What will be the marketing strategy for introducing cosmetic products in Asia (for example, introducing Avon lipsticks in Pakistan)?
Let us take example from popular Frank Body who used WOM marketing for enhancing their success.Frank Body shows that they understand their customers’ needs and care for them.Jess, Bree, and Erika are skincare consumers too, which helped them understand what their target audience would be interested in. They know that their customers would be interested in more than just coffee scrubs and skincare products.Thus, Frank Body releases regular blog content about four categories that are most important to their customers: – Skin, Life, Health, and Love.Frank Body has got you covered – and your body covered tooGiving advice on relationships and maintaining a healthy lifestyle proves that they care for their customers. This allows customers to engage with the brand on a deeper level and strengthens the relationship they have.Frank Body encouraged customers to post photos of their products and reward those who spread word-of-mouth.When Frank Body first started their marketing efforts, they sent out loads of products to influencers and encouraged customers to spread word-of-mouth:When we first launched, we sent our product to a whole bunch of people we thought were influential – makeup artists, beauty bloggers,” Hatzis says. While that helped some, their “most important and valuable ambassadors” are their customers. – Jess Hatzis, co-founder of Frank BodyThey knew that user-generated content would be key in driving their marketing efforts, but they were pleasantly surprised it outdid the reach of influencers.Today, Frank Body encourages their customers to share photos of themselves covered in their coffee grounds body scrub and use the hashtags #frankeffect and #letsbefrank. Monthly contests are held to reward lucky winners who post using these hashtags. Thanks to their efforts, there are now almost 100,000 user-generated posts.Loyalty programme designed like a luxury dream hotel.Ready for your hotel date, babe?Frank Body also has a loyalty program, Hotel Pink, which rewards customers when they engage with the brand. These actions include: purchasing more, sharing on social media, giving a review, and referring a babe.Each of these actions accumulates points, which allows them to unlock different areas of the ‘hotel’, and receive exclusive freebies and discounts.Read about full strategies at: Genuine Marketing Strategies.Thanks for reading!
How do I introduce a new dishwashing liquid to the market?
There has to be something specific to your dishwashing liquid. Maybe is the smell, color or ‘the features’. If you don’t know yet what’s that thing, look for it. You’ll find it. Maybe it has a super-power that “clean even the nano- scratches in your dishes”. You get the point.That’s one thing. The second thing is: to which consumers are you trying to sell? Are they household or business consumers? (restaurants, coffee shops etc). Who has the purchasing power? The wife? The restaurant manager? Who is that person?Once you figure this out, think of where these people can be found. Are they shopping it from the supermarket or from specialized brochures and other sources? (see Amway high-priced eco-friendly and non-toxic dishwashing products).You are now able to start your first initiative. Look for the way you appear in those mediums. Find out how you may be found on a supermarket shelve, or in a brochure, an online shop etc.And, of course, continuously research your consumer. Are they buying depending on price, on quality, smell, brand or what? What are their triggers? Learning their decision triggers you can only move next with your marketing initiatives, or simply increase salesman force. Just figure out what are your best ways of selling your dishwashing liquid and improve on them.Hints: - smaller shops, smaller businesses, and smaller distributors - resellers as your starting point, IF you don’t have what’s needed to get those better (distribution-exposure) deals since the beginning.—Join me on teacherr to discuss more on business and marketing
How do you best calculate a price for a new product?
Comps. Comparable Products.You really do need to start here. And then — Anchor High, Same, or Low.Most software costs essentially nothing to “ship the bits”. And customers don’t really care how hard it is to build. Google search is hard to build. And it is free.And yes, you can “value price”. But even value has to have context.If I pay $100k for an S-Class Mercedes … then it turns out, $100k for a Tesla Model S seems fair. ONCE Tesla decided to turn the Model S into a Mercedes S-Class competitor. It didn’t start there. But that ended up being its comp.So first, pick a fair comparable. It doesn’t have to be a competitor. Just a product that provides similar value to a roughly similar type of buyer.Then decide in your gut if your product is more valuable than the comp.If so, Anchor High. If the customers also believe you are more valuable than the comp, they’ll pay more. If you are truly 2x as valuable as Salesforce to an enterprise, you really can charge 2x more. At least, you can work up to that.But if you are a scrappy competitor, feature poor — but cool. Maybe then Anchor Low or Same. Maybe don’t come in higher than Slack.And remember, unless you are a true commodity, “cheaper” usually isn’t a pricing strategy in software. Brands matter. Trust matters when you are running your entire business on a piece of software. 90% of customers don’t want the cheapest solution — they want the best solution. Yes, some products like Twilio, Sendgrid, AWS, etc. do have a fair amount of direct price sensitivity. But even there, the value they provide and their brands allow them to charge more than the “commodity” pricing.I can tell you as an ex-VP at a Fortune 500 company … enterprise products with similar enterprise value in the end have similar enterprise pricing, all-in.
Do you know any tools to help pricing startup's products?
Your best companion here is an A/B testing tool (and let customers decide for you what price works for them)Identify two price points that you think your products are worthy of, then run an A/B test: drive 50% of your traffic to Price 1 and the remaining 50% to Price 2.Check results and see which pricing appeals to customers. (basically which Price got you more customers signed up!)Assuming Price 2 works well, then try and see if you can introduce another Price 3 (more than Price 2) and do an A/B test once again.If Price 3 works, then try introducing a Price 4 and A/B test once again.Repeat until you reach a sweet spot. And then revisit this after a period of 6 months / 1 year (depending on what you are selling).Recommended A/B tools: Google Analytics, Wingify, Optimizely.
Advantages / disadvantages of expanding product range?
Expanding product range can increase revenue and may increase profitability. I said may, because the introduction of new range may entail additional resources and the profit contribution may not be able to justify its cost. But then if your capacity to produce existing range will be compromised by the addition of a wider range, the net profitability effect could also be affected. A thorough study is necessary.
How does the stage of a product's life cycle affect price?
An analogy to this process can be observed in production as well. First, a product is being developed. After we know what it is that we are selling and what the customer wants, we introduce it to the market. As our product becomes known by consumers, it grows until it establishes a solid position in the market. At this point, our product is mature. After a period of time, the product is overtaken by development and the introduction of superior competitors. Then it goes into decline and is eventually withdrawn. All these phases together are called product life cycle. INTRODUCTION In the Introduction stage of the product life cycle, a product or a service is introduced to the market. This stage involves focused and intense marketing effort designed to establish a clear identity and promote maximum awareness. Consumers are testing the product in this phase. GROWTH After a product is introduced in the market, consumers become more interested in it. This is called the Growth stage of the product life cycle. Sales are increasing and competitors are emerging as well. Products become more profitable and companies form alliances, joint ventures, and takeovers. Customers are accustomed to the product and are starting to purchase it repetitively. Marketing efforts and costs are still significant. Advertising costs are high. Market share tends to stabilize. MATURITY The market has reached saturation. Some producers at a later stage of the Maturity stage of the product life cycle begin to leave the market due to poor profit margins. Sales dynamics is beginning to decrease. Sales volume reaches a steady state supported by loyal customers. Producers attempt to differentiate their products. Brands, trademarks, and image are key tools in this production life cycle stage. Price wars and intense competition are common. DECLINE Continuous decline in sales signals entry into the Decline stage of the production life cycle. Competition is taking over your market share at this point. Economic and production conditions are becoming unfavorable. Introduction of innovative products or a change in consumer tastes is common reason for a decline. There is intense price-cutting and many more products are withdrawn from the market. Profits can be improved by reducing marketing and cutting other costs.
How can I estimate how many units I should order when introducing a new product manufactured in China?
Similar to product pricing, deciding on the quantity of your manufacturing runs depends on so many factors; therefore your final decision should be strategic on so many levels. Here are just a few of the factors you will be considering:BTW, I'm assuming that you are manufacturing a widget that you designed yourself and then found a factory to make it for you.1. Larger quantity usually gets you a lower unit price from the factory.2. You will save money on larger runs because you can ship them all at once, saving on overseas shipping costs.3. How often you make design improvements. If you're still at the 1st generation product, then you may not want to stockpile since your 2nd gen. product is coming out soon enough.4. timing with your marketing launch. will you be doing a soft launch or is it full speed ahead with your marketing campaign? You don't want to get caught with your pants around your ankles when the orders start rolling in.5. Pre-sales. There are more and more platforms for pre-selling: email campaigns, kickstarter, industry trade shows, etc. Having orders in hand will lower your risk as well as give you a confidence boost.6. Storage costs. 3PL (3rd party logistics: when you hire someone to store and ship your goods for you) warehousing charges are usually by the pallet. Be ready to absorb those costs when your goods come in. Incidently, I would NOT recommend 4PL firms like Shipwire. They are just software firms masquerading as logistics firms. There are just too many layers between you and your goods; it's like playing the game 'telephone' and customer service will suffer greatly. We used them for two years. Finally it wasn't worth the trouble anymore. High costs, missing cases, SKU errors, decrementing errors; the problem is that they do not own any warehouses; they contract out.7. How many destinations will you be shipping to? One or several? 8. Manufacturing a large run will allow you to control quality at the factory one time instead of many times. You should be there in person during the whole manufacturing process. Or else beware!9. Shelf life. Does your product suffer from too much time on the shelves? There are many many more factors. Hopefully Tim Cook could give you an answer on Quora. That would be the answer of all answers!