Whilst an established product service or cause will be selling, new offerings may take time to become established.
So, what happens when you introduce something new to the market? Earlier in this sequence about products services and causes, I posted about unique offers. Understand the distinction; your offer does not have to be unique to be new to the market. It always helps to identify aspects of an offer that are unique; after all why should someone buy from you if your offer copies everyone else’s?
However, this post is not about the unique aspects of an offer, so much as the timing and how you launch it on the market. If you have not marketed this particular offer before, how do you introduce it to the market?
Here are some things to consider:
- Do you know who its potential market is?
- Do you know how to contact them?
- To what extent is the market aware of the offer? The awareness ladder may be helpful here.
- Is the offer aimed primarily at a local market? It may be the offer has to be made locally. A baker, for example, is unlikely to aim for an export market. Anyone offering a service is likely to focus their efforts in a local market. However, others may want to focus initially in a local market, to iron out any issues before a bigger launch.
Another thing to consider is whether you want to launch your offer with maximum impact so that you get a lot of immediate attention. The alternative is to slowly publicise your offer. You might want to do this so you can pilot a new offering, before you launch it on the open market. The following approaches begin with the more gradual and move onto those with a greater immediate impact.
- Referral marketing is a slow and steady approach and effective locally.
- Local media, ie things like flyers and business cards through to launches in local media.
- If you have a shop front, consider how introducing a new product might impact on existing products. For example, is it worth giving publicity to a new offer so that people come to the shop and see older products?
- Local presentations, if your market gathers for meetings, it may be possible to offer a presentation
- Online marketing can support local marketing or be for a wider market beyond the reach of local approaches. You might use approaches such as SEO or social media.
- If you have established online contacts, using email lists, it may be worth considering a product launch.
Whatever option you choose, there will be a lot of detail to work out, so it is worth giving thought to these issues before you introduce something new to the market.
This is part of a post sequence about the circuit questionnaire’s second element, products services and causes.
