What is that consumer buys?

Yesterday I was talking to one of my friends who was pretty disappointed by the ruthless behavior of one of her friends. I said to her not to worry about such people in life because the existence of these people in life is transient. Such people would come and go but the only person who would be with you is your own self. I may sound like a narcissist, but this the fact of life. Human beings love themselves the most, more than their most valuable possessions.

Lets apply the principle of self love in consumer marketing. What do you think a customer buys every time he purchase your offerings? If you say that a customer buys your product or service, then you need to get into the depth of the consumer psyche. Superficially it seems that they buy your offerings but actually, they buy the benefits you offer to them.

Consumers generally ask a question to the marketers "Whats in it for me?" If you are able to answer this through your offerings, you are successful in meeting the objective of your business. Here lies the concept of augmented product. Your offering is termed as the core product and the benefits offered by the product make the augmented product. Marketers generally get caught with just the core product, which is referred to as marketing myopia.

Anyways, enough of fundas, the crux of the post lies in the fact that customers don't care what your product is. They care only about the benefits it offer and that is what can be used to as a Point of Difference (POD) to attain Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA).