Product Marketing is a customer focused task that incorporates customer sentiment related to product features, identification of direct and indirect competitors, identification of optimal channels for promotional purposes, and determining the projected demand for your product. Businesses also need to determine how to best position themselves within the market in order to maximize the sales and revenue.
Before and after a product launch, a company can benefit from targeted research into specified areas of product marketing so that they are better equipped to understand how to adjust their product marketing strategies to increase sales, to market in the right channels to the targeted customer base, and drive product marketing successfully. Considering that a majority of American consumers tend to purchase the same 150 products that fill more than 85% of their needs, it’s becoming more critical than ever before for businesses to utilize research to drive product marketing.
There are five research insights that can help drive product marketing both before and after a product launches to help businesses develop their product marketing strategies to better influence customer purchasing and increase long-term profitability.
1) Customer Focused Research
Gain insight to identify and better understand your target customers: demographics, psychographics, identifying problems of your customers need to be solved and determining how they make decisions.
Peter Drucker has famously stated that “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” Understanding your target customer is an extremely important consideration to market successfully. Businesses have to know what their customers want to buy. It is essential to understand your target demographics and psychographics so that you can precisely gauge how to market products towards your customer to drive purchasing habits.
Customer research enables organizations to figure out exactly how they can influence customers’ choices utilizing valuable customer data –
- Type of customers who want your product
- How much the customers are willing to spend
- Which features resonate with them, and more
You can increase the relevance of your product marketing if you have research backed insight regarding the steps that customers go through to buy a product: Problem Recognition, Information Search, Evaluation of Alternatives, Product Choice, and After Purchase Evaluation.
2) Product Demand Research
Benefit from insights surrounding product demand based on local, regional, national, international, online, or offline factors, and identify the demand for your product in various markets.
Accurately determining where the demand for your product exists within various marketplaces is essential to understanding where to market and sell your products. Conducting research into targeted areas such as selling locally, regionally, internationally, or to online markets, can be a key factor in increasing product sales. Gaining insight into ideally marketing your products based on demand can increase the reliability of sales.
3) Competitor Marketing Research
Identify and gain insight as to who are your direct and indirect competitors, and how they are regarded by both customers and the market.
Businesses must gain insight into competitor marketing strategies to better situate themselves within the same market and develop marketing strategies most effectively. Research should focus on who your competitors are, where they’re most effective if they’re targeting the majority of customers within the market, what their advertising and marketing themes include, and product feature data such as pricing or discounts.
Learn what product features you can offer that your competitors don’t, and stay updated as to any possible changes or actions taken by your competitors regarding their products and marketing strategies.
4) Channel Marketing Research
Identify the best channels to market your product, and where to advertise for the best possible response and viewership.
Understanding how to select the right channels for marketing your product most effectively and strategically is critical. Research can provide information that enables businesses to decide which channels to market their products, such as online, a trade show, print, broadcast, or other media. By utilizing channel marketing research, you can identify which marketing channels to pursue that are best suited to your particular product marketing objectives.
This type of research can offer valuable insight about the performance of current channels, and figure out what other potential channels are the right fit for your specific product and market. Additionally, this insight can help businesses select new channels for managing ongoing product marketing.
5) Social Media Research
Gain research supported insight on the customer engagement levels of your products on social media, and which social media platforms are ideal for marketing your product.
Social media research is essential to understanding your consumers and their level of engagement with your products. Businesses can better understand how many people are talking about their product, and which platforms are being used to interact with your product most successfully, whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, etc.
Companies should be mindful of the popularity and marketing significance that the right social media channel holds regarding the customers and their preferred products. “71% of consumers who have had a good social media service experience with a brand or product is likely to recommend it to others.”
Conclusion
Successful product marketing strategies should be supported by accurate and data based research regarding key areas of product marketing. Organizations can gain intelligence that allows them to market to targeted customer bases via the right channels, learn about competitor marketing techniques, and identify where there is the most significant demand for their product.
Customized research based insights can drive your company’s product marketing strategies to the next level. Research Optimus has the experience and skill-wise resources to help your business determine key areas of research that are needed for successful product marketing. Research Optimus focuses on the most valuable, key areas of product marketing so that your company can develop its brand awareness strategies on a foundation of relevant, fact-based insights.
– ResearchOptimus
