Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship represents the future of spaceflight — a sleek rocket loaded with many groundbreaking features. But here’s the most important feature of all: It’s completely reusable. That means the Starship can take off, fly into space, then land upright back on the launch pad. And on March 3rd, Starship SN10 did exactly that, performing a picture-perfect flight and sticking the landing.

Then it exploded.

The only reason I’m mentioning this is because it illustrates an important — and often overlooked — truism in marketing: Outcomes are more important than features.

Regardless of the industry or product category, time and time again I see clients who insist on selling the features and benefits of their product or service when they should be concentrating on selling outcomes.

Don’t get me wrong, features are important. They can inform and validate the purchase consideration process. But companies can create even greater value by showcasing specific outcomes and experiences that illustrate how a product or service can enhance their customers’ lives.

Successful brands achieve this by connecting their vision with relatable and meaningful outcomes. Here are a few examples:

Dropbox:

The Vision: To keep information seamlessly flowing.

The Outcome: Improves productivity by providing a modern workspace that lets teams work in sync and stay in the zone.

Genentech:

The Vision: to be the leading biotechnology company, using human genetic information to discover, develop and manufacture medicines to treat people with serious or life-threatening medical conditions.

The Outcome: Genentech saves lives by addressing and healing those with unmet medical needs.

Uber:

The Vision: To evolve the way the world moves.

The Outcome: To provide accessible, individualized transportation for riders, and more business for drivers.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself:

Does my company’s vision connect to the outcomes it provides? Does my brand vision align with my customer’s needs and emotions?

If not, consider digging deeper into the story behind your product or service. How does it affect or impact the customers it serves? How does it make them feel? What is their biggest challenge your brand can overcome and what opportunities does your brand present? Get into the nitty-gritty of your clients’ lives. Understand what is most important to them. And then make sure the outcome connects to the need.

One way to achieve this is to develop case studies in the form of stories to identify and define unique, personalized examples of the outcomes your product or service provides. Utilize these stories to draw on the emotions of your customers as outcome examples that will engage and convert clients again and again.

Here are three very typical examples of how many different product or service organizations communicate the value and meaning of a feature, and what I suggest as an alternative:

Instead of: Our service saves you money.

Try: Our service accelerates profits.

Instead of: Our platform saves you time.

Try: Our platform shortens your day.

Instead of: Our company builds world-class technology.

Try: Our technology is custom-built around the way you do business.

By tapping into the daily challenges your clients face and by addressing their needs, you’re able to sell them an outcome that will overcome those challenges.

By showcasing simple outcomes that address the needs and behavior of your customers, your brand will accomplish three very important goals:

• Building stronger relationships between your brand and your customers.
• Creating a more memorable brand experience, which leads to greater value and trust.
• Increasing response and consideration, which leads to greater profit and revenues.

Any brand can create even greater value by showcasing specific outcomes and experiences that illustrate how a product or service enhances their customers’ lives.

Successful brands achieve this by connecting their vision with relatable and meaningful outcomes.

Q: How will your brand help customers focus on what really matters to their personal or professional life?

A: Through the outcomes provided by what you do best.

About:

Los Angeles based Sagon-Phior is a full service marketing and branding agency. We utilize emotional branding to build better relationships between a brand and an audience. Emotional branding enables more effective ways to increase brand awareness, loyalty and sales. It also offers revealing insights to better understand important, often unseen, patterns of consumer behavior.

Sagon-Phior has successfully applied this unique practice to many national and global brands in technology, healthcare, banking and lifestyle industries. For more information, go to Sagon-Phior.com