If you’ve spent time, energy and money creating a product that you think is brilliant, the next step is to create a buzz around your business. You want people to fall head over heels in love with your product, just like you have. Developing the product is only half the job. To make your business successful, you need to persuade other people of its credentials and get those orders flooding in. If you have a product ready and raring to go, here are some tips to ensure that everybody’s talking about your business.
Contacting buyers
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If you have grand plans to see your product on the shelves of major retailers all over the country, it’s wise to get in touch with buyers and try and set up some meetings. If you’ve ever seen The Apprentice, you’ll know how valuable these opportunities can be. If you can impress large chains, you could be accepting huge orders in no time at all. Once one retailer signs up, there’s every chance of getting others on board, as they’ll be keen to compete. Nowadays, many people prefer to shop online, so don’t overlook online retailers. It’s also worth contacting smaller stores and independent shops that sell similar products.
If you do manage to secure a meeting, make sure you’re prepared for what is to come. Make your pitch interesting and engaging, share your backstory, and make sure you give essential information about the product. Go through the facts and figures, and ensure you know exactly what to say when you’re questioned about retail prices and discounts for larger orders. If you stumble over the numbers or you’re unwilling to negotiate, this could jeopardize the deal. Show how passionate you are about the product and back up everything you say about it with examples. If you’ve conducted research, for example, and feedback has been positive, include some comments from customers in your pitch. It’s really useful to be able to demonstrate that you’ve created a product that people actually want to buy.
Visiting trade shows and attending events
Trade shows and events are a brilliant way of putting your business on the map, and hopefully, driving sales. If you are attending an event, for example, a county show or a trade show, you need to make sure that your stall stands out. At some of the larger events, you may be competing with hundreds of other companies, so think about how you could turn heads and what will make people come to you rather than your competitors. Take a look at sites like Dynamic Gift for branded tents and displays and make sure you’re ready to interact with passers-by and show them what you’re all about and what the product does. Let people have a go, explain how it works, and be ready to negotiate if a deal is in the offing. Choose which shows you attend carefully. Bear your target market and the field of expertise in mind. If you’ve got a new camping accessory, for example, you want to be visiting outdoor events and shows that sell camping and caravanning equipment.
Designing a brilliant website
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Did you know that Google processes over 40,000 searches per second? Today, many of us are reliant on search engines to help us find products or services. If you’re trying to sell a product and you don’t have a website, this may put people off. Most of us look for ways to find products, add them to our cart and make a payment within minutes. If you don’t already have a website, now is the time to design one, and start optimizing the pages to improve your search ranking. Using SEO, you can ensure that your links appear high up the results page and drive traffic to your website. Your site should be visually appealing, quick and slick, and easy to navigate. Link to other internal pages to make it easier for people to get what they want from their visit and ensure that the ordering process is simple and swift. It’s really useful to have a live chat or interactive tool to enable you to answer questions or respond to queries. More than 95% of Americans and Brits shop online, so this is a market worth tapping into as soon as possible.
Getting social
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Social media helps us to connect with friends and family, but it can also be a really useful platform for promoting a business. Facebook alone has more than 2 billion users per month. Once you’ve got a website set up, you can connect your site to social media accounts and get more people interested in the product. Set up a profile page, which contains essential information about the company and the product, your contact details, and some photos and video clips. Visual cues work really well on social media. Encourage your followers and friends to share and like your posts, and consider investing in advertising to promote your pages and reach out to a wider audience. Adapt your social media campaign to suit the target demographic, and use analytics to see where traffic is coming from. If you’re targeting a young audience, you may find that Facebook and Instagram are more effective than Twitter.
If you’ve got a product you want to sell, the next step is to put the word out there and let people learn all about what it does and how it could change their life for the better. Use the findings of market research to ascertain which marketing methods would be most effective when targeting clients and set up some meetings with buyers and store managers. Prepare your pitch and make sure you know exactly what you want to do in terms of negotiating prices. Have a look around for opportunities to showcase your business at events and trade shows and take steps to ensure your stall stands out and captures the imagination. Understand the importance of the online market and set up a website. Once you’re up and running, you can employ basic SEO techniques and social media and content marketing to drive traffic to your site, and hopefully, increase sales significantly.
