves a longer lasting impression than any other medium, for example written content. Thankfully, there are lots of ways, as we are sure you will be aware, to deliver video.
For any brand attempting to begin selling experiences today in 2019, video must be at the core of everything you do; it is the only way you can truly connect with your customers in today’s marketplace driven by the internet and sociability.
2. Use brand ambassadors
An experience doesn’t need a large audience to happen. A single person can enjoy an experience. However, in order for an experience to thrive in the marketing sense, there needs to be an audience of people consuming it. The best way for brands to grow their audiences and reach them in unbiased, meaningful ways is to tap into the power of brand ambassadors.
A brand ambassador program only works if the members are genuine customers who get excited by working with your brand. If you can find these people and tap into their excitement, there’s no limit to the experience you can sell.
3. Provide authenticity
You need to be authentic and there are plenty of ways you can do this. The safety and comfort of trusted brands that were once loved by the older generation is now a thing of the past; today’s generation are more interested in authenticity and having a more authentic experience.
Whether it be through the products they buy or the places they visit, today’s generation (or “millennials”) are looking for an authentic experience.
Authenticity can only be provided through your product or service to a certain extent. In-order to get full value and provide the best experience, you need to engage your younger audience through channels and mediums that are recognized as being authentic.
To that extent, why not engage influencers and have them talk about your brand? This is one of many ways you can demonstrate your authenticity.
