How Clever Brands Escape Feature & Price Wars with the F.R.A.M.E™ System

How To Use The F.R.A.M.E.™  Strategy to Transform Your Brand Authority

Many brands believe they need more features or lower prices to compete. Or both.

It feels safe: “We’ll win by offering more and charging less.”

But in reality, this is a slow, painful death spiral — because features are easy to copy, and price is easy to undercut.

If you end up (and stay) in this trap, you become a commodity: interchangeable, squeezed, forgotten.

If you escape, you unlock:
✅ Premium Pricing power
✅ Long-term Customer loyalty
✅ Brand expansion revenue
✅ Category Authority dominance

Let’s talk about how to get there.

FIRST – WHY FEATURES AND PRICE ARE THE DEATH ZONE

Let’s break down the psychology here.

1. Buyers Don’t Remember Features — They Remember Meaning

A buyer doesn’t walk into a pitchroom thinking,“I need the tool with the most integrations.”

They walk in thinking, “I need to solve this problem with the least amount of risk and look good to my boss with the solution”

You can list every feature on your roadmap —but if you don’t attach those features to emotional meaning, they’re invisible.

Example: Two analytics SaaS tools.

• One sells “Silver Package, real-time dashboards, review intergrations multi-source data feeds, automated reports, ai powered”
• The other sells “Reputation Lifeguard – An online reputation management system for your business that focuses on metrics that matter and provides powerful business intelligence  for Founders and Leaders with AI enabled reporting.”

Which one sticks?

Which one would you buy? Which one would you pay more for?

Which one can the buyer defend internally?

2. Price Signals Desperation — Unless You Deliberately Own the Cheap Brand

Behavioral science shows us that price isn’t just a number. It’s a signal.

Low price says:

• We’re not differentiated.
• We’re under pressure.
• We’ll race to the bottom if you push.

Unless you’ve deliberately architected a category-defining low-price brand (think Ryanair, Walmart, Amazon), discounting makes you look weaker, not stronger.

• You attract cost-cutters.
• You repel high-value clients.
• And you lock yourself out of premium positioning.

3. Feature and Price Competition Attract the Wrong Customers

As you know, the buyers who shop you solely on features or price are often the most volatile.

They’re hunting for the maximum value at the minimum cost and long term brand loaalty isn’t always what they have in mind.

They:
❌ Churn quickly when a competitor offers a better deal.
❌ Push your team to over-service and over-deliver.
❌ Spread your resources thin because they want more for less.

The best customers aren’t asking, “Who has the cheapest price or the most features?” They’re asking, “Who feels safest, smartest, and most aligned to my needs?”

HOW TO USE THE F.R.A.M.E™ STRATEGY TO ESCAPE BRAND COMMODITIZATION

So how do you break out?

At Highly Persuasive, we developed the F.R.A.M.E.™ model to help us navigate nuances in positioning, offer, messaging, brand personality & pricing frameworks more effectively for clients.

We’re including it here for you as well. Let’s unpack it.

F — Focus on Emotional Outcomes – Not Technical Outputs

Instead of selling what your product does, focus on what your buyer feels.

Features satisfy rational checklists.
Emotional outcomes satisfy human drives: safety, pride, control, belonging, relief, success.

Example (hospitality):
A boutique hotel didn’t just market “luxury rooms” and “Michelin dining.” They sold:
→ “Escape the noise of your life for three days of total, beach-front indulgence on a private island in the Anadman Sea.”

Guests don’t only care about thread counts. They are buying the emotional license to switch off, to spoil themselves, to signal status to their partner. Bookings rose after they rewrote campaigns to amplify emotional reward, not facility specs.

Example (healthcare):
A fertility clinic stopped advertising “high success rates” and shifted to:
→ “We help couples reclaim their hope and build the family they dream of.”

That emotional framing connected deeply with patients, pulling them away from competing clinics focused on cold statistics. Buyers pay more when they feel more.

Your Buyers Remember:

• Less stress.
• Less risk.
• More confidence.
• More status.

R — Reposition Value From ‘What’ to ‘Why’

Stop describing what you do. Start framing why it matters.

Selling “what” turns you into a commodity.
Selling “why” moves you into meaningful, irreplaceable territory.

Example:
A cloud security startup was pitching “faster threat detection, better encryption, automated compliance reporting.”
It sounded good — but so did every other cybersecurity vendor in a crowded space.

Their sales team was getting stuck in technical comparisons:

• Who had better scanning?

• Whose encryption was tighter?

• Whose dashboards were cleaner?

The repositioning breakthrough came when they stopped selling what they delivered (detection, encryption, reporting) and reframed around why it mattered to the customer’s executive team.

They repositioned their narrative as:
→ “We make sure your C-suite never has to stand in front of the board and explain a preventable breach.”

This hit three deep emotional and political drivers at once:
✅ Career protection — no CTO wants to take the fall
✅ Board-level confidence — executive reassurance, not just technical coverage
✅ Brand trust — protecting public reputation, not just backend systems

Suddenly, the conversation shifted away from feature comparisons and into strategic risk mitigation — something the buyer’s internal champion could sell upward in their own org, giving the startup leverage no competitor could touch.

The result:

• Deal sizes increased

• Enterprise win rates jumped

• The startup moved from mid-market scrapping to board-level deals within 12 months

Example (industrial equipment):
A manufacturer of water purification systems didn’t just pitch “filtration technology” and “energy efficiency.” They repositioned to:→ “Protecting your community’s health with every gallon we clean.” Municipal buyers suddenly saw them as a public health partner, not just a gear supplier. The why anchored them emotionally and politically — making contracts easier to win and harder to unseat.

Example (fashion):
A premium sneaker brand stopped competing on “materials” and “craftsmanship.” It repositioned as:→ “The shoes that signal you know what’s next — before the rest of the world catches up.”

They tapped into cultural early adopter status, letting buyers feel part of an in-group — not just a product owner.

More Examples:
Not “We deliver weekly reports.”
But: “We help you surface risks before they spiral.”

Not “We offer 24/7 monitoring.”
But: “We make sure your systems stay online so you never get that 3 a.m. call.”

The value isn’t the deliverable.

It’s the relief, trust, or leverage the deliverable creates.

A — Amplify Category Brand Signals

Authority matters.

People don’t always pick the “best” product. They pick the brand that looks like the leader — the one everyone else seems to trust, that feels like the safest choice, or that owns the cultural conversation.

Example (luxury):
Hermès doesn’t need to explain to anyone why a Birkin bag costs $25,000.
Their authority is anchored by:

• Scarcity

• Cultural signaling

• Celebrity association

• Legacy craftsmanship narratives
  That’s a narrative moat no mid-tier competitor can cross, no matter how good their materials.

Example (fitness):
Peloton didn’t just sell bikes; they sold the community of fitness:

• Instructors with cult followings

• High-visibility media buzz

• Social proof of millions of subscribers.

That made them the leader, even when cheaper competitors launched similar tech.

How To Amplify Category Brand Signals?
✅ Media coverage
✅ Thought leadership
✅ Analyst mentions
✅ Strategic partnerships
✅ Category-defining events or reports

Authority lifts you above feature and price battles.

M — Model High-Value Customers

Many business inadvertently design their business for the average, to appeal to everyone.

But your best customers don’t behave like the average. They want premium, custom, status-boosting, or high-impact solutions — and they’re willing to pay for them.

So instead of going after all ranges of customers, we want to model it on your top 20% of customers — the ones who:
✅ Pay full price
✅ Renew longest
✅ Refer others

Design your offers, messaging, and packaging around them.

Example:
An HR staffing company stopped chasing small retainers and repositioned entirely around high-impact strategy projects for growth-stage SaaS firms. Revenue went up, team burnout went down.

Example (hospitality):
An all-inclusive resort realized their most profitable guests weren’t budget travelers — they were high-spending couples seeking romance, exclusivity, and top-tier service. The resort redesigned packages to include private dinners, adult-only pools, and tailored experiences — lifting margins and guest satisfaction, even as they let go of lower-tier market segments.

Example (consumer electronics):
Apple doesn’t build for price-sensitive shoppers. They design for loyalists, creatives, and status-driven buyers who want an ecosystem that signals identity. That’s why they win loyalty at premium prices — they ignore the middle.

E — Engineer Buyer Commitment Loops

It’s not enough to reposition your message once; you need to design repeatable buyer reinforcement loops that keep anchoring your differentiated value over time.

A single sale is fragile. Ongoing, structured reinforcement — through community, content, data, events, or co-creation — locks in loyalty and makes it harder to leave.

Example (sportswear):
Nike’s loyalty app doesn’t just give you discounts. It rewards you with exclusive product drops, early access, and a sense of insider status. Every interaction reinforces brand belonging, turning casual buyers into lifetime advocates.

Example (financial services):
A private wealth firm didn’t stop after onboarding clients. They engineered loops of quarterly custom reports, annual VIP client events, and high-touch check-ins that reminded clients why they entrusted their wealth here — reinforcing sunk costs, status, and trust.

Why? Because:

• Buyers forget

• Markets shift

• Competitors counter-position

Without engineered loops — consistent touchpoints, proof signals, and reinforcement — even premium positioning erodes over time.

This isn’t just marketing automation. It’s behavioral engineering:
✅ Regularly surfacing why you matter
✅ Keeping your unique story front-of-mind
✅ Reinforcing your category authority across channels

CASE EXAMPLES IN ACTION

Let’s ground this framework with two sharp examples.

Case 1: SaaS Reframe — Selling Executive Outcomes, Not Features

A mid-market SaaS analytics tool was stuck in a grind:

• Selling dashboards, charts, connectors
• Competing against 10+ cheaper alternatives

The shift? They reframed the product as a political asset:
→ “We help executives look brilliant in the boardroom by surfacing the one insight that matters, every time.”

They started marketing to executive buyers, not just data teams.
They raised prices.
They narrowed feature releases to prioritize clarity over complexity.

Within a year, enterprise sales rose 37%.

PRACTICAL STEPS YOU CAN TAKE TODAY

Ready to move? Here’s where to start.

✅ Rewrite Your Messaging
Audit your website, deck, emails, and pitches. Are you leading with what you do — or why it matters?

✅ Interview Top Customers
Ask:

• Why did you choose us?
• Why do you stay?
• What’s the emotional or political win you get from us?

These answers are your new positioning gold.

✅ Stack Your Authority Assets

• Publish proprietary benchmarks
• Pitch media
• Highlight big-name partnerships
• Feature customer success stories tied to outcomes, not just usage

✅ Repackage and Reprice

• Create premium tiers
• Bundle offers around business impact, not just features
• Raise your baseline price to signal confidence and scarcity

Remember: scarcity increases perceived value.

Request Your Free 80-Point ConversionPsychology™ Brand Audit

Let’s be blunt.

If you’re still competing on features or price 12 months from now, you won’t just struggle —
you’ll be outcompeted, undercut, and forgotten by brands that have learned to sell meaning, outcomes, and trust.

The market rewards those who:
✅ Anchor their offers in emotional and commercial outcomes
✅ Build defensible category signals
✅ Design their systems to engineer buyer commitment loops over time

If you’re not sure where your messaging and sales system stand right now, here’s your next best move:

This is a specialized diagnostic built for B2B, SaaS, and service brands.

We break down, with precision:
✅ Where your current marketing, sales, and product messaging amplifies or weakens buyer trust
✅ Where your behavioral loops are leaking momentum or leaving money on the table
✅ What hidden friction or missed opportunities are costing you sales, margin, or expansion

This isn’t a fluffy consultation or vague review.

It’s a commercial-grade, psychology-backed audit of how your brand converts attention into revenue — across 80 distinct points of behavioral leverage. Get clarity on where you stand, and what you can do to sharpen your system.

To request the audit, reach out here → [80 Point Conversion Psychology Audit] or email us “Audit” to get the details.