7 Tips to Marketing A New Product Successfully

To bring your creation to your audience, it's important to market your product effectively. Product marketing is the process of using promotions and sales to show consumers what you have made, analyzing the success of promotional efforts, and then making any necessary adjustments to improve the process in the future. A proper go-to-market strategy is crucial to set yourself up for the greatest chance of success. Here are some ways to market your new product:

See if you pre-qualify!

7 Tips to Marketing a New Product

These steps can help you successfully bring your product to market:

1. Analyze and Learn From Your Competitors

You'll likely have competition when launching a new product, and your competitors can actually give you a lot of guidance in marketing a new product. Take a look at their website and social media accounts. By reading the comments, you'll be able to see how their product resonates with customers. You can also review the ads they're running and take note of the ones that they've used the longest as those are likely the most successful ads. Sign up for their email list so you can see the promotions they're offering.

By analyzing your competitors' strategies, you'll be able to have a better idea of what works and how you set yourself apart from similar companies.

2. Target the Right Audience

Targeting the right audience means that you've identified the customers who would appreciate your product and would be willing to pay money for it. You can develop buyer personas, which are fictional characters who are likely to use your product. Consider the demographics, geography, goals, motivations, hobbies, and behavior of your ideal customer. Then, create multiple personas based on a combination of those elements to identify the widest target audience you can. Having multiple buyer personas is also useful if your product would benefit from market segmentation.

3. Have a Unique Value Proposition

Your unique value proposition is what specifically about your product separates you from the competition. Think about the benefits of your product and how it makes your customers' lives more fulfilled or convenient. In your marketing messaging, speak to the value that your product brings.

4. Know Your Marketing Tactics and Strategy

There are many channels you can use to market your new product to customers. Decide if you'll create online ads for search engines or social media, secure television spots, or mail out advertisements with coupons. Review your buyer personas to determine where you'll be able to best connect with your audience, whether online or in-person. With this knowledge, you can develop a strategy to market where your audience is most likely to hear and respond to your message.

5. Test Your Marketing Approach

Next, test your marketing approach to make sure you're on the right path for a successful product launch. In this step, consider hosting focus groups or distributing online surveys. Both strategies can help you understand if your target audience is correct and what they think about your product before you release it for general purchase. Use this feedback to refine your product, update your messaging, or revisit who exactly your target audience is.


6. Tell a Story About Your Product

To help your product resonate with your target audience, your product should have a story, which is a scenario that puts the product's usage in context. When sharing your story:

  • Explain the benefits. This is more beneficial than just listing features.
  • Relate to your audience's emotions, concerns, and needs. Address what the audience may be doing before and while using your product. Play out a usage scenario where their life improves, their questions are answered, or their concerns are solved. Help your audience connect with and better understand how your product fits perfectly into their lives.
  • Develop a consistent and versatile brand voice. Think about the words and tones that appeal to your audience and that match your brand's values. Decide if you want your tone to be motivational, urgent, or funny.
  • Form it into a written narrative or video. Share your story on social media, in email newsletters, on your website, in other marketing material, and even with news stations and online publications.

7. Understand the Life Cycle of Your Product

A product life cycle is the series of stages your product goes through, from inception until its value is reduced or it has left the market. A life cycle includes these four stages:

  • Introduction: Your audience is first learning of your product, so you may choose to market heavily to complete sales and expand your reach.
  • Growth: In this stage, consumers are buying, using, and giving feedback on your product. Consider improving the product to meet demands based on this feedback to continuously make sales. Your marketing message in this stage should appeal to your audience through your unique value proposition.
  • Maturity: Here, your product's sales may plateau or continue to rise at a much slower rate. Consider creating complementary products and market them together.
  • Decline: This stage is where you may notice declining sales before your product eventually completes its life cycle. You can try marketing to your existing customers or, early on in the stage, start developing new products to come out later.

Each stage provides unique marketing opportunities, which gives you time to pivot, develop complementary products, change your messaging, and update your sales tactics.

Taking Risks in Product Marketing

You may take risks with a certain manufacturer, by investing a lot of money into development, or marketing your product without the promise of success. Taking risks is a large part of entering the market. One benefit of taking risks is that they open you up to invaluable lessons that can improve your opportunities, knowledge, creativeness, and even confidence. Your audience is also more likely to see and appreciate the big risks you take, which can provide big rewards in terms of sales.

To assess the risk, think about anything that could occur, then evaluate the chances of it happening and how it will impact your business if it does. Research what will happen if your risk pays off. While nothing is guaranteed when risks are involved, understanding the risks and preparing for the outcomes can help you succeed in product marketing. You can manage the risk of using up too many investment dollars by securing a small business loan to help you feel secure and allow you to take a risk more comfortably.

The Importance of Social Media

The use of social media remains one of the best ways to reach your target audience because you can deliver a concise, yet impactful message that they'll notice. Social media is important because:

  • It's cost-effective. You have the potential to reach a lot more people than more traditional advertising methods like TV spots or even a newspaper ad. For mere dollars, you may be able to reach 10,000 people with a well-crafted message.
  • You have direct audience connection. On social media, your audience can use shares, likes, and comments to engage with your brand and to show your brand to their friends. They can also direct message you and engage in a one-on-one conversation.
  • There's an opportunity for interactive promotions. You can host a contest, offer an exclusive sale, ask for user-generated content with which you can supply your newsfeed, or share reviews your product gets.
  • You have access to influencers. Online influencers can sample your product and offer up endorsements or details of their experience to their audience. Partnering with influencers has the potential for your brand to be in front of a large audience that trusts the influencer enough to purchase your product for themselves.

Marketing a new product takes time, effort, commitment, and a belief in what you've created. Staying with your plan and being unafraid to change course when needed should help you find your success.