Marketing Series: Creating Products that Market Themselves
Your Product is the core of all of your Marketing efforts. In this blog, I will help you see what you can do to make your product market itself.
How can a Product be a Marketing Strategy? When you pair the correct audience with a product that provides value, from utility to luxury, you are showing rather than telling your customer why they should invest in your product. But, you first need to define your product.
Product Categories: Goods/Services:
There are a million and one ideas for a product, but only really two categories they fit in, goods and services. For the Marketing series, I will only be focusing on goods. In the previous series, Branding, I addressed the importance of developing a brand identity. Sometimes, ideas for products come before working through the Brand Identity, but it is an important step to remember. Your brand identity can be used to define your audience and target your market. For example, let's say you want to start a swimwear line for a specific market. Based on defining your brand identity, you decide you want each item you create to have a Value-Added-Donation to an ocean conservation charity. From there you can start to define who will be interested in your products, perhaps they are: eco conscious, Vegan or Vegetarian, often donate to charities, and between 18-40.
By defining your Product and Brand Identity you have a place to start, you can always pivot based on Market Research. When companies think about expanding their product to other countries, they always conduct market research to test the market to see if the product is truly valuable in that new area. Market research can consist of analyzing the competition as well as running surveys to your ideal target market. Based on your findings you will have a better idea of whether or not your product will do well if you choose to bring it to market.
Product Development:
Once you've made the choice to bring your product to market it is now time to Develop your product. You have data to back up your product based on ideal audience, niche, and purpose and you can use all those elements to enhance your designs.
Product Testing:
Once you have incorporated all the learning from the market research into your design and ultimately your prototype, product testing becomes very important. It allows you to troubleshoot your product before you invest in a costly manufacturing run. Show your product to friends, family, and your ideal target market and get feedback. How does the product feel? How does your product fit? Does it speak to your brand? Does your ideal customer like it? Would they be willing to purchase it? It Can be helpful to run polls on social media as well to get insights on your product from your audience. Find out if it is working as you envisioned it. Identify what revisions might make it even better and more unique, and most important, discover if your audience likes it and wants to buy it.
Production:
After you identify your concept, do your market research, create your prototype, and test the product. Your concept is finally ready for production. The vendors you choose become the key elements in your success. Great vendors who create the product as you designed it, with the materials you specify, for the right price and terms, and on schedule can streamline your time to reach the market. If you have a “weak link” in the vendor chain, it can hold up production, lead to missed delivery dates, compromise the quality, cost money, and reduce your chance of success.
Take your time picking the right vendors. The cheapest one is not necessarily the best. Get references, talk to previous buyers, and check out your entire vendor team before giving them the green light.
Then constantly monitor them for quality control and make sure they are producing your fashion line with the quality you specified and your customers will expect. Quality assurance checks are essential for even the best vendors. You do not want any surprises at the end of the line.
Feedback & Reviews:
After Production, it is important to remember to get Feedback and Reviews from your customers. With ongoing Feedback and Reviews you truly receive insights to how your product is performing and solving the need you designed it for. You can also learn what your customer likes about your product and dislikes about your product. By utilizing these reviews from customers and letting them know you are listening to their feedback, you are creating trust in your product as well as your brand.
Reviews allow your customers to feel like they have a say in what they are buying. They can start to feel like a part of your team, and that can build loyalty and trust in your brand. You want to create a Long Term Relationship with each and every customer and by letting them know their feedback is important, you begin to instill that loyalty right from the first sale. That loyalty is what builds “Word Of Mouth” advertising which is the most powerful of all. If your customers feel valued and trust you, they may actually be your marketing army of brand ambassadors. That trust and loyalty can help you create better products and build a stronger brand long into the future.
Your product is not the only thing, but it is the most important part of your marketing mix. Following a strategy that includes market research allows you to test and revise your concept and truly understand your audience and their needs. When you can incorporate that learning into your design from the start, it often results in lower costs, higher consumer acceptance and satisfaction, and greater sales and profits.
Need help with pricing your product? Join “The Perfect Price” workshop on May 16th & May 23rd 2022 Where we will go over Costing, and Pricing your product. The Worship will also include Q&A and 1:1 pricing advice from Anna Livermore. For questions please contact: vmorainquiry@vmora.com
Have a Marketing plan already, but need help with producing your line? V.Mora can help you take your brand voice and turn it into products. We will help each step of the way to design, develop patterns, and connect with the right vendors for your project through our Production Development and Management service. Please contact us if you are in need of the Production Development and Management Services below:
Sourcing
Technical sketches
Pattern Making
Prototype making
Sample Making
Fittings
Digitizing and Grading
Marker Making
Manufacturing
Please contact us at: vmorainquiry@vmora.com
