December 2004

- by: Stuart Lisonbee

For the last several months, we've talked about features and benefits, and promoting your unique selling point. Now it's time to get back on the subject and talk again about the psychological switches that cause people to start handing over the green stuff.

According to marketing research, this next one is toward the top of the list:

- Help me save money!

This isn't what you think. This does not mean having the lowest price on something. As I mentioned in the first lesson, getting the lowest price on something is pretty low on the list of why people buy, so ignore that. Remember, lowering your prices serves only to eat into your profits. It's your marketing that sells, not your prices!

We're talking about the product itself allowing the consumer to save money. Ironically, consumers will shell out small fortunes for something they think will save them money in the future.

Remember the recent craze of products that would help you get better mileage out of your car? This craze actually comes and goes with every generation, but the biggest benefit pushed by those marketing these items was the hundreds or thousands of dollars you would save each year in fuel costs.

That is what I'm talking about!

When I build computers for myself, I use this very expensive heat sink compound. The compound is designed to more efficiently transfer heat from the processor to the heat sink. The cooler you keep your processor, the better it runs.

So why do I pay a high price for this stuff when free compound is included with my heat sink purchase? Somewhere in the back of my brain, the idea was planted that by spending more now, I would somehow save money in the future.

We'll talk more about how that happened to me next month.