One of the marketing’s essential functions is creating and delivering value according to the target market’s needs to position your company and increase revenue. Although you have several strategies available to achieve this, the starting point is to reinforce brand awareness to capture leads and generate more sales, which is precisely what demand generation is all about.
You can evaluate why there is little demand; lack of it can occur for various reasons, some of which may be:
– Because your product is new, and therefore not yet well known
– The niche you are targeting is too small
– There are high competition and a large number of substitute products
– Your product is outdated or in a phase of decline or even a bad image, for whatever reason.
– High prices and brand image that do not accompany
There may be many other reasons; however, these may be the main ones, and the lack of demand for your product may fit into one of these.
Once you have determined the cause or causes, you must consider the following:
Viability
From various possible perspectives:
– The target market’s economic interest (size, growth, profitability, and so on..)
– Your financial capacity to carry out marketing actions
– Availability to improve and develop the product
If you estimate that the segment is small but profitable, it may be worth the effort to attract customers. However, if the segment is small and not very profitable, you may have to rethink the strategy or target customers. Another example is if you see that the problem is a feature or functionality that you lack, you will have to assess the possibility of developing it.
In short words, you can assess your capabilities and potential profitability, and then you will review the existing alternatives.
There are likely alternatives to your product in the market you are targeting; you will have to locate and analyze them. It is essential to assess traffic and demand for these alternatives since few will have the same demand. So you will have to find the most and determine why they are so in need. Maybe it’s a marketing issue, or perhaps they have different functionalities, etc.
The interesting thing would be to make comparisons with these alternatives for several reasons:
– Offer an option and highlight your benefits over the other options
– Take advantage of the searches that these alternatives may have
The objective would ultimately be to achieve visibility thanks to the searches that these alternatives have and, in this way, increase the chances of selling. Comparisons can therefore be an exciting tool, both in the case of new products and small niches.
Now let’s talk about content marketing.
Content marketing
It is a valuable tool to generate demand for your product. After all, if people don’t know about your product, how will they buy it?
You will use the contents to:
– Get visibility
– Build credibility
– And sales
The format should be the most effective for your community:
– Articles in a blog
– Videos
– Ebooks
– Infographics
– Podcast
– Social media presence, etc.
Remember: the important thing will always be to have content planning that answers potential customers’ questions, that responds to the needs they have, and thus, when they look for the solution, they will find your product.
To increase the demand for your product, you will have to make sure that you transmit all the possible uses, mentioning all the niches and areas where it can be used.
Note: You have to be constant, achieve and maintain visibility, and let your potential customers not forget about your product. Most potential customers will not buy from you the first time they see you; if you want to increase your sales opportunities, you will have to impact them multiple times. This exposure also helps generate demand.
“The more people see your product, the more likely they are interested in it. At the end of the day, if it is a product with a lot of visibility, it will be for something.”
Do not forget always to highlight your key differential.
It would help if you detected what makes your product different from others, making it desirable for your target customers.
You will compare your:
– Profits
– Characteristics
– Ingredients
– Features
– Processes
With competing products, looking for where you differentiate yourselves, you can offer potential customers that they cannot. If you can determine something like this, it will be easier to generate demand for your product.
Of course, it will be necessary to spread this benefit to the maximum with campaigns focused on visibility.
Visibility
It aims to develop the brand image and recognize the differential to get the maximum range possible.
Tools such as:
– Website
– The Google Ads display network
– Sponsored social media campaigns
– Sponsored blog posts
– Influencer campaigns
– Video campaigns, etc.
As you can see, they are all campaigns that can generate a large volume of visibility. Ideally, it would help if you tried different creatives, always with the same differential, but other designs: check which is the most effective and not bore the people who see them.
These campaigns do not usually generate many sales, but you will achieve some, and then you can analyze your clients.
Increasing and generating demand is more straightforward if you know precisely the reasons why they buy from you. It is worthwhile for us to dedicate efforts to this task and contact the clients:
– Most recent
– That they have bought more times
– That they have been doing it for longer
– Or that they buy more repeatedly
Also, if you have a CRM or tool that allows it, you can detect those that have not bought for a long time, and you can try to contact them to find out why. An email marketing tool is handy since it allows you direct contact with your clients’ list.
Once you know what customers value the most, you can adjust your marketing to highlight it, and if you find problems, you will try to solve them to the best of your ability. Maintaining contact with customers can also help you send them offers, discounts, and promotions. Although these strategies do not serve themselves to generate demand, they can help you increase sales promptly.
Somehow, make your product known to specific potential customers who, in one way or another, have doubts that could be ignored with an exciting offer, a lower price, etc. Discounts can not solve everything, but it is a helpful tool to use as you need. You can constantly offer something unique to those customers who help you reach more customers or those who leave you reviews or experiences with your product.
Think that to generate demand, your product must meet several factors:
– Visibility
– Be desirable
– Credibility
– Accessibility
– Social acceptance
You can develop all these factors through the appropriate marketing strategies, identifying and taking advantage of your product’s strengths and weaknesses. It will require an adequate investment to establish both your media and paid media. Consider that it will not be immediate; it will take time.
Key mistake to avoid
As you do not want to lose the investment you are making, you must determine the critical differential. If it turns out that you cannot differentiate yourselves or that your key benefits are the same as those of the rest of the alternatives, you run the risk of losing a large part of the investment. It is better that you return to the benefits and the differential to raise some that are effective.
Products that are not in demand
Sadly, there will be products that are not in demand or so little that the segment is not profitable. Suppose this is your product or service case. In that case, you can always try to develop the demand, of course, still after analyzing the market potential; if it’s not worth it, let’s look at other niches, other markets, etc. In case nothing works, you will raise the viability of the product.
It is essential to mention that demand cannot always be generated, but I hope that the tips I have shared in this post will help you analyze your options, chances, and the product or service in question.