(Excerpt from This is Marketing by Seth Godin)
Harvard marketing professor Theodore Levitt famously said, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill bit. They want a quarter-inch hole.”
The lesson is that the drill bit is merely a feature, a means to an end, but what people truly want is the hole it makes.
But that doesn’t go nearly far enough. No one wants a hole.
What people want is the shelf that will go on the wall once they drill the hole.
Actually, what they want is how they’ll feel once they see how uncluttered everything is, when they put their stuff on the shelf that went on the wall, now that there’s a quarter-inch hole.
But wait . . .
They also want the satisfaction of knowing they did it themselves.
Or perhaps the increase in status they’ll get when their spouse admires the work.
Or the peace of mind that comes from knowing that the bedroom isn’t a mess, and that it feels safe and clean.
“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill bit. They want to feel safe and respected.”
Bingo.