Art of Marketing
Chapter 06. Why do people buy?
Anyone who says money doesn’t matter doesn’t have a dime. – T. Harv Eker
People buy products and services to satisfy their own needs.
Economics says that every action you
or I take is caused by what is known as a “feeling of unsatisfactory”.
We feel unsatisfied in our present condition for some reason.
Because of this dissatisfaction,
we are motivated from within towards some kind of action
to get rid of it.
Think of the example of sitting on a nail.
Discomfort immediately stimulates an action to eliminate pain
and reach a more satisfying state,
without involving the nail.
“Do what you do so well that
they will want to see it again and bring their friends.” – Walt Disney
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ABC model
There is an ABC principle related to human motivation.
In this case, ABC stands for Antecedents,
Behaviors, and Consequences.
The premise accounts for about 15% of the motivation
to buy the product,
or act in a certain way.
The premises are created from previous experiences,
thoughts,
feelings,
and more.
Results account for 85% of the motivation
to take action or buy or use a service.
Behavior is what is needed to convert from premise to outcome.
In this simple model,
the premise is the feeling of dissatisfaction,
either real or triggered
by advertising and promotion.
The result is a greater state of satisfaction or satisfaction
that customers anticipate getting by purchasing
and using your product or service.
Behavior is the action the customer takes
to move from the premise to the outcome.
“Your income is proportional to the value you put in,
depending on the state of the market.” – Law of income
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Clarity is essential
One of the reasons for passivity,
paralysis or failure to buy products,
despite your promotional or promotional activities,
is that potential customers do not see or understand the results.
potential of your product or service.
What’s more,
your potential customers won’t feel comfortable justifying the costs
and hassles of moving from their current state
to the hypothetical better state
that the product or your service delivers.
People always buy products and services
to improve their situation in some way
– to achieve a greater state of satisfaction.
People won’t buy a product or service
if they don’t feel it will deliver a more viable outcome
than the cost and hassle of making the initial purchase decision.
Focusing all your marketing efforts on how your potential customers will feel
It is key to your advertising and promotion success.
Where there is attention and effort,
there will be results. – T. Harv Eker
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The problem needs to be solved
People buy solutions to their problems.
Always think in terms of “problem to be solved”.
What problems can your product or service,
it help potential customers solve?
People buy the satisfaction of their needs.
Can your products and services provide potential customers
with “what needs to be satisfied”?
People buy things to achieve their goals.
What goals will your products and services help customers achieve,
and which products or services are important
enough to make them spend money,
take time,
and even go through the trouble of getting it?
People buying from your product or service can ease their pain.
How does your product or service relieve the pain of your customers?
“People will forget what you said.
They will forget what you did.
But they will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou
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What do they feel?
One of the most important findings from Harvard research conducted
by Theodore Levitt is that shoppers feel that
they predict the comfort brought by purchasing
and using your product or service again.
What exactly is the customer’s feeling
when purchasing your product or using your service?
It is not the product or service itself,
but always the emotion that the product or service creates or brings.
People buy for satisfaction
— or emotional reasons
— more than for any other reason.
What is the most important emotion a customer experiences
as a result of purchasing
and using your product or service?
That’s why quality,
service
and especially relationships are so important.
They create an emotional component in the customer’s mind associated
with any product or service.
They create feelings of security,
comfort,
status,
prestige,
warmth,
and personal connection.
How accurately do customers predict themselves
when thinking about purchasing your product or service?
How can you measure your marketing efforts
to stimulate this emotion in your ideal customers?
The rich see each dollar as a “seed”
that can be planted to reap hundreds of dollars more,
which can then be planted to reap thousands more. – T. Harv Eker
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Save time and money
People buy products or services to save time and money.
Time and money are completely interchangeable
when it comes to economic outcomes.
Any claim for the purpose of saving time or money
is a powerful emotional motivator
for everyone in a business where success
and safety depend on personal and financial outcomes.
The number one reason people don’t get
what they want is
because they don’t know what they really want. – T. Harv Eker
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Want “profit”, fear lose
There are two main driving forces behind every action:
wanting “profit” and fearing “lose”.
How do your products and services meet those needs?
How do your products and services help customers get what
they want or avoid losing something of value to them?
The more fundamental the client’s needs are,
the simpler and more straightforward the resulting requirements will be.
The need for survival and safety are the most powerful motivators.
People want to be alive,
protected,
and strongly motivated to take the necessary steps to avoid loss of safety.
If you’re targeting a safety need like a home security system
with a fire alarm,
offer a fairly basic message like:
“Don’t let your family lose their safety at night.
Please use the necessary security measures.”
This message hits the heart of the problem
and stimulates the desire in a segment of potential customers,
leading to buying action.
If what you’re selling is a complex or indirect need,
like perfume or jewelry,
your approach to customers has to be much more subtle.
Perhaps the most famous advertisement
for perfume is the billboard
or magazine overflow shown by Catherine Deneuve,
who appears next to a bottle of Chanel No. 5 with the words:
“You deserve it.”
“When you serve the customer better,
they always return on your investment.” – Kara Parlin
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Thinking beyond the rut
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1996,
the company was on the verge of bankruptcy.
He realized that they could not grow the company
by selling the same products that they had advertised
for more than 20 years.
They needed a breakthrough product
that would open up and bring a whole new market to them.
Steve Jobs finally solved the problem
with a product called the iPod.
Producing the iPod required a completely new technique,
an improvement in technology,
but had the potential to completely transform the market
for selling and delivering songs on a portable device.
After developing the product,
negotiating single-song deals
with most major record companies,
setting up the iTunes online store,
and preparing to enter the market,
Apple is still battling it out,
to find a simple advertising slogan
that extolled the iPod’s benefits to people
who had never known or used such a product before.
Finally, a groundbreaking slogan was born:
“1,000 songs in your pocket.”
The rest of the story is history.
Apple sold 50 million iPods at 50% profit.
The product is Apple’s first step towards becoming
one of the most valuable companies in the world.
What is a similar slogan for Apple’s iPod
that you could develop for your product or translation?
A change in the way you attract customers can change the outcome
of your marketing and business overnight.
“Unless you have 100% customer satisfaction,
you must improve.” – Horst Schulz
