As businesses grow, it is quite common for them to want to expand their product offerings. They can create more products, and thanks to their experience, they have learned from their customers about more problems that can be solved.
Though it makes sense for a growing business to increase its products, it’s important to plan ahead to succeed. We’ll walk you through how to expand your product lines in a savvy way, from laying the groundwork to letting customers know about your new items or services.
If your product is offered to the same or similar audience, start in the markets where you are best known. Launching a new product outside of your niche is a different challenge altogether. Meeting new customer needs or expanding into new markets without alienating current customers can seriously challenge growing businesses.
Whether your new product falls in line with your existing products or is a new venture for your business, it’s crucial to have a plan to follow.
You will have everything you need at your fingertips once you have a plan for a new product launch in place. A new product launch plan can help you calmly overcome various challenges, such as identifying and finding your target audience, setting your product's optimal price, or knowing which features to highlight in your messaging and ads. Understanding the product lifecycle can help you craft a plan.
The product lifecycle is as follows:
In the development stage, you should plan a budget for your new product and market it in addition to your existing products. The marketing for a new product while in the development stage will be used to build anticipation in your target market.
Don’t stop marketing your old products to try and gain traction with the new ones. While the new products will gain ground over time, you still need to sell your old ones.
Make sure your brand structure is consistent so customers know the product is yours and they can trust the brand. For example, use your brand colors and consistent logos so they know at a glance that the new item belongs to your business.
Next, identify the problem your new product is solving and who it’s best suited for. Having customer personas is valuable in this process, so you know exactly who you are marketing to and their problems.
Create clear product or landing pages for your product for all your marketing materials to go to so viewers can learn more and purchase. Instead of linking to your homepage, landing pages can be extensively tailored for a particular audience. In this case, the landing page is crafted for people who are curious about the new product. The landing page will give them more information and entice them to purchase.
Saturate your marketing channels with the new product. Whether it’s your social media, blog, newsletters, or other marketing efforts, be sure to employ an omnichannel approach, letting your customers know about your new and exciting offering.
Ensure you have clear and concise messaging and link not to your homepage or contact page but to a specific page about your product. Landing pages are an extremely effective way to increase interest in a particular product or service. Omnisend says they are 160% more effective than other sign-up form types.
Next, create content to help search engines know you offer a new product and who the product is suited for. These inbound marketing and SEO techniques can include anything from blog posts, videos, podcast episodes, social media posts, and much more.
You can also add short-term tactics to help drive immediate demand, like PR campaigns, sponsorships, presentations, paid digital strategies, etc.
This process can take time. It snowballs — don't give up after a couple of months. Keep at it. If you’re consistent, your new product will start to gain ground.
During this process, be sure to get feedback from customers! Learn how they heard about you and what can make your product better. Then, once you have improved your product, be sure to let your customers know you heard and integrated their suggestions.
One of our clients builds sheds and has attained considerable success in that market. To expand to new markets, they added poultry coops to the lineup of buildings they sell.
They knew these structures were needed when customers asked how to convert their sheds into chicken coops. They designed the product to fit the different needs of chicken owners and added it to their offerings.
When we heard about this new product, we took several actions to help introduce the new product lineup to their existing customers. We did the following:
Thanks to these efforts, their coops line is a thriving part of their product lineup. They have added new designs and are seeing a continuous growth in interest. The line continues to see year-over-year growth in sales, with the fourth year seeing 475% growth over the first year.
It shows that a thoughtful approach to launching a new product leads to great success.
If you want to grow your business by adding new products to your offerings, ensure you plan accordingly before launch. You must budget for creating and marketing the new products and begin introducing your new products to your customers.
Once you are ready to roll out the new offering, you can begin saturating your various marketing channels with information for your customers. You can create advertising and other marketing content that leads customers to landing pages with more information about your new products.
If you want the best chance of success, book a meeting with us at TANK New Media so we can employ our years of experience to guide you to predictable growth.