In today's market, there are thousands of products, brands, and services available to consumers across the globe. Consumers can find most products easily from multiple websites, making standing out from the crowd even more difficult than it already is. So how do you break the barrier and convince your audience to choose you over your competitors?

Shifting your focus to selling an experience rather than just the product itself can be the first step in drawing your customers’ attention to your brand. The customer experience can have a powerful effect on sales, as 90% of purchasing decisions are based on emotion. Positive experiences create a positive emotional appeal towards the products that offer that experience. No matter what you’re selling, every product should provide a brand-controlled experience. This brand-controlled experience gives an extra level of value that the customers may not have realized was there from the beginning.

What is selling an experience?

Selling an experience begins with how the product makes a customer feel or the inherent value they receive from it—for example, the Apple Watch. Apple could have marketed its product as a digital watch that also connects to your phone. Instead, they took their marketing one step further. They created a story about how this watch can give you the experience of tracking your health no matter where you go and encourages you to get up and get moving. They not only sold you a watch; they sold you a specialized experience that you can only get with their product. Apple never changed its product, but by adjusting the advertising to focus on its experience, it can reach customers in a whole new way.

How do I do it?

You can start selling an experience by showing your customers the value your products or services can give them. Through creating a positive experience, your products can reflect more value to the customer, even though all you did was present the product in terms of its value.

You can also create positive experiences through having strong customer service. Customer service can be one of the most influential aspects of providing a positive experience for your customers. Customers want to know that businesses value them and that they will resolve problems quickly. Creating a positive shopping experience for your customers can be the difference between them becoming repeat customers or writing a nasty review that could hurt your business.

People want to be a part of positive experiences. It drives sales in a way that selling a product no longer does. Through changing your perspective and selling the entire experience rather than the product alone, you can adapt to the ever-changing market and stand out from the crowd.

Contributor Mary Vasek

Mary Vasek is a Marketing Specialist and writer for Atwill Media. She graduated from the University of Arkansas with a Bachelor of Science in Marketing with a Minor in Business Management.

When not at work, she enjoys spending quality time with friends, music events, and hiking.