Life cycle of product strategy - how marketing can help in sales
In marketing there is a concept of the product life cycle. Products, just like people, are born, conquer the market, live and die. Most of us remember VHS tapes, film cameras or floppy disks, which now have virtually no use. At the same time, novelty items appear every day, like a phone with face recognition or 3D printers, which we could only dream about a dozen years ago. How does the product life cycle affect sales?
Dostępny jest przetłumaczony materiał kliknij tutaj, aby przejść do materiału.
rust matters in sales. Among all the elements that build customers’ trust, one of the most important is time. The longer a product is present on the market, the greater its recognition, which affects the level of users’ trust. The volume of sales and its structure depends on how long the product is present in customers’ awareness. The relation between demand and supply changes over time - the longer a given offer is present on the market, the more its attractiveness, and thus the interest of buyers, decreases. Therefore, it is so important to collect feedback and modify the basic product in relation to customer expectations.
How does the fact that the sold product is in the stage of development, maturity or sales decrease affect the sales argumentation? Here are some tips on how to talk to the customer about the product depending on the stage of life it is in.
In the market introduction stage, take care of educating customers
When you introduce something completely new to the market, something that customers do not yet know, have not seen, and have not had a chance to get familiar with, you need to be prepared for a slow growth in sales. This is the stage of product life when your actions should focus on building awareness. Create the opportunity for potential buyers to have as much contact with the product as possible so they get a chance to test it.
In this stage of product life, you cannot yet talk about the sales techniques because the target group has not been clearly defined. Here the field is wide open to verify various hypotheses, find customers from different industries, with different experience and check how they react to the product.
During this period, one of the key aspects of sales is sales via consultancy, that is customer education - what the product is, what it is used for, and above all, the benefits of using it. It is worth mentioning even the most obvious benefits, because customers may not be aware of them - most of them have not yet encountered such a product, have not been able to check it, which translates into low trust.
This stage requires the most creative approach to sales. How you present the company, how you will talk about the product, can significantly affect sales. When conducting talks with clients, make sure that your offer is perceived as an interesting alternative to what is already on the market.
When selling a novelty, you have to take care to reach the widest possible audience, for example by being present at conferences and trade fairs, or with expert articles in the trade press, blog entries or instructional videos on how to use the product on YouTube. At the beginning, it is particularly important to build customer awareness about the possibilities offered by the product.
E. Rogers formulated a model for adopting innovation, describing the approximate structure of customer behavior towards a new product. This model emphasises the impact of the environment, especially direct contact with people, for the sale of a new product. The number of “pioneers”, that is people who purchase a product in the introductory stage, is only 2.5% of the entire population. They are open to risk and have relatively higher funds, which means that they make purchases regardless of promotional campaigns. The price is not a decisive factor for them, what counts is the curiosity and experience of using the product.
When selling a product in this stage of life...
- Reach the widest possible audience, do not limit yourself in anything.
- Build customer awareness and the potential market.
- Educate your customers about your product and the opportunities it offers.
The customers’ approach to new products
- Pioneers - most receptive to new things, have a higher education, income and social position higher than average, they constitute 2.5% of the target group.
- The early followers - open to novelty, opinion leaders, more susceptible to the impact of the marketing message than the pioneers, have higher education and income higher than the average, constitute 13.5% of the target group.
- Early majority - in their case, the decision to buy new products requires longer consideration, consumers with average income, education, and social status, constitute 34% of the target group.
- Late majority - sceptical of novelty and new product acceptance often due to social pressure or economic necessity, they are less educated, earn less, are less susceptible to the marketing message, are more influenced by the opinion of others, they represent 34% of the target group.
- Laggards - attached to tradition, oriented to the past, low-income, poorly educated, when they start to be interested in the novelty, the others are already looking for other products, they constitute 16% of the target group.
Use current fashion and increased demand during the growth stage
In the growth stage, the product has already gained a group of loyal customers, and sales are growing rapidly. This is the time when you can collect feedback from users, who will reveal possible defects and support the first modifications of the product. The knowledge of the offer, the ability to choose from various models and product availability are important elements of sales in the period.
Wykorzystałeś swój limit bezpłatnych treści
Pozostałe 49% artykułu dostępne jest dla zalogowanych użytkowników portalu. Zaloguj się, wybierz plan abonamentowy albo kup dostęp do artykułu/dokumentu.
Zaloguj się
