Marketing promotion: Tips for promoting new products online!

What should I do if my new product doesn’t sell well after it’s launched?

Sale!

There is no doubt that discount promotions have always been the most common and easiest to think of killer weapon in marketing operations, which can greatly stimulate users' desire to buy.

If the iPhone 11 is sold at a 10% discount, I estimate it will sell like hot cakes in a short period of time!

However, the core of a business is not just about selling products. It is also necessary to consider profits and rely on healthy and sustainable development.

Promotion is indeed a powerful weapon, but it is easy to kill 1,000 enemies, injure yourself 800, or even KO yourself directly.

I have seen such cases before, too many! There have been promotions all year round, and the discounts have become more and more generous. As time goes by, I found that I have no competitiveness at all and can't make any money, and I am wasting myself.

Why? Because of frequent price cuts and promotions, the effect of stimulating sales is getting worse and worse, and once the original price is restored, consumers will not buy it. As a result, the company can only get deeper and deeper into the trap.

Consumers are also puzzled. This company has good sales, so why hasn’t it had any discounts recently?

So, discounts are the easiest, but promotions are not easy.

In addition to figuring out how to sell products through promotions, every marketer must carefully consider how to properly evaluate and use promotion strategies.

So how do you do this kind of promotion well?

01

Promotions can’t solve all marketing problems

First of all, one thing needs to be made clear: promotion cannot solve the problem of product demand, nor can it solve the problem of user purchasing motivation. It only solves the problem of attracting users and reducing users' purchasing decisions.

There is an old saying that goes: Consumers don't want to buy cheap products, but they like the feeling of getting a bargain.

What's the advantage? Possession of the product's cheapness that motivates purchase.

It is a product whose use is unknown. Even if it is sold at a 10% discount, it is not considered as getting a bargain, it is considered as reluctant sale.

Promotions cannot solve all marketing problems. If the biggest problem in your current marketing situation is not price, price reduction and promotion will be futile.

Therefore, it is necessary to find the real marketing key points. This is why we need to conduct research, market analysis, and small-scale tests.

Don’t promote for the sake of promotion. Consumers are interested in something not just because it is cheap, but because they see its value and have the motivation to buy it. She doesn't just want to buy cheap things, but also want to buy things that are cost-effective.

For example, in order to promote its new spicy wings, McDonald's launched a " coupon-for-all " promotion, and played the words "Coupons for chicken wings from other restaurants can also be used at McDonald's" on its official website.

During the promotion, the price of McDonald's spicy chicken wings was reduced from 7 yuan to 5 yuan per pair. Consumers holding chicken wing coupons from any rival store, whether it is KFC or Dicos, can enjoy an additional 10% discount at McDonald's, which means a discount of 4.5 yuan per pair.

I have to say that McDonald’s promotion this time is really sharp, all similar coupons are my coupons. Not only did it increase the promotion volume of its own new products, but it also consumed the coupons of its competitors.

Increase income for yourself and save money for others, great!

This really allows consumers to see value and get a bargain.

02

Promotion needs good timing

You can choose to offer promotions at special times and event nodes, such as National Day, anniversary celebrations, new product launches, Super Member Day, Double 11, etc. This can reduce consumers' dependence on promotions.

When you need to get a large number of consumers to switch to profitable products, you can conduct large-scale promotions on the drainage products. For example, many KTV rooms will reduce their prices, but the alcohol is profitable. As for online education, most of them offer trial classes at super low prices.

Promotions can be carried out when there is a need to compete for market share and grab users. We have all seen the subsidy war between Meituan and Ele.me and the discount coupons between Didi and Kuaidi. At this time, even if you know you will lose money, you have to keep going.

Also, after research and testing, you may find that consumers are motivated to buy your product, but there are always some barriers to purchase, such as financial cost, initial trial cost, psychological burden, etc.

At this time, you can use promotions to reduce these purchasing barriers.

If there is no timing for promotion, it would be considered a desperate attempt to find a cure.

03

Promotion needs sufficient reasons

You must have seen this phenomenon: many merchants offer promotions, clearly offering a 20% discount, but they say "You can buy our products worth 200 yuan today for only 160 yuan";

Even though the items are clearly on sale across the entire store, they will say, "For only $49, you can choose any item at full price."

Why?

That may be the case. Lowering prices is not a good thing and they don’t want consumers to think that they are always lowering prices. Moreover, the impression that cheap goods are not good has been deeply rooted in people's minds. If something is cheaper, the quality must be worse. This is the common mentality of many people when facing discounts.

Instead of highlighting the cheapness, it is better to emphasize the benefits to consumers and strengthen the user's pleasure of getting a bargain, rather than paying too much attention to price reductions.

Similarly, when doing promotions, you must come up with your reasons. Only with reasonable reasons can you attribute the price reduction to other places so as not to reduce consumers' perceived value of the product itself.

Promoting without any reason is almost like playing tricks on yourself.

There are many reasons, and you need to plan well. For example, if you want to promote your product on Valentine's Day, you can choose:

1) Start with special status: couples can get discounts; singles can enjoy half-price; members can get super benefits, etc.

2) Start with specific tasks: post group photos on Moments to get discounts; complete the H5 love test game to get discounts;

3) Start with specific products: launch exclusive products on Valentine's Day; launch combination sets on Valentine's Day;

4) Start with special time nodes: Valentine's Day itself is a special time reason for discounts; you can also launch super discounts at time nodes such as 5:20 and 13:14 on this day;

5) Start with a specific event: The company received multi-brand sponsorship and joint activities; obtained Series B financing and reviewed users on Valentine’s Day.

…

In short, promotions must have gimmicks and be meaningful, so that there is a sense of ceremony and it does not undermine the perceived value of the product itself.

04

Promotional offers are not unlimited

Don’t give discounts to everyone. Giving discounts to everyone is the same as no discount. Try to make offers and discounts seem more scarce and more valuable.

Moreover, people will not cherish the discounts that are too easy to get. This is human nature. It is a fact that the usage rate of coupons obtained through games, tasks, and efforts is often higher.

A good opportunity is in front of you, but you are told that this opportunity will always be prepared for everyone, will you cherish it?

Probably not. There’s no need. There’s no rush anyway. Everyone has it and it’s easy to get.

Everyone knows the brand Superme. It has been popular for 22 years and is still as popular as ever, becoming the hottest fashion brand today.

In order to buy it, people line up like crazy. As soon as a new product is released, thousands of people come from far and wide to queue up all night to buy it. Even if the police are dispatched to maintain order, there are often fights and riots.

Among them, the limited scarcity marketing strategy played an indispensable role.

Each new product launched by Superme is sold in limited quantities, and new products are only available at 11 am on Thursday. On the one hand, fans are told that the product is limited; on the other hand, the launch time is emphasized, whetting the appetite of fans.

Therefore, when it comes to promotions, the sense of urgency of limited time and limited quantity is one aspect.

You can also limit the crowd, limit the discount level, and limit additional benefits; you can also set some small tasks or small games to get discounts. You can arrange different task difficulties to correspond to the corresponding levels of discounts, which will make the promotion seem more rare.

05

Promotions should highlight the value of products

As mentioned before, users don’t want to buy cheap products, but they like the feeling of getting a good deal.

So where does this feeling of taking advantage come from?

It should be determined by the perceived product value and purchase cost. The higher the perceived product value and the lower the perceived purchase cost, the more prominent this sense of getting a bargain will be, right?

If promotions only reduce the monetary cost of purchase, but the value of the product cannot be felt, then the sense of getting a bargain is minimal.

Therefore, the more promotions you offer or even if it’s free, the more you need to shape the value of the product first and make sure consumers understand it.

The more significantly the price of a product has dropped, the less we should talk about its affordable price all day long. On the contrary, we should create a sense of high value for the product.

For example, the example Lao Zei gave before: when making a promotional poster, the copy reads "Free trial of the sweeping robot", which is very weak and has little lethality.

You can write, "You can experience the sweeping robot which originally costs 1,888 yuan without spending a penny."

There is also "Buy now and get it free!", which can also be written as "Buy now and get 8,000 yuan free."

Ultimately, consumers feel that they have made a good deal and received good products at a low price, rather than having a cheap and watery product.

Especially when it comes to promotional activities with a lot of gifts, experienced planners and copywriters will definitely package these gifts to make them extremely valuable. The more you look at them, the more excited you will be. You will feel that getting these gifts is a huge bargain. Not to mention spending money to buy the product, you would be willing to spend the same amount of money to buy these gifts.

Finally, don’t let your mind be filled with discounts, discounts, discounts, price cuts, price cuts, price cuts every time you do a promotion. How LOW!

In addition to price cuts and discounts, there are also flash sales, subsidies, red envelopes for cash back, vouchers, full discounts and full gifts, buy-one-get-one-free returns, buy-one-get-one-free deals, bundled sales, trial experiences, lotteries, points, group buying, pre-sales, cross-border collaborations, deposit inflation, free value-added services, etc., as well as various combinations.

The road ahead is long and arduous, why don’t we change to another one, right?

Okay, that’s all I have to share. If this is of some help or inspiration to you, please feel free to share it with people around you.

Author: Mumu Old Thief

Source: Mumu Laozei