Small companies setting out to sell their own products have many challenges to deal with. The process of getting a new product to market can be a painful and grueling one. Making mistakes or bad decisions will make it harder for your product to gain popularity; making it harder to sell. If you follow a strict process, though, you’re much more likely to be successful. To help you out, this post will go through the steps required for most products.
- Design/Manufacture
Of course, before you can ever try to market a product, you need to design and make one. Usually, it’s best to think of a good idea, and then design it afterward. But, to think of a good idea, you may need some inspiration. Use the Internet to try to find a common problem or annoyance; solving a problem has been the key to success for products for hundreds of years. You may need help when it comes to designing certain aspects of your product. Electronic componentry is very complicated and hard for most people to understand. So, you would probably need help to design anything electronic. Use outsiders as well as your close ones to give you feedback and criticism about your designs. Being self-critical can be damaging if it’s either too good or too bad.
When it comes to manufacturing, most people have to outsource the work. But, if you have a decent amount of startup capital, and some space, less complex products can be easily made at home. Modern metal machining and plastic 3D printing are both cheap ways to get products made. They will often be long processes but can be left to work autonomously. For some, though, this won’t be an option. So, you’ll have to outsource. For small batches or prototypes, it’s usually best to have things made locally. The shipping cost from overseas and the time it takes to get to you will make it harder to justify going further afield. For bigger batches, though, countries like China and Malaysia offer options that are much cheaper than what you will find close to home. Only go out of the country with your manufacturing if your product is completely ready to go to market.
- Packaging
At this stage, you should already have a solid brand in place. If you don’t, you may have to go back to the drawing board with your entire business model. Your packaging should reflect your brand and, ideally, be as unique to your company as possible. Look at the packaging that similar products use, and ensure that yours is easy to pick out from the crowd.
The materials that you make your packaging from can play a big part in your product’s success. With increasing pressure to become more eco-friendly, wasteful materials should be avoided. In most cases, this will mean avoiding plastics altogether. A lot of companies have found success in using recycled materials for packaging. Recycled card and paper can be compressed to make a strong, almost wood-like substance. You can print on it, and have it in most shapes that don’t need lots of curves or bends. Make sure that whatever material you chose, you use as little of it as possible. A small box will feel heavier than a larger one, even if they have the same product inside. And, of course, most people will relate weight to quality.
- Social Media And Advertising
Once your product is designed, you can start to build up a buzz surrounding it. The very best way to do this is through social media. Millions of people use social media everyday, making a great platform to reach out to loads of customers. Holding competitions to gain early access to your product is a great use of social media, which has made loads of products quite sought after. Just like your packaging, your social media presence should be unique. Think about ways to engage your audience and make them excited about your product. Even if your product is fairly mundane, people will still jump onto the hype train if you lay out the tracks well enough. Always make sure that your social media contact is professional, but not rigid and lacking humor.
Many people view social media as a way to get free advertising. But, sometimes, it’s a good idea to pay for advertising as well. Unless you have a large budget, TV and radio advertising are usually as waste of money. They’re expensive, and you don’t guarantee that the advert will reach relevant people. Services like Google’s AdSense offer a way to advertise on the Internet, without having to charge a flat rate. These services will only make you pay-per-click; so, you only have to pay for what you use. They will use browser cookies to target your adverts at people who they might be relevant to. You just need to create a beautiful advert; that is in keeping with the rest of your brand.
- Website And Store
For a new product, a beautiful website is key. Most companies will use a new landing page on their site when launching a product. This makes it the first thing that visitors will see when they enter your site. You should provide as much information about the product as possible, without making it easy to copy or replicate. This should include specifications, frequently asked questions, and as many images as possible. A lot of companies will also include trailer-like videos for their products, to help in building buzz. The website should be easy to navigate, as well. If a site is hard for customers to use, they will be much less likely to spend a long time on the site. Quality is the most important thing when it comes to your website, so you may need some help in building it.
Before you can have someone sell your product for you, you need to prove that the product will sell. Most businesses will do this through their own website. An online store, above all else, needs to be secure. Data needs to be encrypted, and it’s best if you don’t have to handle customer payments details. To make sure that your online store is up-to-scratch, it’s best to hire a professional or use an online store builder. If you are confident with computers, you probably won’t have a problem with building the store yourself using an online builder. But, if not, you can hire a professional on a contract basis using a website like freelancer.com. Before you build the site or have it built, you should design the visual side. Once you know exactly what you want the website to look like, it will be much easier for you to have it made. It will give you a chance to try different ideas before you’re using a difficult tool to do it. You can have your website security audited by the payment gateway that you use before the website goes live. This will make sure that you don’t run into any problems in the future.
- Distribution
Getting your products into other stores and on other websites is the best way to maximize your income. Usually, if a store wants to stock your product, they will buy it from you in a large quantity. This means that you won’t necessarily make as much money as you would on the same amount of individual sales, but it’s much less risky. If the product fails to sell in store or on other sites, it’s already been paid for. So, you don’t have to worry about it doing badly, at least in the short-term. If your product does well in store, the business will come back to you for more. This can guarantee monthly sales that you otherwise wouldn’t get. Before any other business even considers buying your product, they will want to know if it sells. This makes it very important to keep track of your sales. It can also help to do a bit of math. If you can show a potential buyer that your growth projections are solid and looking good, they will be much more likely to invest.
- Logistics
Once your online store is set up, and you’re selling to other businesses, you’ll need a way to get your products from A to B. Spending time everyday to package, label, and send products will be alright when you’re a small business. But, as you get more customers, you will start to run out of time. It’s a surprisingly long affair, shipping products. If you don’t have a label printer, you have to write out labels by hand. You will never be able to predict the lines in the post office, so that can also take a long time. To avoid this issue entirely, most companies will use a third-party logistics service to ship their sales. You will provide the company with a large batch of products, and they will ship them for you. It’s much harder for these services to make mistakes or cause problems, as they do it everyday.
This should give you a good idea to help you push your product to market. But, it’s important that you do your own research. You should know your target demographics before you even consider marketing a product. Once you know, though, everything is much easier.