One question can make a product start feeling like it already belongs to someone.

One of the oldest (and most effective) techniques in the sales book is ridiculously simple.

Instead of asking what someone thinks of a product, ask how they’d use it.

Where would you put this in your kitchen?

Who would you invite over first?

Picture yourself driving it through the mountains.

Salespeople have understood this for decades because it encourages folks to mentally move the product into their OWN lives.

Now there’s fresh research explaining why it works.

Researchers found that thinking concretely about how you’d use a product creates stronger psychological ownership than thinking abstractly about why you want it.

That increased feeling of ownership also increased what people were willing to pay. 

My wife and I experienced this firsthand with our Peloton bikes. We’d considered the platform before, but it wasn’t until we took a live in-store test ride that everything changed.

Once we clipped in, rode the high-quality bike, and imagined doing it at home, the decision became much easier. I wrote about Peloton discovering the power of this phenomenon in I Need That.

It’s the same reason test drives work so well. (And why virtual test drives are getting so sophisticated.)

The goal becomes to help customers viscerally imagine the product becoming part of their lives.

The best marketers help customers start living with it before they bring it home.

If you’d like help creating and marketing products people feel compelled to buy, the product marketing consultants at Graphos Product can help.