In business, the ideal scenario is to create products and services for a particular target group. These goods and services seek to create a solution to the pending problems of this target group, resulting in satisfied customers and a profitable business. However, the last thing you would want is to launch your product and have no demand for it from your target group.
After developing a product or service to permeate the business circle, you will need to successfully launch it and apply practical ways to create demand for your products. With continually increased demand from your customer base, you are likely to have your product compete with other leading brands on the market. So, how can you create the demand for your product? Here are a few effective methods you should consider.
- Educate your target market on your product or service
Your business is mostly not the only one offering various goods and services. This means that your potential customers are demanding these solutions from your competitors. Moreover, it may be difficult for your potential customers to see and appreciate your effort to solve a particular challenge. How do you strategically get customers to align with your newly introduced offer?
Education on the product is a step in the right direction. Your potential customers will need to fully grasp the concept of what your business is offering them before a demand is created. Take time to inform potential customers about the benefits of your offer. Although this may be challenging initially, educating them would help them appreciate your offer and eventually create a demand for your goods and services.
You can also create room for feedback from them, as it helps your product align with the customer’s wants and needs. Once you start focusing on the interests of your acquired customers, you will see significant growth in the demand for your product.
- Offer free samples
Another practical way to create demand for your product is by offering free samples to your customers. Offering free samples allows your potential customers to experience what you offer. This, in turn, creates demand as they would want more! It also offers an excellent opportunity to showcase your new concept. Moreover, by giving free samples, you would be able to reach a broader range of your target group and efficiently market your goods. However, simply giving out stuff for free is not what gives you the desired result. Therefore, it is advisable to create a strategic plan for your free samples to create increased demand.
For example, you can target the local stores, public parks, and local government schools. Plan a schedule on specific days for all the local hot spots where your potential customers are. When you visit such hot spots, make sure you have some free samples for your listeners. Once they have the first-hand experience of the service you are offering, they will start to trust you and align with your services and products even before they get to buy it on the market. While you offer free products and services to your client base, you can keep an email list and build up communication with them. With the built-up relationship between you and your client, they may help you improve aspects of your service that can help you grow it more and much better.
- Partner with influencers to market your product
Some people in society have built their personality worth admiring and emulating—through various platforms such as music, politics, sports, and social media. Most popular brands have survived the harsh conditions of business due to their affiliation with these influential people. If your brand can afford the services of such persons, then you can employ them to serve as brand influencers for your product. However, you must ensure that you make a suitable investment in this regard to prevent your business from overspending.
Since the role of influencers is critical to the growth of new products, it is vital to adopt other workable strategies to solve this challenge. You can use influencers that will demand lower wages to promote your product. How do you do that? It would be best if you considered contacting famous people in your locality or region. Although they may not be as famous as the stars on TV, they are superstars in their locality and region. These include the high school soccer players, cheerleaders, your friendly neighbourhood policeman, or even your local TV journalist.
The catch is using influencers to create demand for your product is to locate any of the local stars with considerable influence on the locals or his followers on social media. These influencers influence their admirers in society and the social platforms on the internet. The endorsement will be the game-changer for the growth of your product. Your partnership with the local influencers should include benefits that will push them to do more for the growth of your product.
When you can get these local stars to accept and promote your product or service, you will gradually reach a state where your product or goods will be in demand.
- Partner with complementary products
Promoting a product gets more challenging every single day. Sometimes when the steeps get high, partnership deals may come in handy in promoting and marketing your product. Complementary products in a partnership should not be each other’s competitors in the market. For instance, if your product is a dry cell, you need not partner with manufacturers of other dry cells. You can partner with a company that manufactures flashlights that operate on dry cells. If your company produces different kinds of coffee, you can partner with the manufacturers of the best coffee grinders to complement your coffee products.
How does this kind of partnership mutually benefit both parties? From the example above, both coffee products and coffee grinders will have the same kind of consumers. Once you buy coffee, you will need coffee grinders. Your partnership will lead clients of coffee grinders to your doors for coffees, while your clients can also purchase coffee grinders in a quid pro quo fashion.
- Implementing effective public relations strategies
The scope of public relations covers diverse fields in maintaining a good public image of your product and company. Public relations may cover online and offline media, content marketing and branding of your product. While public relations seeks to project a positive image of your product, it may also predict and prevent negative images that will cost your product’s image to degrade on the market. You can also use public relations to communicate the great deeds your company and product offer the society beyond the business aspect to social intervention programs like building community parks and libraries.
Employing a proactive PR team will come in handy as you launch your product. The PR team may link up with reputable media houses in both the print and online spaces to cover the launch. Once the PR team can make such arrangements, you may conveniently convey your product and services to the masses.
Your PR team can come up with a program dubbed “Customer Appreciation Day”. You will organise customer appreciation days to make customers the focus of your business. On such days, you can reduce the discounts on your services and goods to whet customers’ appetites to shop more or request for more of your services.
On customer appreciation days, you may be able to sell more products without losing much on the profit margins. However, if the discounted sales may not be workable, you can use the concept of add ons. With this concept, you will package smaller gifts and add them to your cherished customers on customer appreciation days. Once one customer gets a special gift for a purchase, you will also inspire others to get their unique gifts. One other strategy your PR team can employ on customer appreciation day is by setting a threshold for maximum purchases that will require a gift from your team.
With such strategies from your PR team, they create an impressive public image of your products and company and create demand resulting in increased income.
- Take advantage of social media
Another effective way to whip up interest amongst your target market is by using the numerous opportunities social media provides. You can start by creating a social media page for your product. Your choice of social media should reflect your target audience. Each social media platform has targeted groups of individuals, making it easy for you to reach out to the type of audience you need for your product.
Once you create a social media page for your product, you can run an online promotion. You may give free samples of your product or service to some of your active followers. Once some of your followers on the social media platforms start receiving treats from you, they will spread the news about your product or service to their friends and family on the social space. Gradually as more people benefit from the online threats, your product will gain significant online traffic creating more interest among potential customers.
