New product marketing and promotion guide!

I have a friend who launched a new e-commerce platform for mothers and babies. After careful research and diligent research and development, the new product is finally going to be launched on the market. They hope that this product will be a new species that changes the market landscape and leads the lives of consumers. But after the product was launched, the initial ambitions were ruthlessly suppressed by consumers.

Anyone who has promoted new products several times will find this scene very familiar.

The essential question that arises from this is, why are new products difficult to sell? How to promote new products? I looked for the key points to break through from the factors that consumers did not recognize, and systematically sorted out the three obstacles in the promotion of new products and their solutions.

01. Three major obstacles to new products

Want new products to be recognized by consumers. We need to start from why consumers do not recognize this key point and explore the root cause behind it so as to avoid going around in circles on superficial tricks.

First, let’s talk about this from another perspective. When you are a consumer:

How long did it take from the first time you heard of Airbnb to actually using Airbnb as a travel accommodation tool? What factors did you consider during this period?

How long did it take from the first time you heard about Didi to the time you actually used Didi to hail a taxi? What factors did you consider during this period?

How long did it take from the first time you learned about a paid knowledge product like an audio column to the time you actually placed an order to buy an audio column? What factors did you consider during this period?

After long-term follow-up with consumers, we found that apart from the personalized factors of products, there are three main obstacles to the promotion of new products:

First: Strange

Second: Risk

Third: Blur

Brands need to effectively eliminate the impact of these three obstacles on new products so that new products can smoothly enter consumers' decision-making areas.

02. Strangeness and means of breaking it

The strangeness we are talking about here, besides unfamiliarity, also has a deeper meaning, which is the inadaptability and unfamiliarity with the psychological distance.

Except for very rare cases, some new products encounter consumers who are in urgent need of the products. Consumers cheer and welcome the launch of new products and place orders to show their support.

Most of the other situations are similar to the following scenario:

Mai Dehao is a person who likes to try new things. When Airbnb first entered the Chinese market, he really wanted to try it. But when he finally had the opportunity to go on a business trip, he naturally went to Ctrip to place an order and book a hotel. This set of movements is as natural and smooth as an assembly line.

This is the most likely scenario that new products will face. There is a habit between consumers and the products they are currently using . Consumers no longer need to think and can automatically complete the entire consumption process.

New products are unfamiliar to users and have a psychological distance from them, requiring them to break the current balance and abandon their accustomed habits.

The essence of breaking habits is to make consumers realize that the current balance is not necessarily the optimal result. To this end, we list 4 methods:

1. Selection method

Let's make an inappropriate analogy. The launch of a new product is a bit like a mistress poaching someone else's products. Consumers and competing products live a stable life. There may be some unpleasantness in the middle, but the overall balance is achieved. At this time, the new product, the mistress, appears and forcefully tells consumers that you can choose a better one...

The right of choice method is to break the automatic chain between consumers' competing products, so that consumers can realize that their current balance state is not the only option, and may not even be the best option.

"If you can choose Greentown, why anything else?" is the classic copy of Greentown Real Estate during the period when its brand was launched. This copy is an effective way to lock in the brand selection rights. As a high-end real estate, Greentown Real Estate may cause some customers to be discouraged. These eight words of copywriting can effectively narrow the psychological distance between consumers and regain their right to choose.

2. Model Law

Throughout human history, countless experiences have proven that authoritative decisions and decisions made by the public are generally not wrong, especially when information is chaotic, following the crowd is the best way.

During the long hunting and gathering period, when a person saw everyone running in panic, the best decision was to run too, rather than asking questions. Those who ran along survived, while those who denied the group decision were generally eaten by wild beasts.

Our ancestors have developed a deep-rooted understanding through millions of such practices: listening to authority and following the crowd is the most cost-effective way.

Even though history has developed to this day, this deep-rooted cognition still exists in our brains and cannot be shaken off. Therefore, authoritative demonstration and public demonstration are commonly used techniques in all aspects of marketing, especially in the promotion of new products, where they are more effective.

For example: When Miaopai was launched, it was emphasized that Miaopai is a trendy short video application used by many celebrities. The exemplary nature of this kind of celebrity KOL will directly shorten the user's sense of unfamiliarity.

The new product may not have achieved a large scale yet and cannot be advertised like China Mobile, which claims to be “the choice of hundreds of millions of people”, so it is relatively difficult to find a demonstration effect among the general public.

However, it can be explained from a local perspective. For example, our Big Selling Academy is a new account that has just been cold-started, and the number of readings is not high. However, in order to prove the advantage, we can express it this way: for every 3 people who read, we can increase the number of readers by 1. This also shows that although our reading numbers are not high, the recognition of the users who are reached is still very high.

3. Advanced method

People refuse to accept new products, but will not refuse things that represent future advancement, because advancement is the trend of the future. In order to demonstrate their own leading consciousness, people will also firmly grasp the trend.

Therefore, when the sharing economy became popular, some leasing business models also had to be connected with the sharing economy, taking advantage of the fact that the new sharing economy model was more likely to attract attention.

When Pepsi was first launched, it faced Coca-Cola's strong market share and unshakable position. Pepsi finally used the fact that Coca-Cola had not changed for many years as its entrance, portraying Coca-Cola as an old, unambitious old guy, and came up with the classic slogan: "Pepsi, the choice of the new generation", thus opening up the market.

Another vivid example is that every time a national social software is launched, it can quickly gain traffic because users want to see if it is the next WeChat.

4. Missed Decision

The missed opportunity statement is a technique that presents a product hypothesis to the consumer, allowing the consumer to see the regret that would result from missing out on the purchase.

For example, the classic copywriting: Ten years ago, you missed Taobao, five years ago, you missed WeChat, today, do you want to miss *** again?

I once saw a copywriting of a small shop: "If you don't buy it once, it's your fault. If you don't buy it twice, it's my fault." I have to say it is too classic. It not only expresses that consumers will regret it if they don't come, but also emphasizes the confidence in the product.

The above four methods are all effective in resisting unfamiliarity and preventing consumers from giving up on purchases due to unfamiliarity.

03. Risks and Mitigation Methods

Risk is a major obstacle that prevents consumers from using new products because they do not know how much it will cost or what losses they will incur.

There are two ways to address the risk:

1. Risk transparency

Make the risks transparent so that consumers don’t have to think too much about it. This makes it easier for consumers to make decisions.

For example, Luo Yonghao’s classic 1 yuan copywriting: What can you buy with 1 yuan today? Or you can also go to Lao Luo English and take 8 classes.

When applying this method, it is important to present the costs in a simple and direct manner, so as to effectively reduce consumers' concerns about new products.

One time I went to buy diapers for my son, and the salesperson at the baby shop introduced a new diaper to me. I expressed my concerns vigilantly because I didn’t know whether this diaper was suitable for my son and whether there would be any risks.

The shopping guide had obviously received professional training and saw my concerns. He then listed several situations in which changing baby diapers would not be suitable and how this brand of diapers solved the problem. After that, I actually changed to another brand of diapers and I still use it now.

2. Risk Compensation

Risk compensation is to directly cover the risks of consumers in order to eliminate their concerns.

Ruixing Coffee was able to open up the market in a very short period of time, and the strategy of offering the first cup for free played a big role in this.

In fact, it is very difficult to promote products like Luckin Coffee. Starbucks’ barriers are high and deep, and there is also the strong presence of McDonald’s coffee, HEYTEA and other beverages.

As a new species, Luckin Coffee is entering a red ocean within a red ocean. Every consumer has reason to doubt whether Luckin Coffee’s pricing is reasonable and whether the taste is ok. The free first cup of coffee made consumers stop thinking and drink it first... The subsequent story, this cup of coffee speaks for itself with its quality...

In addition to this type of trial and tasting, promising an unconditional refund service is also a common means of risk compensation . Unconditional refunds can not only eliminate consumers' risk concerns, but sometimes also make hesitant consumers decide to buy.

3. Supplement

At this point, I want to emphasize that when consumers buy a product, financial risk is only one of the risks. There are also security risks, time risks and many others. However, in marketing practice, why do we often use financial risk displays to express consumer concerns?

First, financial risks are easy to display and the numbers are relatively clear. The safety index is not easy to measure.

Second, promises like refunds are easy to fulfill and are an intuitive way to circumvent the principle.

Third, the key point is that since consumers have other risks, why does it still work to only explain the financial risks? This is because consumers never actually calculate the types and coefficients of risk; they just have a psychological process of worrying. Once you pass a plan to consumers, they will think that the risk process has been resolved.

Therefore, although you only mentioned the risk of 7-day no-reason refund (in fact, there may also be time risk, such as returns being troublesome), consumers feel that they have resolved the risk.

04. Blurring and Elimination Methods

Ambiguity is the fate of new products. Even when the car was first introduced, it could only be described as a horseless carriage.

Consumers don’t know what you are, what you are worth, and what you have ... These are the three main ambiguities. The essence of this is that you don’t know the connotation, function and differentiation of your product.

But consumers are lazy and don't like to ponder over boring instruction manuals. So how can new products make consumption less ambiguous? It is necessary to use things that already exist in the minds of consumers to make comparisons, so that consumers can form a correct product perception:

1. Reference

A reference object is to find something that consumers currently have for comparison, so that consumers can have a clear understanding.

Paid audio is definitely a new species. Many people don’t know whether to consume it or not. In fact, it is not about the financial cost. You must know that training courses have always been products with a unit price of thousands of yuan. The key is that I still don’t know what I can get after listening to it…

At this time, a good way to promote paid audio is to compare it with books. For example, the knowledge content of 30 audio lessons is equivalent to half a book, and there is a teacher to explain it to you. This concretizes the audio knowledge content of the 30 sections.

In addition, we often see such introductions in entrepreneurial forums, such as we are Pinduoduo, which is vertical for women, we are Airbnb of China... Similar descriptions are all comparing new products with existing things to gain cognitive shortcuts.

2. Metaphor

Metaphor is a means to cross boundaries. Let taste produce hearing, let hearing produce vision, and so on... so that things that are difficult to express can be expressed more easily.

For example, the poster below is a propaganda piece expressing verbal violence:

It is difficult to express verbal violence in a concise and vivid way, but a poster like this allows people to feel its harm more intuitively. It turns out that verbal violence is so terrible...

When the live streaming software was first launched, many people did not quite understand its value. "Like the company of a friend" Many platforms use similar copywriting for promotion, which also vividly demonstrates the value of live streaming.

05. Summary

Promoting new products is a difficult part of marketing promotion, but the more challenging it is, the more it can train people. The process of building a brand from scratch may help us gain a deeper understanding of consumers and marketing.

The key to breaking through the bottleneck of new product promotion is to find the obstacles to new product promotion and why consumers are unwilling to buy new products? Unfamiliarity, risk, and ambiguity... these three are the three major obstacles brought by new products. Only by taking these three key points into consideration can we truly bring new products out of the predicament!

Author: Li Hao talks about marketing

Source: Li Hao Talks About Marketing