Market Yourself: Product and Promotion

Third post in the Market Yourself Series. After following the other posts in the series by discovery your motivation and researching your market and demographic, it’s time to start refining and improving your product (or service) and learning how to properly promote it using the “4 P” model (Product, Price, Placement, Promotion) and the “A 3P S” model (Advertising, Publicity, Packaging, Personal selling, Sales promotion / incentives)

The Four-P’s

If you’ve taken an advertising or marketing class, you’ll know what the Four P’s are already: Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion. These are the four keys to selling a product or service, and will help you change how you market them:

Product

The product (or service) should be the first thing you analyze and possibly get some non-bias feedback on. Answer some simple questions by both your expertise and a few external opinions:

• What is the total cost to make/produce/ship the product?
• What is the quality of the product, and what guarantees/maintenance do you offer?
• How well does your product compete against competition?

Price

Math is one of the most important factors in determining long term success of a product. Start by breaking down the data that you have: price – cost = profit. How well does your product compete on a price level? What is the percentage of profit made, and do the long-term profits exceed the costs of marketing, advertising, promotion, etc?

Placement

Location, location, location! We’ve all heard that phrase, and for good reason. Location really matters. You can sell a pile of junk if it’s in the right location. Analyze location/placement in a hierarchy:

• What city are you located in (analyze demographic and potential number of customers in that city)
• Once you have a rough estimate on that number, consider your store location and how many of those customers see it
• How well do you position you product (physically or mentally) when customers enter your doors (or website even)?

Promotion

Once you’ve figured out all that data, you have the tools necessary to start promoting yourself. If it’s a new product/service/business then jump right into the Promotional Mix. Otherwise start by analyzing how information is distributed and advertised currently and give some thought to the strengths and weaknesses of your current tactics before reading the next bit.

A-Three-PS (The Promotional Mix)

The A-Three-PS model is the biggest key to promoting your product or service. Within each of these points there are other branches and such that are important also, but for the most part, every type of promotion falls within the A 3P S: Advertising, Publicity, Packaging, Personal selling, Sales promotion.

Advertising

Advertising comes in many names and shapes, but put simply, advertising is a form of promotion that explicitly details the product and markets it towards a specific demographic. I’ll go deeper into advertising with another post, but here’s a quick look at the most popular methods of advertising:

• Web Media (pay-per-click advertising, social media, viral marketing)
• Outdoor (vehicles with large ads, billboards, building ads, posters)
• Print Media (business cards, brochures, newspaper)
• Broadcast Media (television, radio, live web feeds)

Publicity

This is one of the most impressive ways to promote your product and usually causes a huge spike, but is not necessarily a steady flow or good model to base your business. Publicity can come in many ways, whether it’s word-of-mouth, a promotional event, news story, or some crazy stunt. Usually it comes at little to no cost (because it pays off whatever costs their may have been), and generally has a greater impact for immediate business, but as I mentioned.. is not a steady source of income. This is a great place to start for a new and emerging business, and is also highly effective when combined with other promotional resources (such as Sales Promotion).

Packaging

It’s so amazing how packaging effects a consumer’s decision to purchase. Packaging is huge, whether it’s a physical product, how you package/sell your product online, etc. This is where you can be creative and stand out from your competitors. Rather than going into too much detail about how creative packaging works, check out some of these links for yourself:

• Highly Creative Product Packaging
• More Creative Product Packaging
• Food and Beverage Product Packaging

Personal Selling

Out of all the forms of promotion, most businesses either nail the others and miss this or nail this and miss the others. Personal Selling is a face-to-face interaction that takes the product from beginning of sale to closing of sale. This is crucial in selling a large product like a car, boat, or expensive service. Generally anything that is selling for over $3000 is going to require personal selling. I have seen many businesses flop because they didn’t promote themselves, meet with clients, or sell on a personal level. If you have any product or service that is near or above $3k, put this on the top of your list of skills to master!!

Sales Promotion or Incentives

You’ll see this form of advertising at almost any retail store. Sales cause hype which becomes a free promotion by word-of-mouth. Sales can be really effective on an older, polished product to draw the user to look at a new product that you are promoting.

Take a wireless store for example. You’ll often see sales incentives offering you a deal with a new phone. They will often promote a free bluetooth headset, or a discounted price with a 2 year contract. These are sales promotions that seem like a good deal (and often can be), but for the store have large turnover. Either the bluetooth headset is really cheap for the store to give away, and the smart phone that you’re paying $500 for easily covers the cost.. or a free phone with a 2 year contract.. you just buahg the phone for your monthly payment * 24 months!

Sales can be combined in so many ways, that it would be impossible to give all the different examples. The biggest thing to note when promoting a sale or incentive is what your costs are, how much the price outweighs the cost, and how that is presented to the consumer. If you take those three point into consideration, and combine this form of promotion with some form of advertising, it should be a large success.