Surprise! Money CAN Buy You Happiness!

It's what you spend it on that counts

Photo by Kamil Pietrzak on Unsplash

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Can Money Really Buy Happiness?

It’s an age-old question: Can money really buy us happiness?

It turns out that science has chimed in with an official answer: Sometimes.

According to science, money CAN buy us happiness, depending on what we buy with the money. For most of us, any happiness we derive from a product purchase is at its highest point when we first buy the product. Over time, as we adapt to it, and its functionality becomes dated, our satisfaction with the purchase decreases.

Here’s an example: In 2016, Adobe hired me to be a part of their influencer team on site at the Adobe Summit. My job was to promote the event online and chronicle via social media what was happening. As such, I created a LOT of content for and around the event.

The next year, Adobe hired me again to perform the same tasks in the same role. This time, I decided to up my content creation game by purchasing the newest iPhone, an iPhone 7 Plus just for Adobe Summit. The new iPhone was the cool new tech toy at the time, and it did indeed make it much easier for me to create better content. And it was like carrying around a digital puppy: Everyone wanted to stare at it!

But that was 8 years ago. In that time, dozens of new smartphones with far superior capabilities have come out. Each new phone makes my iPhone 7 Plus feel a bit more dated.

Here’s What You Should Spend Your Money on to Buy Lasting Happiness

Product purchases tend to bring you short-term happiness that fades quickly.

If you want long-term happiness, scientific research shows that you should spend your money on experiences. For instance, travel and tourism. And your happiness from these experiences increases more, if you enjoy those experiences with other people.

Here’s why; Word of mouth. Think about it, your family goes on vacation and that creates memories that you will share for the rest of your lives. In recalling those trips, you continue to get happiness and joy from simply recalling with your family what happened.

I grew up in a rural area of Alabama that had no toy stores. As a child, my exposure to toys in a retail setting was one isle of boys toys and one isle of toys for girls in the local department store. But when I was 8 years old, my family took a trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It was in December, so very cold, in fact I think it was snowing. My family and I were in an area with many small shops on both sides of the cobblestone street. I was walking around marveling at the shops when I saw it. A toy shop! I turned around and there was a huge store display of 12-inch Star Wars dolls! For the rest of my life, I will always remember seeing that gorgeous display on the other side of a frost-covered window.

I could not, for the life of me, remember a single product my family bought during that trip. But I will always remember the experience of being on that cobblestone street and seeing that display of Star Wars figures in that toy shop.

Product purchases bring short-term happiness that fades quickly. Long-term happiness comes from spending money on experiences.

So what does this mean for product marketers? If what you sell only provides short-term pleasure, how do you overcome that?

You focus your marketing, product design, sales and research on the EXPERIENCES that your product enables for the customer. You aren’t just selling a product, you are selling a product that allows the customer to engage in amazing experiences!

Here’s an example. When a financial planner talks to you about planning for retirement, what do they talk to you about? A good deal of the conversation revolves around ‘what do you want retirement to look like?’ In other words, when do you want to retire, and what do you want to do WHEN you retire? The planner focuses on the life you want to live when you retire, then customizes a financial plan to help you achieve those goals. But when selling the services, a smart planner will focus on what good retirement planning today will mean to your financial future. She will talk to you about the experiences you will be able to have if you create a solid retirement plan today.

Lucille M. Shaw

does this sound about right?

Don’t Sell Your Product, Sell How Your Product Fits Into My Life

This is something that

Morgan Jungels

talks about constantly. It can be a concept that’s hard to wrap your mind around as a marketer.

What does that even look like? How do I sell how a product fits into my customer’s life???

Here’s one way: Think about what will change for your customer once they know how to use your product in a certain way. Think about the new experiences they will have.

I recently rediscovered an interview I did with Brains on Fire co-founder Greg Cordell where we discussed how brands can create and cultivate fans. I think some of his points are relevant to this article:

• Understand who your fans are and why they are fans of your brand. What is it about your brand that makes them want to tell others and advocate on your behalf?

• If your brand already has a relationship with its fans, what's the basis of that relationship? What do you count on your fans for, and what are your fans counting on from your brand?

• Determine what it is about your brand that your fans love beyond the product. This is key. Remember in the past we talked about creating content that focused on The Bigger Idea? It's the same principle here, because when you find out what those characteristics are and what those fans love about your brand, then you can extend that into the relationship you have with your fans.

• Understanding the characteristics of why your fans love your brand because that will help you frame the relationship you want to have with your fans and how that relationship will be executed.

• Real fans will show up for you.

• Don't sponsor events, sponsor the things that your fans love. A perfect example of this is what Red Bull does in sponsoring extreme sporting events. Red Bull helps facilitate events that its customers love.

• Sponsor the things that connect people to people through the things that they care most about. This is a ninja-level fan-building moment that many brands never even think about it. Nothing is more powerful than finding a way to connect people that are passionate about you to each other, in a setting or event that they share a common interest in. Concerts are the perfect example of this: Rock stars have created a way to bring 20,000 of their biggest fans together in one setting and then create an amazing experience for them! When you connect your fans to each other in a way that creates value for them, all it does is give them more reason to love you and to advocate on your behalf.

• Remember that your fans are the real rock stars. I agree completely!

• Fans are addicted to their passions. What can a brand do to help its customers feel energized, excited and more significant?

Smart marketing is about understanding both your customer and your product well enough to know how the product fits into and IMPROVES your customer’s life. It’s also about knowing, back to Greg’s point, what you customer loves about your product BEYOND the product itself.

That’s where experiences come into play. Experiences are the things that create happiness for us. And perhaps most importantly, LASTING happiness that GROWS over time.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mack

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Backstage Pass teaches you how to better connect with your customers, readers, clients, or donors. The lessons shared here draw on my experience over the last 20 years building customer engagement strategies for companies like Adobe, Dell, Club Med, Ingersoll-Rand, and countless others. I give you real-world research, examples and tactics that show you how to create customer engagement efforts that drive real business growth.