Are You Selling Product or Image?

 Any given customer will purchase any given product or service because it provides satisfaction. Sounds simple right? But the secret to providing that satisfaction is in providing that”want” or that satisfaction with the product's utility.

There are many forms of utility,in the language of marketing, but the magic of the successful Social Media Marketer is to provide something called “image” utility. It is the emotional or psychological value that a person relates to a brand or product because of its reputation or social standing.

The beauty of Social Media Marketing is in the way a brand's reputation can be enhanced by friends sharing their perceptions of a product or service with other friends.

Let me give you an example that has to do with a service, rather than a product. A guy, let's call him Joe, has 50 Facebook friends. Joe needs to have his hair cut every two weeks just because that's what Joe likes to do with his hair. A new barber or “hair stylist” has just opened up and Joe has been targeted by a skillful Social Media Marketer who has done his research as someone who should see an ad or two on his Facebook page about the new barber. Remember you aren't selling Joe a haircut, you're selling him an image that will fit the image he wants satisfied. So Joe tries the place out, loves the cut and posts a picture of himself on Facebook with the new look. Most of Joe's 50 friends see the pic and the next thing you know, the barber has two dozen new clients and they're telling their friends about the place.

Now there's a lot more that goes into it from the Social Media Marketers job than it appears in my brief description here. But if the new barber had spent twice as much money on fliers about his new shop as he did on a few well targeted Social Media ads, he would still be looking at an empty chair half the day. Now, he has 50 new clients who are telling their friends about the shop and the Marketer is using his well targeted, image selling ads to draw in even more.

To find out more about image utility, as well as information utility, time utility and form utility you can always contact us at www.roambusiness.com and we will gladly give you a free consultation along with a game plan that includes the most important utility of all “possession utility” where the rubber meets the road and the sale takes place. Knowing how to properly utilize social media platforms to reach your target market is our specialty. Roam Business is a professional Social Media Marketing firm, we don't paper billboards!