The "Top Ten Product Traps" Often Ignored When Planning Promotion

Introduction丨If you don’t understand product planning, it’s not a good plan

The fundamental purpose of marketing is profit. Whether you are doing brand planning as a second-party or responsible for marketing management as a client, you need to be aware that all brand actions are essentially centered around profits. This is also the reason why the concepts of "product and effect integration" and "people, goods and place" have become popular in recent years.

One of the reasons for the existence of these concepts or methodologies is that they highly integrate marketing behavior with demand, products, and channels. Make brand marketing no longer a castle in the air, but truly feasible and convertible.

So, what are the product traps that marketers often overlook when coming up with ideas and making plans?

Delivery time refers to the time cost required to produce a product from the time the production plan is formulated to the time the product is put into storage. This concept needs special attention in product co-marketing events.

The biggest impact of delivery time in marketing planning is the product's compatibility and the progress of the execution plan .

The product's combinability is mainly affected by the limited delivery time, which will affect the product's integration depth. For example, if the product delivery time cannot be adjusted, then the simpler the product design, the more it can meet this requirement. Otherwise, making large-scale changes to the product will easily extend the delivery time.

To implement the plan, we must have an accurate judgment on the product delivery time, so as to reserve sufficient time for marketing execution. Otherwise, if marketing preparations are not implemented but the delivery date cannot be met, all the plans will become nonsense.

In addition, for product development and improvement, it is also necessary to pay attention to the time chain of the product from R&D design, to pattern making, to production and delivery . For example, if the delivery time is 20 days, then at least 40 days will be needed for product execution. If communication with cooperative resources needs to be confirmed in advance, the project will need to be started at least two months in advance.

Production capacity determines the upper limit of a company's product inventory. By clarifying this upper limit, product strategies can be more targeted.

The first focus of production capacity is the output per unit time . Knowing this can provide important reference for product matching, product planning and benefit estimation.

The second concern about capacity is the saturation of the supply chain . OEM brands generally share the supply chain with other brands, which can be understood as having a fixed quota on production capacity. If the product strategy in a marketing case involves product development or plug-in production, the risk of being challenged can be avoided by taking production capacity into consideration.

The minimum quantity determines the lower limit of the company's product inventory. It refers to the OEM production of a single product, with the minimum production volume as the order threshold. Failure to meet the requirements will increase production costs. By understanding the quantitative standards, product strategy and product budget will be more accurate.

The minimum order quantity is not just the minimum order quantity of the product, it also includes gifts, packaging, auxiliary accessories and all other product-related accessories. Especially for limited edition product strategies, more attention should be paid to this standard.

Usually, production capacity and minimum order quantity are considered together and do not necessarily have to be directly reflected in the plan, but as a reference guide for product strategy, their importance cannot be ignored.

Inventory without conversion is worthless. Ultimately, the inventory issue is a strategic issue for the enterprise . Whether the inventory is healthy directly affects the vitality of the enterprise.

Inventory analysis is an important part of brand strategy guidance. It includes inventory amount, single product inventory quantity and turnover, inventory age, inventory clearance channels, etc. It is related to the comprehensiveness of the brand strategy.

Dealing with inventory is also an important issue in marketing implementation. It includes inventory clearance methods, channels, prices, cycles, etc., which affect the integrity of marketing implementation.

Secondly, stocking up is also a key element in inventory management. Especially today when live streaming is so popular, the amount of stocking up has become one of the thresholds for brands to participate in live streaming activities.

In short, for marketers, especially the client's brand planning and marketing planning, inventory awareness is the pattern.

The turnover rate is integrated with the inventory concept mentioned above, and is also called inventory turnover rate and product turnover rate.

Turnover rate is a time efficiency concept and there are multiple calculation formulas. In product analysis, the quantity accounting method is usually adopted:

Inventory turnover rate = (sales quantity/inventory quantity) * 100%

The significance of turnover rate for marketers lies in classifying different types of products and formulating targeted product strategies. The higher the turnover rate, the better the product sales, and the lower the turnover rate, the greater the possibility that the product will be unsalable.

Combined with the age of inventory , products can be divided into multiple types: hot-selling products, image products, slow-selling products, and discontinued products, etc. Then, based on the product classification, product promotion strategies, product improvement strategies, and product clearance strategies can be formulated.

For Party A's marketers, it is necessary to understand the product's gross profit margin and approximate development costs. For the third-party planner, it is at least necessary to know the room for price fluctuation of the product.

Many marketing plans are actually linked to costs, which are specifically reflected in the marketing budget, and the budget is the most important reference indicator for execution.

For example, when developing a package, you need to understand the controllable cost range of the package. If the cost exceeds the affordable range, the plan may be aborted.

For example, if a product is given as a giveaway in a marketing campaign, the product sales price needs to be included in the marketing costs. In many cases, the cost loss caused by giving the product as a giveaway is ignored.

For example, if the development direction is planned without considering the cost during product development, it may lead to excessive costs and overpricing, which will damage the brand's pricing system.

Auxiliary materials refer to all product accessories that consumers receive after receiving the product , except for the product itself, including packaging boxes, gifts, brand promotional materials, etc. Among these, packaging is the easiest to be remembered by marketers.

In fact, in order to achieve brand output and product integration, the selection, content, and style design of other auxiliary materials such as gifts and promotional materials are equally indispensable.

Sometimes, auxiliary materials can even become important tools to enhance consumer experience , such as box openers, commemorative coins, etc. So to some extent, good product auxiliary materials can also be a plus for the solution.

Logistics mainly includes three key links: product picking, product packaging and product transportation . In the marketing plan, efficiency and practical feasibility need to be considered in combination with logistics information.

When it comes to product picking and shipping, efficiency is key. For example: Apple eliminated accessories, resulting in higher efficiency in product picking and greater profit margins.

Product packaging is closely related to product packaging , including the size of the product packaging itself, the size of the gifts, etc., which all need to be designed based on the size of the packaging box. For example: if the packaging box is 30*30*30 and the gift design is 30*45, it cannot meet the packaging requirements.

On the one hand, the Advertising Law regulates the content of product descriptions , such as sensitive words, banned words, and product content that violates authenticity.

On the other hand, it refers to the regulatory authorities' management of products . For example, quality standard review, quality certification, trademark usage rights, etc.

Therefore, when considering product plans, especially new product plans, marketers must understand the basic regulatory rules to ensure smooth product promotion.

Product association means that all strategies and creativity must be based on the product and must be done with skill, not just a rigid combination.

The relevance is not the fun itself, but the market itself. For example, in the case of a TV series collaboration, if you simply apply TV series elements directly to the product or packaging, this simple copy and paste does not provide any spillover value for the product.

In combination with deep product associations, it is necessary to consider the brand proposition, culture, and style fit, and cleverly apply elements and brand extensions to the product itself to provide spillover value for the product. For example: Hua Xizi’s carved lipstick provides additional collection value for the product.

Summarize

Products are the root of the brand, and all marketing will eventually return to the product.

Whether you are a brand marketer from Party B or Party A, the more you know about the product, the more professional you will be. The more you think about the product, the more likely your solution will be to succeed. Even during a brainstorming session, asking how long the delivery time will be can instantly make you stand out.

Author: Zang Feng

Source: Strategist Zang Feng