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 numerous websites, making standing out from the crowd even more difficult. So how do you break the barrier and convince your audience to choose you over your competitors?

Selling an experience rather than just the product itself can be the first step in drawing customers' attention to your brand. The customer experience can have a powerful effect on sales. For example, 90% of purchasing decisions are based on emotion.

Positive experiences can create a positive emotional appeal towards those products. No matter what you're selling, every product should provide a brand-controlled experience. This experience helps provide an extra level of value that the customers may not have realized was there to begin with.

What is selling an experience?

Selling an experience begins with how the product makes a customer feel or the inherent value that they receive from it. For example, think of the Apple Watch. Apple could have marketed its product as a digital watch that also connects to your phone, but 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, but they also sold you a specialized experience that you can only get with that particular watch. Apple never changed its product, but by changing the advertising to focus on the experience of the product, 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 that your products can give them. Instead of telling customers that you sell flower arrangements, explain to them that you create beautiful, one-of-a-kind masterpieces that provide stunning decor for any home. By creating a positive and relatable experience, your products become more valuable to the customer, even though all you did was present the product in a different way.

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 if they have a problem it will be resolved 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. By 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.