Have you ever noticed that the biggest, baddest brands on the market never actually sell their product?
Jeep doesn’t sell the horsepower or the leather quality of their seats. Hell, they hardly even sell the offroading capabilities.

THEY SELL FREEDOM.

They sell the feeling we all want of wind blowing through our hair as we speed down a dirt road or the Pacific Coast Highway. They sell the adrenaline of being able to go where no other car can follow. They sell a life you don’t have, by making you think buying their product is the one missing thing.

Or, take Nike for example. Have you ever heard of a Nike ad that focused on the grip of the shoe? Or how long they’ll last you if you’re a long distance runner? No — they sell you self-esteem. They talk about everything you could do, or do better, whether or not you’re an athlete. They sell you the feeling of sweating your way up to new achievements. They sell you a story of kids fulfilling their dreams on basketball courts and parents erupting with pride on the sidelines. They sell stories — and the emotions that come with them.

Even when selling their Flyknits and how the fabric feels like socks — they’re not selling the fabric or the shoe. They’re selling you a feeling they think you are lacking or a goal you’ve yet to meet.

Not every Austin branding agency (or any growth hacking agency for that matter) will make this clear. In fact, we don’t think any of them will hold your brand in the light and look for the deeper meaning — they’ll just throw you into a template and call it a day.

For either of these brands (or any brand that’s doing things the right way), sure, you could look into their website and find all the info you want on offroading capabilities, where the leather is sourced from, how each Nike is engineered for different purposes.

But the selling point — now that’s a story. The selling point, as I’m sure you’ve heard before, is a missing emotion of a prospect.

So how can you find what you’re ACTUALLY selling?

How can you look at your business, product or service, and translate it from literal to figurative selling points?

YOU FOCUS ON THE WHY. AND THEN YOU DIG DEEPER.

What: Your product
How: Your method of production
Why: The gap in the market, the need for your product
Digging Deeper: The gap in the average human psyche of your target audience/ prospects. The story they crave that can be fulfilled with adding your product to their lives.

 

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