How to Market a Product Effectively in 2023

Product positioning is the most important step when starting to market a new product. You must first understand your product and its unique value in terms of price and what it offers the consumer—this will help you pinpoint who your product will most appeal to and get to the next step.

In short, you need to know your product inside out. Think of this step as a way to create a compelling and engaging product story so you can tell it to your suitable market. This is especially true when your product is in its early stages.

Whatever information you collected from product positioning will help answer the next all-important question: Who is this product for?

Identify your product’s target audience and narrow it to a specific customer persona. You must know how your product meets their needs and how best to target them—thus, developing a marketing plan that converts them into buyers. Having your ideal buyer in mind will help you create an engaging product story and determine what tools and channels you should use to reach them.

For example, an online knitting store might target hobbyists and craft lovers looking to buy quality knitting supplies at an affordable price. However, the product persona should be more specific—for instance: Maggie, aged 21, might be looking for colorful supplies to help her make amigurumi characters (small, stuffed yarn characters).

Narrowing down this product persona (considering age group and specific craft market) will help create a product story catered to those creating fun and cute knitted dolls.

Whirlpool’s Care Counts program was launched because the home appliance brand learned that 4,000 children in the US missed school each day because they did not have clean clothes. Because of this, Whirlpool offered free washing machines and dryers to schools to help solve the problem. This program was linked to a 90% improvement in attendance and a subsequent 89% increase in grades among affected students.

This fantastic brand story—and choice to contribute to a relevant social cause—helped Whirlpool become a household name. Its product story stemmed from caring about the small changes the brand is capable of making, and people’s preferences for good news and heartwarming stories helped them earn loyal customers.

Dove’s Real Beauty campaign was launched in 2004 to celebrate women’s unique differences, emphasizing that one’s physical appearance should be transformed from a source of anxiety to a source of confidence. The campaign greatly impacted the brand’s image, resulting in increased sales and more name recall compared to its competitors.

Dove’s Real Beauty campaign is an example of an effective promotional campaign in influencing consumer emotions and creating favorable brand associations.

Shoppers are spending their money on businesses whose values align with theirs, with Google searches for “ethical brands” and “ethical online shopping” growing 300% and 600%, in 2020, respectively. Skincare brand Burt’s Bees’ strong commitment to its mission and values—conscious use of all-natural, earth-friendly products—is what its customers support.

One of the best ways to acquire traffic and get your product in front of buying customers is through your website. While marketplaces like Amazon and eBay are great options you can keep in your product marketing tool belt, when you have an independent website, you have complete control over how it looks and functions, and you won’t have to pay those marketplace fees.

Here are a few tips to help make your website easy to find and an effective product marketing tool.

• Name: Choose a website name that is easy to spell and remember so customers can easily search for you.
• Remarketing: Use remarketing and retargeting strategies to keep visitors in your marketing loop so you can start to build loyalty.
• Product descriptions: Ensure your product descriptions include all relevant information and clear photos. Also, check that any questions your customers might have been accounted for in your descriptions.
• Blog posts: Integrate a blog post section into your website to help boost your site’s visibility and foster a following.
• Update: Keep your website updated with all your newest products and news about your business.

SEM strategies are designed to boost the visibility of your website on search engines like Google or DuckDuckGo, making it easier to attract people to your website.

Some SEM methods, like search engine optimization (SEO) are low-cost or free ways to help your website rank high in the search engines. Others, like paid advertising, can help you attract customers more quickly, but with added costs.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO is the practice of writing website content designed to rank high in the search engines for specific keywords. When creating your retail website, you will want to look at best practices for ecommerce SEO. This will include things like how to lay out your site, optimize URLs, and design your product pages and descriptions.

Every product marketer should incorporate local SEO into their website marketing strategy from day one. It takes some work to learn. But, it’s a very economical way to increase site traffic and generate sales long-term. Don’t forget to use Google My Business to manage your business profile on Google Maps and in the SERPs

Google Ads

While free SEM tactics are a great place to start, you also will want to consider utilizing paid advertisements on Google to maximize your reach and boost your site in the SERPs. Google Ads is an online advertising platform where you can bid to display brief advertisements, product listings, or videos to web users.

Google lets you set your budget and gives you other cost controls, so it can be a great way to attract visitors to a newly launched site. Even with the cost controls, you should monitor the revenue your ad is generating and ensure that it is enough to offset the cost of running it.

Most online ads are pay-per-click (PPC), meaning that when a viewer clicks on the ad and arrives on your site, you’re charged for the “click.” Others, called cost-per-thousand (or cost-per-mille, CPM), charge by how many times your ad is displayed (typically in blocks of 1,000), regardless of whether viewers click on your ad or not.

Your social media presence is increasingly becoming how people find your products and come to understand your brand. Social commerce sales in the US are expected to reach $1.2 trillion in 2025. Now more than ever, you should use your social media pages to showcase your products and expand your target market.

Showcase your products on your social media pages and increase your reach. (Source: Later)

Find the social media platform where your target market engages, grow a following, post frequently, and build your online presence. Research into any competitor’s social media activities can help you identify which channels might work best for you and what messaging works best for your target market.

Additionally, you want to ensure your ads showcase your brand voice and incentivize clicks. One of the best ways to do this is by offering special discounts, deals, or events. Consider running ads around sales and promotions to boost traffic around major events.

Shoppable Social Media Storefront

On the frontier of social media marketing is social media storefronts. These are storefronts that are integrated into your brand’s social media page. They enable customers to shop directly on your profile without exiting their social app and going to your website—even when completing the transaction.

Shoppable social media storefronts are a great way to increase the likelihood of completing a transaction from a social media ad. By meeting customers who are already scrolling, you overcome some of the inertia of starting to shop. Additionally, most social media storefronts utilize user-generated content (UGC), making garnering trust in your brand and products easier.

You can also sell products directly from your social pages, or utilize paid ads on these platforms. From Facebook to TikTok to YouTube to Instagram, most, if not all, social media platforms run ads and use their algorithm to ensure that your products are getting in front of the right users.

This is another technique you can use to help increase traffic to your website and boost your site in the SERPs. With affiliate marketing, you pay a third party to generate leads or traffic to your site. Then, you compensate your affiliate based on the success of their lead generation.

For example, let’s say you decide to work with salons in your neighborhood and ask the stylists to give out scannable QR code business cards that take people to your website. You then use a QR code program to help track the QR code-generated leads and reward the stylists based on their success at driving traffic to your site.

The most successful affiliates have access to a similar customer base to your own, but exist outside of your current reach. Use affiliates to increase your customer base and reach customers you otherwise could not.

Another way you can use social media to bolster your product marketing strategy is through influencer partnerships. In this case, you create a partnership with an influencer, and they wear, advertise, show, etc., your product to inspire sales and bring awareness to your brand.

When selecting the influencers you want to work with, be sure to research their audience, conversion rates, and fees. Bigger influencers with large followings will cost more, whereas micro-influencers will have a smaller reach but will be less expensive. However, if the micro-influencer’s follower base is more in line with your target market, working with them might be just as effective without the hefty price tag.

Another thing to consider when doing influencer partnerships is how you want to structure your contract. How the influencer promotes your product, as well as your payment terms, are completely customizable. You might exchange tagged posts for free merchandise, or you might operate on a sales commission structure. Figure out what will work best for you, and consider your options.

Once your website and/or storefront are in place, it’s time to start building your customer contact list. This is not only a great way to get your products in front of people quickly but also to foster long-term loyalty.

Most email and text marketing software, like Klaviyo, offer free starter accounts that you can integrate into ecommerce platforms, including WooCommerce and Shopify. Once set up, you can start collecting your customers’ email addresses and phone numbers and begin marketing to them right away.

There are several ways to build up your contact list quickly, and one of the most effective is offering a coupon or a free item like an informational ebook related to your product. You can also create a customer loyalty program that offers perks and rewards in exchange for customer information.

When determining the outreach channels you will use, determine where your target market is engaging and what messaging is most effective for inspiring them to shop. Is it when you alert people to a deal? Is it when you announce new arrivals? Or is it personalized messages that remind them you are still around?

Be sure that you tailor your messaging both to your brand voice and customer responses as you create your outreach marketing strategy.

If you want to expand your potential customer base, you can sell your product wholesale at online marketplaces, password-protected storefronts, or trade shows.

• Online Wholesale Marketplace: Online reseller marketplaces are a budget-friendly way to get your product before resellers searching for wholesale goods online. Vendor marketplaces like Faire, Shopify’s Handshake, Etsy Wholesale, and US Made Wholesale mainly cater to specialty and small product manufacturers, while others, like Alibaba and Wholesale Central, list product manufacturers of all types and sizes.
• Password-protected Storefront: A password-protected storefront is an online store restricting access to business owners or bulk buyers through a password system. You can easily set up a password-protected shop through Shopify, or add wholesale capabilities to your existing storefront with an app like Wholesale Club.

For your brick-and-mortar storefront, one of the biggest components of marketing a product is merchandising. Merchandising is all of the non-verbal tactics involved in presenting retail goods in a way that promotes their sale. There are many different merchandising strategies that you can use, but overall you want to be sure that your merchandising reflects your brand and appeals to your desired audience.

For example, at an artisanal goods store where you are trying to appeal to tourists and gift givers, you might emphasize local sourcing, use homey, warm colors, and feature a gift section for your merchandising. Keeping your audience and brand image in mind will help guide your merchandising to attract your customer base and promote product sales.

Pop-up stores are temporary retail locations for new or existing brands. They are not only an effective way to increase your reach and expand your product market but a great product marketing tool for showcasing new or featured items.

For example, you might hold a pop-up shop for your new jewelry line to drum up hype as you introduce accessories to your boutique. Pop-up shops are great for featuring single products or many, but featuring one item will allow more focus and excitement to center around that single product.

Where your pop-up will be most successful depends on your particular target market. Hold a pop-up at a farmers market, another store, a flea market, or other venues that allow temporary storefronts. A supplements brand might not do well at a farmers market, but would probably be a hit at a fitness expo or stationed at a gym.

Pop-up shops are great for expanding your reach and creating excitement around your products. (Source: The Pineapple Agency)

Hosting events such as contests, promotions (sales, exclusive discounts), demos, and community events is a surefire way to market your products. Every time you launch a product or run a sale or promotion, it is always best to start it off with an event. And while limited sale periods are always a hit, consider offering demos, community events, and product kiosks around the area of your brick-and-mortar store—it helps product promotion and increases brand awareness.