The tech world is constantly evolving. Ideas that were once considered brilliant have now become obsolete. Some ideas for the future don’t yet have the technology to bring them to life. And some lucky startups hit upon the perfect idea at the perfect time, resulting in tremendous success.
Wherever your idea lies on the spectrum, one of your biggest ongoing concerns as a business owner is product growth. Since a dismal three in four startups fail, this is a valid concern. How will you advertise your brand? Who will buy your product? Read on to learn five key ways to drive product growth.
Maximize The Relevance & Responsiveness of Your Brand
To spur growth, your brand needs to have momentum behind it. How can you create that momentum? Consider the following:
- How important is your brand’s promise to your customers?
- Does your product help customers make money or save time?
- How relevant is your brand?
- How well do you respond to market changes?
Remember that relevance and trust are the key driving factors behind your customers’ buying decisions.
Improve Something Already Successful
Let’s be honest. In this day and age, coming up with a 100% original idea probably won’t happen. The most successful businesses are taking a popular product or idea and finding ways to improve it.
What’s something you use all the time? A gadget? An app? A household product? One recent startup has raised over $2 million to launch a hands-free, fully automatic toothbrush. What’s something you use every day that you could improve?
Grab People’s Attention
It’s official: Humans now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish. You have approximately 8.25 seconds to convince your audience that your product is something they need in their life. You can invent the most useful product in the world, but if no one notices it, it won’t sell.
Be bold with your marketing strategy and promote with authority. Before you can generate product growth, your product needs to capture people’s interest.
Be Very, Very Clear About the Benefits
Why do customers need your product? It sounds like a simple question, but the answer is key to your marketing strategy. If you don’t quickly convince your audience that your product is going to improve their lives, they’ll move on to the next post. You have a window of a couple of seconds to explain exactly what your product does and how it will make their lives easier.
Network with Influencers
A great way to get your product in front of the right audience is to team up with social media influencers. It can be difficult to pick the right influencer for your product, but the effort is worth it.
Think outside the box. Go for shock factor, if you can. Find an influencer who feels as strongly about your product as you do and use that energy to create momentum. The more heads you turn, the more product growth you’ll see in return.
Final Thoughts on Product Growth
Competing in the fast-paced world of technology is no easy task. But with the right marketing strategy, you can get your product in front of the right audience and successfully grow your company.
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SnapMunk
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I like to go through Kickstarter and see the new campaigns. There is always something so creative that funders cannot get it and the company does not get the money they need. THOSE are the companies I have fun watching as they take over.
Does improving on a product always work?
Thinking outside of the box is not easy for everyone. In fact, most of the time that you THINK you are thinking outside the box, you notice that another company has already done that. It’s a real buzz kill 🙂
Shock value is certainly a big part of getting people’s attention out there. With a quippy advertisement or some other video promoting your product is a common way to reach the masses today.
You really start to get the notion that if you want something original it will not happen. Being able to improve on other products is a nice way to encourage the consumer to come back to that product. In some ways, it is a blessing because the original company could come along and buy your startup to improve their business overall.
There are so many influencers on the internet today. Especially YouTube. All you have to do is pick one, talk with them a bit about your product and see if they will promote it.
Pooper is NOT going to work. That is the sad thing about how easy it is to create an app today. People create all these apps without really thinking them through. when the scooper does not show up, who is responsible for the poop?
LOL, are you sure? I am guessing there are a ton of college kids standing around for ways to make beer money!
Getting the consumers attention has to be the hardest part of bringing a new product to the market today. As you said, the attention span is short and there is a lot of information you have to cram into that short timeframe. Good luck if you are trying it.
That can be a very hard thing to do with a new product, however, I always thought that if your company can get the attention of a consumer AND make them buy, you were a pro!
These are all great tips and honestly, most of the real, new products that have come to the market for consumers follow this path exactly. Get that shock value first and that allows for your product to go viral (Squatty Potty anyone?) and then you can move from there. The best thing your startup can do is make sure you have other ideas in mind to follow up with!