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Most marketing aims to entice. The copy, imagery, and overall message are designed to cause us to start “savoring” the product or service.
It’s an effective way to turn awareness and interest into desire and finally into action.
But here’s the thing.
As humans, the emotional impact we feel when we savor something is only half as powerful as the emotional impact we feel when we dread something. What this means is we are more likely to act to avoid things we dread than to acquire things we savor.
From a marketing perspective, what does this mean?
In every buying situation the prospect is not only weighing up everything they savor about the product versus the monetary price. Present, in their mind, are aspects of the purchase they are “dreading”…the “psychological price” they have to pay for your product or service.
Here are a few examples to illustrate what I mean.
A house renovation- disrupted household, mess, dust, fear it won’t turn out as imagined, fear of sloppy work.
Purchasing a new car – thoughts of higher insurance premiums, the pain of damaging a new car, discovering someone else got a better deal on the same car at another dealer.
A new laptop- the hassle of transferring data and risk of losing data, getting everything set up and configured as you want it, a setting not as you want it and you are unable to work out how to fix it, learning to navigate.
Engaging a new accountant- advising the old accountant, the inconvenience of transferring all the files over, new accountant not turning out as expected.
A new refrigerator- effort to dispose of the old refrigerator and collect the new refrigerator and lift it into place, cleaning out the old fridge.
New business software- disruption during the changeover period, training the team, discovering incompatibilities with other software, backup support falling short of what was described.
Getting the car serviced- having to arrange alternative transport, fearful of being “over-serviced” because of your lack of mechanical knowledge, embarrassed about the state of your car.
These “thoughts of dread” are powerful and stop many customers from buying. How often do you hear, “I’d get a new “ABC” in a heartbeat but I just dread the idea of having to XYZ”.
How many prospects have you let down because they needlessly “dreaded” the purchase more than they savored it and considered the total price “too high”?
More importantly, what can you do about it?
Many businesses turn immediately to discounting the monetary “price”. Problem is, that’s what everyone is doing!
Here’s a better idea. How could you lower or “discount” the “psychological price” by removing or reducing the “dread” that customers experience when thinking about and purchasing your product or service?
These steps provide some insight into how you might be able to do exactly that.

1.  In addition to understanding what your prospects savor about your product, invest in understanding what your customers dread about buying your product. Don’t rely on your own untested assumptions….you need to ask your customers. Your customers will experience your product and service differently from how you think they experience it. This will help you get clarity around the psychological pain they endure and the risks they feel when purchasing and using your product.

2.  Armed with this knowledge start re-imagining your offering by asking yourself questions like:

• What frustrations do customers have with the industry we operate in?
• What product/service features would eliminate our prospect’s psychological price/risk?
• What product/service features would alleviate our prospect’s psychological price/risk?
• Which would our prospects value the most?
• How could we build this feature into our product or service?
• What product/service guarantees are we legally obliged by?
• Do our prospects know that we offer these?
• What additional guarantees would offer the comfort our prospects are seeking?
• From what we’ve learned about our customers what guarantee would our prospects value the most?
• How could we improve our processes so that we could sensibly offer this guarantee?

3.  Decide on what features and guarantees you could sensibly build into your product and test them out. This could take the form of a campaign or special offer to existing customers.

4.  Incorporate the winners into your product or service.

5.  Modify your marketing, value narrative, and sales processes so that your prospects know about these new features and guarantees.

Prospects don’t buy products and services, they buy experiences. How they value that experience is driven more by what they dread, than what they savor about that experience. Understanding both is key to crafting, marketing, and delivering a valuable experience for your prospects and customers, an experience they will be delighted to pay you for.