Dont Sell Specifications. Sell your Clients Benefits, Fear and Lifestyle

As a computer technician, what do you look for when you buying something for your computer?
For me its the specifications. For example, If I was buying an external storage solution I would check the transfer speeds of the device, the hard drive brand that it uses and read some reviews describing the build quality.

But, chances are that you aren’t selling products to other computer technicians, you are selling to the average computer user. Chances are they don’t know what most of the specifications mean anyway. Instead, sell them on benefits, fear and lifestyle.

A perfect example of this type of marketing is the Centrino group who make a processor, chipset and wireless triad for laptops.

Centrinos are processors which were the first of their kind to be built from the ground up for use in mobile machines. In other words, they are not just another desktop processor that has been stuck on a laptop. Due to clever design architecture, Centrinos can do the same as desktops at a lower clock speed which means it uses less battery and generates less heat.

However, customers don’t care about Centrinos amazing architecture and Centrinos marketing division know this. They sell lifestyle.
With Centrinos you can be unwired and do your work while relaxing somewhere. Here is an example of one of Centrinos ads:

I didn’t see anything about the Centrinos specifications in this clip. However, I did see their tagline saying “Intel Centrino Technology sets you free”

BitDefender uses “fear marketing” to push their product. They open their commercial with the line “Everytime you and your family go online, your taking chances. Viruses, Spyware, Phishing, Spam and all kinds of new threats can destroy your data, slow you down and steal your identity”. They produce the fear, and then tell you how their product can stop it.

How can you advertise like this? Well, you can sell some wireless routers by saying it will allow them to be on the internet while chilling out on the couch or in the backyard and they wont have to drill holes though their walls to run network cables.

You can sell some backup solutions with fear marketing by asking them the question “what would you do if your hard drive failed right now? what would you lose? could you replace it?”

This is how consumers should be marketed to, not with your geek speak which they may or may not understand. I find a nice balance is to still show the specifications on the product, but actually sell it to them by saying what it can do for them and how it can solve their problems.