Product Promotion: 11 Ways to Make Your Product Popular

Why is it that even though some products are rarely advertised, you still see many people using and talking about them, while other products, even with a lot of advertising, can only be quietly displayed on the shelves?

for example:

ZARA and Starbucks seldom advertise, but their products are popular all over the world; in contrast, the sales of some products that invest heavily in advertising, such as some health supplements, have been declining.

So, how can you make your product go viral and be used and talked about everywhere even with very little advertising?

In this article, I will share with you 11 ways to make your product popular.

1. Visibility

If you want your product to become popular, the first and foremost condition is to make it visible.

Visibility has many meanings, but most of them are related to human senses: easy to see, easy to hear, easy to smell, easy to touch, and easy to taste; of course, there is also a cognitive level: easy to feel and understand.

In a nutshell: to show your presence.

This is why many businesses now encourage consumers to post selfies holding their products on WeChat Moments . The purpose is to let more people see that other people are using these products, so that they are more likely to buy them.

This may not seem like a big deal.

However, even marketing gurus can easily overlook the importance of “visualization”.

Just like the advertisement that Li Jiaoshou made for Nanfu before, the copywriting is of course impeccable, highlighting the product advantages (durable), is very topical, and very much in line with the tastes of young people.

However, the biggest problem with the entire poster is that it fails to highlight the core information of the new product - the brand new candy package.

In fact, this is the lack of visibility. It is difficult for people to intuitively see the new features of the product through the poster. Instead, they focus on the large text and electrical appliances such as vibrators, remote controls and mice in the picture.

Personally, I think the electrical appliance in the picture is a bit too dominant, making the battery itself less noticeable. The visual information that the candy is packed with batteries should be emphasized.

As an off-topic: Some people online commented that the copywriting by Li Jiaoshou was not very effective, but I don’t think it’s a problem with the copywriting. In addition to what I just said, Nanfu’s own strategy also has problems.

2. Sense of contrast

Visibility alone is not enough. After all, there is too much "visible" product information nowadays. For example, everyone has a mobile phone, and the brands are different. The emergence of a large number of homogeneous products is bound to reduce the relative visibility of the brand and make it submerged in the vast sea of ​​​​markets.

Therefore, the product must not only be visible, but also create a sense of contrast with similar products.

Apple has always been an expert in this area.

When other manufacturers' headphone cables were all black, it specialized in producing headphones with white cables; when other manufacturers also mass-produced headphones with white cables, it wanted to make wireless headphones:

In this way, even if you don’t see the person’s phone in the picture, you can easily tell that he is using an iPhone.

On the other hand, contrasting information is also easier to spread.

For example, information like "A famous German football coach actually likes to eat boogers" is easily spread, because "famous football coach" and "eating boogers" are contradictory in themselves, one is "high-class" and the other is "vulgar and disgusting", and the combination of the two becomes "incredible".

If it is changed to "The famous football coach likes running" or "The child likes to eat boogers", it will not be so contagious because it does not have the characteristic of "contrast".

Many people can’t understand why the edges of the latest Hammer phone are so sharp that they can even be used to peel fruits. In fact, this is where Luo's brilliance lies. He also used contrast to make the edges of the conventionally rounded mobile phone very sharp, thus attracting more people to pay attention to and talk about it.

3. Unity

Simply creating contrast can indeed attract people's attention, but it cannot effectively establish the product's recognizability.

If every product Apple launched was simply to create a contrast with similar products without some kind of unity, it would be difficult for people to identify them. Because by doing so, it is equivalent to turning its product into chocolate, and you never know what the next piece will be.

Although Apple has always been unconventional, its products have always been unified, such as simplicity and a sense of technology, so that others can be immediately recognized once they imitate its style, such as the "Apple style" of Weilong spicy strips :

Therefore, in order to improve the recognizability of products, they also need to have certain unified characteristics.

Of course, Burberry is the best in this regard:

It is easy for people to see who is using Burberry products, so the brand is more easily implanted in people's minds.

4. Hold the thigh

Some products are difficult to attract people's attention, perhaps because the category itself is not popular (such as health products), perhaps because the new product is complex and difficult to understand, or perhaps because it is just a small brand. At this time, you need to tie your product to the information that people care about more, are more familiar with, and are more popular in their lives, so that they can become incentives for people to talk about and use your product.

This is why FOTILE range hoods want to bring up a topic related to women’s skin, because the range hoods themselves are not popular among people, but the maintenance of women’s skin is an issue they have to worry about every day.

Of course, I think the best one in this regard is Lao Luo, he is really good at "clinging to others"!

The picture below shows Luo Yonghao "hugging" Siemens in his early years:

Later, he got on the right track and started to cling to Steve Jobs :

Now not only he himself, but also his products are flattering:

5. Storytelling

Back to the original question: Why does Starbucks rarely advertise but is still so popular?

I think a very important reason is that its products are very story-telling.

"You know what? This morning when I went to Starbucks to buy coffee, the waiter asked me what my name was and said he wanted to write my name on the cup. He wrote it wrong twice..."

Just like the example above, the consumer is not just buying a cup of coffee, he is also buying a story about himself and Starbucks. And stories are very contagious because everyone likes to tell stories.

Of course, the story does not have to be the consumer’s own, it can also be about the product or company.

For example, Huang Taiji loved telling stories - "Baidu executives gave up their annual salary of one million to sell pancakes on the street", which is a very good story. The story itself is also full of contrasts. "Baidu executives" and "selling pancakes" are two elements that are opposed or contradictory in common sense. (In fact, many stories that people are familiar with are like this, such as "Prince" and "Cinderella", "Snow White" and "Seven Dwarfs", "Diaosi" and "Bai Fumei", "Hippie" and "Apple CEO", etc.)

Of course, a good story does not necessarily have to have contrasting characteristics. It can also be like a suspense movie , letting the audience watch step by step with questions, or like many heroic movies, setting up a common enemy and a common goal, and then fighting monsters layer by layer...

6. Altruism

Humans are social animals. If information about your product can help others, people will take the initiative to share your product.

This is why apps like Ele.me , Mobike , and ofo will give users 10 red envelopes after using the app. Most of these red envelopes are not for the users themselves, but for you to share with your friends.

7. Show yourself

Everyone wants to express a more ideal self to others. If your product can help users show their own ideas, status, image, values, etc., people will be happy to show it off. for example:

1) Showcase your ideas

This is very common, such as the "Think Small" of the Volkswagen Beetle .

2) Demonstrate status

There is no harm without comparison. Similarly, there is no sense of superiority without comparison. If your product can make users feel superior, they will actively spread it. For example, game fans are happy to share screenshots of kill streaks in their circle of friends to show off their superiority and status in the game.

3) Display image

This is often used by niche products or products with a single function. Because the products have a small audience or a single function, people can clearly express their identity or image by using them.

For example, Kindle has a very simple function, but it can well express the identity and image of the user (who hopes to express) - an intellectual who likes reading.

4) Demonstrate Values

Taiwan's PX Mart is a good example: it reinterprets "saving money" as "economic aesthetics", thereby demonstrating consumers' values ​​​​well - spending money where it should be spent.

8. High Emotional Arousal

Emotions originate from the limbic system of the human brain and have a great impact on human behavior. This is why anger can turn a well-mannered person into a murderer in an instant.

So, what emotions motivate people to share?

Most people believe that if you want people to share the information they know, the most important thing is that the information itself should give people positive emotions, such as happiness; when the information gives people negative emotions, people are unwilling to share.

However, this is not the case.

Psychologists have done an experiment called "running in place":

They asked two groups of subjects to run in place for one minute (Group A) or sit quietly (Group B) respectively. One minute later, they showed the same article to the two groups. The results showed that after reading the article, people in Group A were more willing to share the article with others than people in Group B.

Although running itself seems to have little to do with emotions, it does reveal the state in which people are more likely to share - high arousal emotion.

The so-called "high emotional arousal" is the opposite of "low emotional arousal". The former includes happiness, awe, excitement, anxiety, anger, etc., while the latter refers to more low-key emotional reactions such as satisfaction and sadness. The "running in place" experiment tells us that as long as people's "high emotions" are aroused, whether positive or negative, they will be prompted to share information.

When it comes to products, there are many ways to evoke "high emotions" in people, such as using bright colors (red is the most common), anthropomorphizing the product (for example, the front of a car looks like a face), creating a sense of humor (such as the design of emoticons ), etc.

It is worth mentioning that what can most affect a person's emotions is not visual elements, but hearing, because hearing directly acts on the part of the human brain responsible for emotions and feelings. This is why it is easier to anger someone by sending a voice message to them than by typing.

9. Extreme Attributes

The so-called "extreme attributes" actually refer to the "most XX attributes" of your product. For example, the thinnest mobile phone, the lightest bicycle, the fastest operating system, the thickest ketchup, the world's first dual-screen mobile phone, etc.

The reason why this kind of information is easily shared by people is because people have an innate need for cognitive closure (or to satisfy their curiosity).

Take the thinness of mobile phones for example, how thin is considered thin? I don't know, maybe 7mm? 6mm?

If your phone isn’t the thinnest, you can’t give them an answer, you can’t satisfy their curiosity, and naturally it won’t be talked about. But if your mobile phone is the thinnest in the world, it is equivalent to meeting people's cognitive needs - it turns out that the thinnest mobile phone is only 4.75mm! What brand? Oh, it’s vivo .

This is why people only remember the first person to land on the moon, and don’t care who was the second one (I remember I wrote an article called “The Unlucky Guys Who Landed on the Moon Second”, which mentioned the second person, but now I have forgotten it myself…)

Therefore, if you want to make your product popular, you can also achieve it by creating extreme attributes.

10. Behavior Residue

Why does Starbucks sell cups? Does it really want to make money from the cup business? Not likely...

I think a better answer is: it is leveraging the value of the customer's "behavioral surplus".

Even if you are a die-hard fan who buys Starbucks coffee every day, you may only spend 1/10 of the day actually drinking coffee. What about the remaining 9/10? This requires the value of "behavioral residual" - the Starbucks cup on the table can always remind him and the people around him: don't forget the Starbucks brand.

Similar to this are clothing products, which is why their packaging bags are made so delicate and sturdy. The purpose is to allow you to convey the product brand information to people around you even when you are not wearing their clothes.

Therefore, you can increase the usage and exposure frequency of your main product in disguise by adding some peripheral products.

11. Imitability

The 10 points summarized above are all intended to allow more people to showcase the products and let more people see them using them. But all this is for naught if the act of using the product is not imitable.

When your product is displayed and talked about by people, you must ensure that there are enough sales clues (such as product name, LOGO, QR code, website, address, etc.) so that more people can imitate others and buy and use your product.

This is why most product names are required to be simple and easy to remember. The purpose is to make it difficult for people to forget the brand and to remember it immediately when the corresponding demand arises.

In addition, for some low-frequency consumer products, their logos are also mainly text-based, so that people can search and ask others based on the most intuitive clue of "text", "Do you know the brand of computer DELL?" or directly search for "DELL" on Baidu .

I don't mean to add fuel to the fire for LeTV (it has been in a lot of negative news recently), but its new LOGO is really pretentious and has no practical meaning. (Of course, telling the story on PPT is also good)

Question: If you don’t know this brand, how would you describe this LOGO and how would you enter it into the search box? Not every consumer can recognize thousands of brands like marketers can...

Well, let’s summarize the 11 ways to make products popular mentioned above:

1. Visibility: Let others perceive the product;
2. Sense of contrast: differentiated product attributes;
3. Uniformity: Products of the same brand should have the same characteristics;
4. Cling to the big IP: bind with the big IP;
5. Storytelling: Make the product part of the story;
6. Altruism: Make the product beneficial to people around the user;
7. Self-expression: Allow products to help users express their identity, status, image, and values;
8. High emotional arousal: evokes emotions such as happiness, awe, anger, excitement, etc.
9. Extreme attributes: creating the “most series” or “first series”;
10. Behavioral surplus: using peripheral products to increase the display frequency in disguise;
11. Imitability: Provide sales leads.

Of course, the examples given above are only a small part. When actually operating, we should expand the dimensions of thinking. For example, for "uniformity", we can not only improve the visual uniformity, but also start from other sensory and cognitive levels. For example, Intel's classic voice of "Light! Wait for the light, wait for the light!" has been used to this day.

PS, in order to avoid being slapped in the face, I also left the QR code of the official account at the bottom of the article this time. As the last point said, it is not enough to just display, you also need to leave "sales leads"...

This article was compiled and published by @品牌圈圈 (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, advertising platform, Longyou Games