Selling the Dream

While you think you're selling products or services, your customers aren't buying for the reasons you're imagining. People don't want to buy a new car, a new website, a manicure, a massage, or a new marketing campaign. People ultimately are trying to fulfill their dream.

People's dreams revolve around the basic core human drives: acquisition (desire to collect), bonding (desire to love & feel valued), emotion (desire to have pleasurable experiences) , learning (desire to satisfy curiosity and mastery), and safety (desire to protect ourselves and those we care about).

To capture people's attention, you need to tie your offering to one (or more) of these human drives/dreams. Instead of selling a new car, market the feeling of the ride or sell the "sex-appeal" of the car. Instead of selling a website, market the ease of making (or acquiring) new business friends.

Fulfilling a dream is about feeding the senses (I described this in depth in depth in my previous article: Scratch The Surface Of Your Marketing). You want people to be able to "try on" the dream, so involve the senses to invoke emotion. For example, instead of selling a house, you're selling the dream of living in a beautiful and safe environment for your family. The air smells fresher. At night, you can hear the crickets. The colors of the hills vibrate with life. There's lots of room to share delicious meals with your friends in your backyard.

When crafting your marketing message, first share the dream, then show how your offerings will get your prospective customers closer to it.