In his book “The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth,” Clayton Christensen writes: “How do you create products that customers want to buy – ones that become so successful they ‘disrupt’ the market? It’s not easy.”

Three out of five new-product-development efforts are ditched before they ever reach the market. Of the ones that do see the light of day, 40 percent never become profitable and simply disappear.

Most of these failures are predictable – and avoidable. Why? Because most research and development efforts come up with new products without really considering what’s going on in customers’ hearts and heads at the moment of purchase. Or as marketing expert Theodore Levitt once told his M.B.A. students at Harvard University: “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want to buy a quarter-inch hole.”

In other words, people aren’t looking for that thing you are marketing; they’re looking for the best tool to get a job done. Brands that communicate to their customers how their products or services will help them accomplish their objectives more effectively or conveniently are the ones that will be successful.

And yet, brochures and websites are littered with bullet-pointed lists exalting a product’s features.

Have you ever seen an iPod commercial talk about how the iPod functions, how its operating system works or the high-quality materials used to create it? Nope. You just see people dancing to infectious music. And it worked. It completely changed the product category.

Go out and infect the marketplace with a hunger for your product. But remember, it’s the hole, not the drill.

Drew McLellan is Top Dog at McLellan Marketing Group and blogs at www.drewsmarketingminute.com. He can be reached at Drew@MclellanMarketing.com. © 2010 Drew McLellan