Preparing to sell

To successfully bring a new product or service to market, you should follow some essential steps.

Study the market

You should analyse your competitors’ advertising, websites, and other public information. Identify where your product or service is similar to theirs and where it is different. This helps you assess whether customers are more likely to buy from you or from your competitors. See understand your competitors.

This analysis will also reveal your ideal customer. You can then target your marketing activity more effectively.

A commonly used approach is a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis. See a SWOT analysis example.

Define your marketing strategy and tactics

You must choose the right sales and marketing channels for your product or service, eg shop, website or both.

Usually, a business that sells across many channels will achieve greater success because customers who can shop when and however they like tend to spend more and shop more often. See factors to consider before you sell.

You should ensure that many people know about your product or service. This includes potential customers, the media, and reviewers. See sales promotion.

Know the life cycle of your product or service

Once your product or service has been launched, your marketing activity should change as it moves through its life cycle.

By carefully monitoring your marketing results, you will be able to see diminishing returns that will indicate when it is time to:

• revise the product or service
• change your marketing message or channels
• phase out the product or service and introduce a replacement

See product life cycle.