How to conceive a marketing plan for a new product?

This is a very common scenario. When you take on a new project, it means you need to have a prior assessment of whether you can handle it. In fact, most people have never led a project independently, let alone led the marketing of a new product. Because this is a systematic project, it is not simple. In this article, Brother Hui will share a practical framework. I hope I can help you on your way to becoming a project leader in your company, and become a recognized capable person among your friends as soon as possible.

Now think about it: a client or a boss comes to you and gives you a product analysis, hoping that you will lead the marketing of this product. If you nod and come up with a feasible plan, a project team or department will be set up for this new product, and you will be the boss. From then on, your income will be directly linked to the performance of this product.

This kind of scenario is very common.

So, what would you think at this time? Many people probably were secretly so happy that they couldn’t sleep. They thought, “The boss finally recognized my talent. I finally have a chance to stand out. I must seize the opportunity.”

After being happy, it’s time to take practical action and come up with a feasible plan.

At this point, you may start to worry, what should you do?

Brother Hui has experienced many such scenarios, and I would like to share with you my actual practices. There are four steps in total:

Step 1: Have an idea

Step 2: Build the framework

Step 3: Make a request

Step 4: Take action

Let’s take it one step at a time.

01 Thoughtful

Having ideas means that you should be fully prepared mentally that this product may not be suitable for you, you may not be able to earn this money, and you may not be able to be a successful boss.

The most important thing is calm and objective thinking. The mind is heated up by good news, so calm introspection is needed first.

Maybe you think that it’s all the boss’s fault. If you have this kind of thinking, you will never be able to complete this project.

To do a project well, especially a new product, what is most needed is actually the entrepreneurial spirit. Being dominant means that whether the people who follow you eat porridge, rice, meat, or even starve is directly related to you.

Once your boss hands the project to you, he becomes an investor and you become the boss of the project.

Trust means responsibility.

Only with strength can you make a profit.

It is a consensus that the failure of most projects is not due to the product but to the people.

Therefore, you have to be mentally prepared. You have to make sure that you can fight a battle. Winning or losing is a matter of probability. You have to be honest about whether you can fight or not, and how to fight.

It is irresponsible to hold on to the mentality of "I don't understand, but I can learn" and use the opportunity as a guinea pig to practice without an objective assessment of yourself.

If you meet a boss who gives you many opportunities, you should be grateful. At the same time, before you reach the level of leading a new project, learn and practice in advance.

Measuring whether you are competent is nothing more than being able to answer three questions:

Do you have enough knowledge about the project?

Are there sufficient resource reserves to mobilize?

Do team members have sufficient execution capabilities?

You must have confidence, match your strength, have the right mindset, and win first before fighting. Now you can start building the framework.

02Build the framework

How to build this framework?

In fact, there are only three projects: market awareness, category segmentation, and ideal users.

First, market awareness

This is very important. It is the key to finding the marketing positioning and marketing strategy of new products .

Of course, some awesome companies with marketing mindsets already know clearly what kind of products the market needs before new products come out. It’s a pity that most companies just make products based on their own preferences and capabilities before selling them.

The most important points of market awareness are:

1. Does the user have this category in their mind? If it is beyond the user's understanding, your market education cost will be very high, just like it took 15 years for coffee to enter Japan. Because consumers don’t have this habit and this category doesn’t exist in their minds.

2. What is the user's sense of value? The user's values ​​determine their value orientation, just like there is bottled water called "boiled water", which is boiled water that is cooled and then bottled and sold. This makes users feel that it has no sense of value compared to mineral water, because it is just cold boiled water.

3. How users view you and your peers. This is very important. What you are is not up to you to decide. What your users think you are is what you are. Especially for food, whether it is authentic, genuine, and delicious can only be concluded after diners have tried it.

Before your new product is launched on the market, you need to know what the user evaluation system is like and what they are willing to pay for.

Just like the same bowl of noodles in a restaurant, users are willing to pay more for handmade noodles made on the spot than for ready-made noodles. Users are willing to pay a higher price for the process of handmade noodles and the sense of ritual.

4. User associations. That is, when users think of something, they will think of your industry and products. If you understand this, it will be easy to find the user's scenarios and find marketing strategies in the scenarios.

Therefore, these are all market perceptions, and you need to conduct research in advance.

Second, category segmentation

In the marketing world, there is a truth that goes like this: there are four basic logics that all users cannot escape: their cognition as the basis, demand as the driving force, category thinking, brand selection, and finally price as the decision-maker.

Yes, when users buy products, the first thing they think of is the category. It’s like going to a supermarket and can’t find what you want to buy. Your first reaction is to ask the shopping guide: Where is the store that sells xxx?

This sells xxx things, like food, drinks, toys, and then product categories.

In actual scenarios, this process is more complicated, with a total of 7 layers:

First level: think about the user first

Second level: think about the purpose

The third level: think of the required form

Level 4: Think of type features

Fifth level: Think of the representative brand

Level 6: Think of the brand’s product series

Layer 7: Find product specifications

Therefore, you need to know the product category catalog tree and the structure of the top 7 layers of peer products in this industry. At each layer, you will know who is competing with you. When you have a clear understanding of the situation, you will also know the exact positioning of the product in the category, whether it has any advantages, and how to create advantages.

Many people actually don't know at what level they are competing with their peers and what they are competing for.

Just like Li Xiang’s electric car was recently launched, he lamented on social media

“Most people still don’t understand how Tesla won.”

“Almost all companies don’t know why Tesla won, because the reason for the win is too elementary and not so glamorous, so it is ignored.”

Li Xiang believes that domestic electric vehicle companies surpass Tesla in terms of battery life, intelligence, and cost-effectiveness, but they are unable to shake its position. "A car with a range of 445 kilometers overwhelms everything." Although the range of Tesla Model 3 is not the best, its sales have soared.

Li Xiang's attribution is:

"Most car companies have seriously underestimated the impact of Tesla's self-built super charging stations, including NIO's self-built battery swap stations and charging systems, on sales."

This is the case in the field of electric vehicles, and it is not much different in other fields. The attribution ability has always been lacking.

A novice marketer may start by finding a positioning for himself in the category, then start working on it.

A true marketing veteran will think carefully. Every time you choose a possible category positioning, it means who you are competing with and what you are competing for. In the long run, you will think about whether you can compete, whether the battle can be fought, whether it is worth fighting, and whether you can win.

Before the product is launched on the market and appears as a commodity, there is still a chance to start over.

This is an important step in thinking about category segmentation.

Once you have thought this through, you can then define who your ideal users are and what their scenarios are.

Third, ideal users

I believe you also know that you cannot do business with everyone. For any product, you should first find out who the most ideal users are and in what scenarios they would ideally use the product.

For example, Sogou has launched an AI voice recorder that can quickly convert speech into transcripts with 98% accuracy.

Well, the ideal users of this product are top students, secretaries of senior executives, and well-known journalists.

Their typical usage scenarios are:

For MBA students, international students, postgraduate students, etc. Typical scenario: Course notes

For career accelerators. Typical scenarios: meeting minutes, training records

For writers. Typical scenarios: interview, writing

So, have you found your ideal users and can you describe their real typical application scenarios?

When you find it, it means you truly understand your users. The more you understand your users, the more successful your business will be.

Okay, these are the contents of the marketing framework.

Next, you should make a request to your boss.

03Make a request

When it comes to how to make requests to your boss, there are mainly two aspects: rights and resource support.

If you want your boss to fully meet your requirements, you don’t need much skills, but you need to think about problems from the bottom up, sort them according to importance, and get people to support you. You need to do the following:

First, give the boss a sense of security.

This is the first thing. If you don’t feel safe, it will be a waste of words to say more. The person must be reliable, have a clean history, be competent, be able to unite people, and be able to delay gratification. It can basically give people a basic sense of security.

Second, be well prepared.

You understand the market of the entire project. Products, you know. You understand the company's needs. Team, you can handle it. The confidence you have shows. For project operation plans, you have Plan A and Plan B, which are realistic plans.

Third, take the initiative to clarify responsibilities, rights, and interests

This is very important to protect yourself and the interests of the company's boss. There is no need to say more.

Fourth, predictability

This is not only the boss's expectation, but also your own expectation. If what you do is not as expected, or if you don't set expectations, there must be a problem.

Predictable means having realistic goals and a planned roadmap.

By completing these four aspects of preparation, you have actually fulfilled your boss's explicit or desired requirements of you. You can also use these sufficient preparations to ask for resources and rights.

After all, the purpose of doing this is not to get the project, but to ensure that you earn the money you can and avoid money that does not belong to you.

Win first, then fight.

Then, you can start taking action.

04 Take action

In this part, organizational ability is actually tested. In this article, I will not talk too much about how to act, because this is a complex proposition and there is no standard answer.

This is a practice.

You don’t need anyone to teach you how to take action. You will find many teachers and seniors along the way.

Just remember: don't be afraid, fear is created by people themselves, and the reality is not as bad as imagined.

05Final words

This article gives you a thinking framework. Most people can't do things because they don't have a framework logic in their thinking.

You might think it's that simple?

No! It’s not easy at all, you’ll know once you’ve tried it. To sum up, there is often no need for long-winded discussions. The simpler the thinking framework, the more efficient it is.

This thinking framework is the summary of my years of experience. It is what I often use when thinking about any product, and I would like to share it with you.

Author: Marketing Flights

Source: Marketing Flights