When your business starts blooming, you might be tempted to take the next step towards your business’s goals and launch a new product. Before you begin to think about all the potential profits your company can make, you need to ensure that this is a calculated step. It’s important to consider things through, especially when it comes to your business. An impulsive decision can affect your bottom line, which is something no business owner wants.

So, before promoting your new product, read this article to get an understanding of what you need to consider.

Figure out the costs

Thinking about the costs during the planning stage is essential. So, find out what the production costs are for this project, sit down with your finance department and strategise a plan for your new endeavour. Once you have an idea of how much the cost of production will be, you can apply for a business loan. Business loans in South Africa are accessible as lenders understand the need of finance for small businesses. Getting small business funding can help your company with production costs, without hurting your cash flow.

Since getting finance from investors or government funding can be tricky, you can use this money how you see fit. Investors, especially ones that aren’t silent partners, might want to interfere with how your business is run and how the money will be spent. Getting government funding, on the other hand, can be a tedious process that can put your new product on hold. While getting finance from a lender is a faster application process.

Know and understand your target audience

Whenever you launch a different product, you need to understand your target market. No two audiences are the same, and the tactics you used previously may not necessarily work with your new audience. Therefore, you need to understand who your audience is, their demographics, how to communicate with them, and their needs.

Understanding your audience will help you to align your product with the right audience. Aligning your product is a practical way of ensuring you reach your targets, and continue to make sales, month on month.

Other things you will need to ask yourself when understanding your audience is:

● What is my new product’s target audience, and how will it resonate with them?
● Which distribution channels should I use to promote my new product? For example, will I sell it online or in-store?
● How much will I sell this product for? Am I offering it at a competitive price and what is the standard income of the audience I am trying to attract?

Have a plan of how your business is going to target your customers

Knowing and understanding your audience is one thing. But knowing where you can reach them, and how to target them is what’s important. To boost your brand, you need to find a way you can connect with them. Make use of social media, email marketing, and get in contact with bloggers or vloggers to review your new product.

When choosing an influencer for your brand, you need to be in partnership with influencers who share the same interest and is in line with your product. For example, if you have a new skincare product you want to launch, then an influencer who’s into lifestyle and beauty is exactly who you should contact. You won’t get anywhere by targeting influencer’s followers that aren’t looking for content that is inline to your product.

Your product needs to solve a problem

When you initially started your business, you had a problem that you wished to solve. Well, the same needs to apply to every other business product you sell. Although this may seem like common knowledge, in the midst of planning, it’s understandable that it can sometimes slip your mind. During the planning stage, always ask yourself the “who” and the “why”. This will assist you in not only finding the problem but also the target market. A helpful tip would be to sell an existing product, but make it your own and give it your own competitive advantage. Or you can conduct market research to find out what people need and provide it to them.

Think about the buying journey

Every business owner wants their loyal and potential customers to have a seamless buying journey. So, in order for that to happen, you need to consciously think about your customer’s pain points; where they get their information from and who or what influences them.

Their pain points could be that you have a slow loading website, or your information isn’t easily accessible. Those issues can cause your business to lose money, even your loyalist customer, and struggle to retain customers. So, always make sure that your customer’s journey is smooth and they part from your brand as a happy customer.

Understand your competition and try to be different

In order for you to be at the top of your game, you need to understand your competition and try to be better. Too many companies are offering the same thing, leaving people with the option of buying based on brand loyalty. But, that shouldn’t always be what drives a consumer, and if you don’t have something different to offer, it will be hard for you to break into this new market. So, even though it’s a new market and there have been companies excelling for years, your goal should be to explore new environments and lead multiple markets.

Have a trial run

There is a saying; “you never know how great something can be until you try it”. Well, the same saying applies when creating a new business product. There has to be a trial run before you start running the actual race. This will make sure you have given your target audience what they want and that it does have a chance. You can have a limited edition special on your new product, helping you to gauge how people respond to it. Getting enough data before the big launch is an effective way of seeing if your new project is going to be a success.

Keep the buzz alive

Keeping the buzz alive isn’t only for when the product has launched. No, it’s from the start, when you had a trial run. To achieve this, you can have early incentives; for example, you can offer discounts on pre-orders. Or you can create a buzz by building a mailing list that aims to create excitement around the launch and show teasers. This will help create and keep the anticipation alive for your product.

Conclusion

Promoting a new product can be both exciting and stressful, especially for small businesses. Because this is your chance to grow your business and your brand, it needs to be thought out thoroughly. This product can open new doors for your business, and you can get new customers who might like other products you produce. Once you create a sense of loyalty and awareness, it can help you attract more investors in the long run that can help you grow your business.

For more info please visit: https://www.wesbank.co.za/home/small-business-asset-funding

This article was published in partnership with Wesbank.