Tips for creating hit products!

Whether a product is good or not is not determined by the boss or the manufacturer, but depends on market feedback and actual consumer reactions.

You produce a bunch of products that you think are very good, but you can’t sell them no matter how hard you try - they can only be considered items, not real products.

Products are just a solution to meet consumer needs. If your product cannot better meet consumer needs, it will only remain in the warehouse forever.

As a marketing consultant for companies and brands, I often travel around the country and have seen too many factories and companies that produce products that cannot be sold and result in huge losses.

If the product is not produced based on market and consumer demand in the early stages of production, it is doomed to fail to sell before it is produced. Even if your advertising is great, it will be ineffective or even in vain.

1. Four stages of business development

You know, this is not the era of supply shortage in the past, now is an era of commodity competition with oversupply.

In the early 1.0 stage of China's economy, when commodities were not abundant enough, as long as you produced a product, you would not have to worry about not being able to sell it.

With the continuous increase in productivity and the development of China's economy, competition began to arise between similar products, consumers had more choices, and business entered the 2.0 stage. At this time, mastering good channels means guaranteeing sales.

For example, at that time, Wahaha did a very good job in channel construction and launched a beverage called "Feichang Cola", which solved the sales problem directly by distributing the product through channels. Some companies even have enough channel capabilities to demand a "monopoly" policy from terminal channels, only selling their own products and not similar products from other companies. This was also the main reason why “channel is king” was said at that time.

Gradually, we have reached the business 3.0 stage. It is not enough to control the channels, but people must also know your brand. At this time, the role of advertising began to become more and more important. At this stage, the main media for most consumers to obtain information are television, newspapers and magazines, especially CCTV. At that time, whoever could get the "highest bid" on CCTV would become a national sensation, and a large number of dealers would line up at the factory to get the products before they were even produced.

Even in the current 4.0 business stage, even if you advertise on CCTV every day, it does not necessarily mean that your product will be sold. Today’s consumers’ information channels are no longer the centralized media of the past (CCTV, etc.), but diversified media - including television, websites, social platforms, offline subway advertisements, elevator advertisements, etc. In particular, the popularity of social media such as WeChat and Douyin has become the main way for most young consumer groups to obtain information.

In addition, a media platform is not only for displaying information, but also for enabling the purchase of products. For example, if I see a video of fruit on Douyin and I think it’s good, I can immediately click on the product link to buy it, and then wait for the logistics to deliver it to my home in a few days (or even on the same day). This connects the previously separated information flow (seeing product information), cash flow (purchasing orders), and logistics.

Even if I see a nice piece of clothing in a shopping mall, I may not necessarily buy it here. I can use Taobao's photo scanning function to see the price comparison of the clothing across the entire network, as well as other consumers' comments on the product, and then decide whether to buy the product. At this time, the product itself also becomes a medium, and even good products can speak for themselves and spread themselves.

Therefore, consumer behavior is constantly changing with the development of technology, and corresponding product concepts are also changing. From the past when production was king, to the later when products were easy to use, to the current trend:

Products must not only be easy to use, but also be shareable by consumers - this is the main reason why word-of-mouth marketing is becoming increasingly important.

Many of my friends who were born in the 1990s and 1995s have two main reference methods when deciding to dine at a restaurant they have never been to. One is to ask friends who have eaten there for reviews or recommendations, and the other is to go to third-party platforms such as Dianping.com or Xiaohongshu to see what people think of the restaurant.

If you still want to fool consumers, it is very difficult now. Consumers nowadays are not stupid. It is very easy for everyone to know whether your product is good or not and what your brand is like.

Therefore, the world is not short of products now. What is lacking is products that consumers are willing to buy and, after buying them, are willing to actively spread and share your products - this is the effect that good products should pursue.

2. Products that cannot be actively shared by users are not good products

From the previous description, I believe you also understand that many products not only need to satisfy consumers’ basic values ​​(such as the basic value of a restaurant’s dishes being able to fill your stomach), but also need to make users willing to help you spread the word.

Therefore, in order to create a product that can explode, two conditions must be met.

First, this product has been recognized and loved by target consumers;

Second, consumers who have experienced this product are willing to share it with more people.

Only such products can become popular and have magical power.

For example, a friend of mine gave me a bag of melon seeds, and I found a very good design in it - there is an inner bag inside the melon seed package, so I can throw the melon seed shells into this small bag while eating melon seeds, so I don’t have to look for a trash can after each melon seed.

After I ate it, I strongly recommended it to many of my friends - this made me actively promote this melon seed brand, and the brand awareness of this brand's products also increased because of my active sharing behavior.

So, how do you make consumers love your products and be willing to share them?

In order to make a product the first choice and shared recommendation of consumers, product quality is the foundation, and I don’t need to say more about this.

For example, if your food is not tasty, you shouldn’t open a restaurant. If your thermos cups cannot keep things warm, you shouldn’t produce and sell them.

Therefore, our focus is on how to make users willing to share actively. If users can actively share, it will greatly increase brand exposure and save a lot of advertising costs. Please remember that I am talking about "active sharing", not the behavior of "sharing in the circle of friends and getting XX for free" to induce sharing.

In order to make users willing to actively share your product, you must first understand why users can't help but actively share something with their friends or on social platforms?

. After a girl queues up to buy a cup of Heytea or Nayuki’s tea, the first thing she does is not drink it, but take a photo and share it on WeChat Moments;

. If you run into a celebrity on the street, you will immediately take out your phone to take a photo or video and post it on your Moments;

. When eating a bowl of noodles, I found the words "Another bowl" written on the bottom of the bowl. I was surprised and couldn't help but take a photo to share.

. …

Are the above examples familiar to you?

The main reason why we actively share these things is that these events or products have become our " social currency".

Social currency can be simply understood as the currency we use on social media, but this "currency" does not buy goods, but a kind of conversation topic (in layman's terms, it means "having face") - the sense of social belonging and connection with others obtained from sharing is the product purchased by social currency.

For example, if you share a photo of you and a celebrity on your Moments and your friends like it, then this shared photo is equivalent to social "currency", which buys other people's recognition of you (likes).

So what kind of product design will become the user's "social currency"?

Anything that can provide us with topics for conversation, help us express our ideas, shape our own image, and allow us to compare our sense of superiority can all become part of social currency.

But this scope is still a bit large. For products, I have summarized a reference standard: product experience that exceeds customer expectations or cognition can increase the possibility of users actively sharing.

For example, one of the restaurant chain brands we serve, "Yu Xiaoyao", has a monthly turnover of nearly one million per store, and many consumers come because of recommendations from friends or on social platforms. As soon as customers enter the store, there are many places that make them want to take photos and share them.

For example, there is a spray door curtain at the entrance with text in the mist. Almost everyone who sees it will take photos and share them. Because many customers have rarely seen such things before, it is beyond their cognition.

Of course, if this kind of scenario design becomes common by then, it will not cause users to actively share.

For example, the melon seeds package at the beginning of my article has an inner bag for me to store the melon seeds shells. This product design exceeded my expectations - the melon seeds brands I usually buy do not have this extra design in the packaging, so seeing this inner bag design exceeded my expectations, and I couldn’t help but share it and recommend it.

During the Mid-Autumn Festival some time ago, a publishing house sent me a box of mooncakes. When I opened it, I found that there were purple and other colored mooncakes. Seeing these exceeded my expectations, and coupled with other thoughtful designs, I couldn’t help but post it on WeChat Moments.

(Screenshot of Mr. Monster’s Moments)

These product experience designs that "exceed customer expectations or cognition" sometimes do not require a lot of cost to achieve the desired effect. The key lies in your ability to grasp consumers' social and other psychological needs based on the attributes of your own products, and to design products that customers are willing to share actively.

For example, if you are in the catering business, you can think about it from the perspectives of the presentation of the dishes, the lighting of the environment, the tableware, etc.

For example, many restaurants now use low-cost methods such as dry ice and flames to present dishes, encouraging customers to share actively.

(This dry ice flame practice is becoming more common, though.)

Of course, all of this must be based on your strategy, and all product designs must be consistent with the brand strategy. If you are a fast food restaurant pursuing a high turnover rate, these designs may not be suitable for your store.

at last,

Think about it, on the basis of complying with your product strategy and ensuring product quality, how can you design your product to exceed the user's expected or perceived experience design, so that users are willing to actively share it?

Author: Mr. Monster

Source: Mister-shou