How to promote a product

You are asked to manage the launch of some new products. Your objective is to boost sales and build brand recognition. Let’s have a look at a few things we need to consider here.

First off, you want to create a need or desire for the product. You can do this by building awareness of it through a PR campaign, or an advertising campaign, or by using any of a number of tactics such as competitions, events, discounts, or use of social media. We will discuss this is more detail in future modules.

It is generally recognised now that customers are almost immune to advertising because they are bombarded with it all the time. Because of this, they need to see or hear an advertisement much more often for it to make an impression on them, or the advertising or promotion needs to attract their attention more effectively. A memorable jingle or strap line is often helpful, if you can come up with a good one.

To be cost effective, an ad needs to be clear, informative and short. This is why you often get two versions of an ad, a longer one which gives the viewer the information they need, and a shorter one, which just jogs their memory about the product.

Ideally you want to emphasize the USP in the advertising – what makes your product stand out from the crowd.

And don’t forget to differentiate between features and benefits. You want the client to know what life will be like after they have bought your product. Again, we have covered this is detail on the site, to revisit go to; –
Sales Performance

This is a large section, aimed mainly at sales people, but with many modules relevant to this topic, dealing with sales plans, evaluating your competition, identifying your USPs, distinguishing between features and benefits. Well worth a re-visit.

So be sure that your promotion clearly lets the customer know what makes your product better than the competition.

Then you need to define the target market as we have discussed in the last module, but also think about how they will react to your promotion. Will the parents and grandparents in our buggy example react in the same way to a Buyer’s Guide? Or should you aim that at the parents- to- be, and just tell the grandparents- to- be that your system will make their children’s lives easier and more manageable?

Cross-promotion

It can sometimes be effective to promote a range of products rather than a single one.  If you are launching an addition to a range you can easily promote the whole range while spearheading the campaign with the new model, colour, or flavour that is being launched.