No product is perfect. While we’re often taught to ignore the flaws in marketing, your audience is still likely to pick up on them. If your product was designed and built by you, it’s likely you’ll be able to fix the problem yourself. However, if you’re marketing someone else’s product, you do not have this freedom and need to learn to work with what you’ve got. Here are just a few useful tips for successfully marketing a flawed product.
Identify customers to whom the flaw matters
For some customers, the flaw may be a dealbreaker. Meanwhile, others may barely notice it. Work out which customers are likely to be most concerned by the flaw so that you can avoid marketing directly to them.
For instance, if you’re trying to sell lorries to companies and your lorries aren’t particularly fuel-efficient, you don’t want to be targeting companies that are environmentally-focused.
Don’t tell lies
The worst thing you can do is lie about a product. If you’re marketing a managed IT service that only offers 9 to 5 support Monday to Friday, don’t tell clients that you offer 24/7 support. You could open yourself up to claims of negligent misrepresentation. Such lawsuits could be expensive to resolve and could have a serious impact on your reputation if a customer decides to rant and rave about it online.
Emphasize your product’s best qualities
The most common strategy when dealing with a flawed product is to focus on the product’s best qualities. By heavily emphasizing them, some customers may be able to overlook the flaws.
For example, if you’re marketing a pair or running shoes that aren’t very durable (perhaps there are lots of reviews of shoes falling apart), you may be able to bring attention to the low cost, the superior comfort or the cool aesthetics.
Turn your product’s weaknesses into strengths
Sometimes it’s possible to turn a weakness into a strength. For instance, a cast iron outdoor table that’s difficult to carry isn’t going to blow away in a storm.A refrigerator that’s very small might be ideal for fitting into a small kitchen.
You may also be able to show that a flaw is still, relatively speaking, a strength. For instance, if you’re marketing a washing machine that isn’t very energy-efficient, you could point out that it’s still a lot more energy-efficient than certain other competitors (which you could even reference by name with figures). This can be a useful way of dealing with direct questions about the flaw.
Control the negative conversation
If there’s a lot of negative press out there about your product, you should try to find ways of diffusing this. You may be able to create an increase in positive reviews to outweigh negative reviews or you may be able to use SEO to improve the rankings of positive media sources over negative media sources. In severe cases, you may have to completely rebrand a product to help boost its reputation.