It’s no longer good enough to sell just products or services. In simple terms, products can be outsourced to China and services can be outsourced to India. What can’t be outsourced are experiences.

Kevin Kelly, in his e-book Better Than Free, suggests eight factors that allow you to compete in a market where customers expect everything free. These eight factors apply whatever your price, so let’s look at how you can incorporate them into your products.

Immediacy

Some people value speed of delivery, and are willing to pay for that experience. So look for ways to tailor your products and services for immediacy. This is, of course, easier when you’re delivering electronic products; but it can sometimes apply to other products and services as well. For example, if you’re selling (physical) books, let the customer download a PDF version immediately, so they don’t have to wait for the book to arrive by mail.

Personalisation

Many businesses allow you to create personalised versions of their products and services. Personalisation is not just about expanding your range to cater for a wider range of tastes; it’s about creating unique products for each customer.

Interpretation

Don’t assume your customers will know how to make the most of their purchase. You have far greater experience with it than they do, so improve their experience by explaining how they can use it.

Imagine yourself as a customer buying your product, and ask yourself what they would need to know to use it. Then build that into your product offering.

Authenticity

Although some people like the perceived value of a fake Gucci handbag or a fake brand-name watch, others value the experience of knowing it’s authentic. If your customers value authenticity and you provide the “authentic” version, emphasise this feature.

The fake/real comparison is one obvious way to show authenticity; but you can also demonstrate it by being “the original”, “the first” or “the source”.

Accessibility

Some customers value the freedom of being able to access your products and services from anywhere, rather than being restricted by location or technology.

Consider when and where your customers will want access to your product. For example, if you sell a DVD about how to chair difficult meetings, that’s useful for the initial training, but not so useful just before the customer’s next difficult meeting. So you can also create a smart phone app with short video tutorials for handling the most difficult meeting situations, so customers can refer to it just before they walk into that meeting.

Embodiment

The same product, packaged in a slightly different way, can create a totally different customer experience.

The board game Pictionary is, in effect, a paper-and-pencil version of the centuries-old acting game of charades, but the board game comes packaged in a nice box, with a board, cards and dice. That makes it a different experience – and a profitable product.

Mattel recently released a new version, Pictionary Man, which replaces the cards with a computer and adds a model of a man, which reintroduces the idea of acting to the game:

Fans of Lego can now buy Creationary, which is essentially Pictionary with Lego blocks.

None of these variations change the essential object of the game, but they change the experience of playing it, so they have value to the customer. Die-hard board game fans (such as my family!) own all the variations, and will happily buy new versions when they become available.

You can do the same with your products. Look for different ways to package up the same essential service, to change the experience and appeal to different groups of customers.

Patronage

If you provide high-quality products and services, your customers want to support you, and will do so if you let them.

When English rock band Radiohead released its album In Rainbows in October 2007, they offered it as a download for whatever price the customer was willing to pay. Most people (about two-thirds) paid full retail price. Later, when it was released through regular retail outlets, it hit the Number One position in the UK Album Chart in its very first week.

You might be able to apply the same principle to your products or services, either offering them free or at a customer-determined price. If you have a loyal customer base, many of them will pay a reasonable price (or even more) because they like you, like your business or like a cause you’re supporting.

Findability

When there are too many choices, customers will pay for advisers to help them filter out what’s irrelevant.

If your products and services aren’t as extensive as your competitors’, this might be a benefit, not a drawback. Customers don’t want all the available options; they would rather have a few specifically relevant to them.

If you enjoy classical music or opera, you’re spoiled for choice in Florence. Every night, you can choose from about a dozen concerts – all with professional world-class performers, many with the musicians in period costume, and all fairly reasonably priced for music-loving tourists.

But one of them stands out from the rest: St. Mark’s Opera Company. And that’s not just my opinion. TripAdvisor.com, one of the world’s leading travel sites, consistently rates it in the top attractions in Florence (and sometimes Number One):

This is an amazing accomplishment, considering its competition includes Michelangelo’s statue of David, the famous Cathedral, the San Marco monastery, the Uffizi Gallery and the Ponte Vecchio!

St. Mark’s Opera Company isn’t one of the biggest or most prominent in Florence. In fact, it’s almost the exact opposite.

It’s in a church, not a concert hall. It’s tucked away in a side street on the “wrong” side of the Arno River that divides the city (in a part of Florence called “Oltrarno” – literally, “the other side of the Arno”), not in the main tourist area. It’s run by two people – Franz and Ilse Moser – not a big company. You buy tickets at a small table in the church hall, not from a theatre box office. The singers are accompanied only by a piano, not an orchestra.

But, rather than fighting these apparent liabilities, Franz and Ilse turn them into assets. From the moment you walk through the church door, you know you’re in for something different. Ilse greets you warmly as you collect your ticket. You sit in the church pews, within touching distance (literally!) of the stage. Franz walks out to welcome you, and explains each act in English before the performance. During the intermission, you can mingle with Franz, Ilse and the performers – and Ilse serves port and home-made biscuits.

Here’s a short video extract from one of their performances :

I have a personal connection with St. Mark’s Opera Company, because I became friends with Franz and Ilse on one of my trips to Italy, and since then we built a Web site together (you can find it at ConcertoClassico.info). So you might consider me biased. But my view is supported by the many other visitors who left their reviews on Trip Advisor. Judging by their comments, it’s the experience people remember. And that makes it different from everybody else – even those with “better” facilities.

Here’s the point …

It’s no longer good enough to sell just products or services. In simple terms, products can be outsourced to China and services can be outsourced to India. What can’t be outsourced are experiences.

Travel agents are a perfect example. Consumers used travel agents because they had access to special information – flights and fares, accommodation discounts, package deals, and the like. Now online travel agencies have equal or better access to those facilities; and consumers themselves often book their own travel. To compete, the travel agent has to offer better experiences – for example, by organising customised tours, special packages and personal service.

How does this affect you?

If you’re an expert, infopreneur, eGuru or thought leader, you can no longer rely on what used to work for you. If you’re still offering the same products and services you offered five – or even three – years ago, you’re probably out of date. Your clients and audiences might not even tell you that, but they will drift, dwindle and disappear.

Google has taken your expertise, Facebook has taken your audiences, and smart phones and tablets have taken their attention.

What are you doing to offer better experiences?

Kevin Kelly, in his book Better Than Free, suggests eight factors that allow you to stand firm in today’s highly competitive market. Here are the eight factors, with an example of products you could create to address each factor:

1. Immediacy (getting something immediately): Provide downloadable versions of your physical products (e.g. a PDF version of a book).
2. Personalisation (creating unique products for each customer): Re-brand your products for specific clients (e.g. reprint a book with a client’s logo on the front and a foreword from their CEO).
3. Interpretation (helping them use what they buy): Add an online course to your in-person workshops, so they get on-going support.
4. Authenticity (keeping it real): Give people live access to you, even if it’s only in a group form (e.g. webinars, teleseminars, coffee chats, Google Hangouts).
5. Accessibility (being available when they need you): Create an iPhone app or mobile Web site with tips, templates and advice for clients when they need it during their day.
6. Embodiment (packaging your products differently): Create products in different formats to suit different learning styles.
7. Patronage (wanting to support you): Keep in touch with people regularly with an e-mail newsletter, webinar series, or some other free service.
8. Findability (filtering out what isn’t relevant): Create a password-protected Web site with high-quality hand-picked resources you’ve identified for your clients.

All of these things help you become more valuable to your clients, audiences and networks – so you remain relevant and engaging in a highly competitive world.