No matter whether your product is digital or physical, you must promote it if you want to make sales. There is no “build it and they will come” scenario that works in the real world of business.
A lot of business owners think that marketing and advertising is an expense. They see it in the same terms as paying taxes. However, when it comes to your business, marketing and advertising is really an investment. Essentially, any expenditure that can bring in more money than spent is considered an investment. Here are 10 unique ways you can promote your products and services.
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How Do You Promote Your Products And Services?
1. Alert Your Current Customers First
Whenever you have a new product, always let your current customers know about it first. If you can have an early release to current customers in enough time to get some feedback and change things if needed, that makes it even better.
Having said that, you may want to involve your current customers throughout the creation process if you’re creating a product. It will likely cost too much money to change things in a physical product once it’s been created. However, involving the audience you already have and the people who have already bought from you in this process will make your product even better.
2. Host A Contest
What to really get buzz going? If you do, one of the most creative ways to promote a product is to host a contest. It depends on the type of product you have but in general, you can have a contest and give away free products to get buzz. You can also ask people who have used the product to submit testimonials and their story in video form for the contest. The person who gets the most likes on their story will win a prize – usually more products or more time with you depending on what you are offering.
3. Use Facebook Ads
Despite the negative press, there are a lot of good things to say about Facebook ads. First, they’re not very expensive. Because of this, the barrier to entry is very low. Plus, Facebook advertising really does work if you do it right.
You do need to understand how to promote a product on Facebook so that you get the results you want. You can use the Facebook pixel to remarket to people who visited your website already or market to a lookalike audience using email addresses to find them. In addition, you can create a custom audience using the email addresses on a list that you already own. The possibilities are endless, and the price is not high.
4. Host a Big Launch Party
No matter what kind of product you have, everybody likes a party. You can host a launch party online, offline or both. For example, if you’re having a big launch party for a new product in your beauty salon, you can generate buzz by giving away the product to a lucky winner. You can do demonstrations of what you’re selling and promote in front of the audience that comes to the party. Then you can record it and put it on Facebook Live or YouTube or both.
If you have a digital product, why not host a Facebook Live or YouTube Live in order to demonstrate your new product and what it will do for people? When you start thinking that every product that you want to launch is important to your audience, you realize that if you don’t promote it, you’re doing them a disservice. They can’t purchase it if they don’t know about it.
5. Collect Customer Reviews on Video
Another great way to promote your products and services – whether they’re a new one or an older one – is to collect customer reviews on video. For example, if you’re hosting a live event and there are people there who are using your product, go right up to them with your smartphone camera and do the interview on the spot. You’ll get amazing footage that you can use everywhere throughout the years if you’re still promoting that product.
6. Include Your Product in a Gift Box
If you have a physical product, an effective way to market that product today is to include it in a gift box of some kind. You’ll have to research who is offering gift boxes, or you can create your own which includes your product. A lot of times people are happy to sign up for gift boxes because they’ll get a lot more product for the price.
For example, there are makeup boxes that usually have 5 or 6 products for $10 a month. Usually, each product cost more than $10. The reason the product is included in the gift box is that the developers are hoping you will like it so much that you will go purchase the full-priced option. This is a good way to collect testimonials and buzz.
7. Work with Social Media Influencers
Another way to promote your products and services is to work with social media influencers. Yes, usually you are going to have to pay the social media influencer for their time. However, you can save money by using an influencer who has a smaller audience. Often, you can find five to ten influencers who have a smaller but dedicated audience for the same price that you can use one big-time influencer.
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8. Vlog and Blog More
Don’t forget the tried-and-true ways of promoting any product. Provide content for your audience in the form of vlogs, blogs, podcasts or other means on a regular basis. Tease your audience as you create a new product, keep them informed as you go, and that way they’ll be ready for the launch and be more likely to purchase it fast.
9. Sponsor An Event
Sponsoring an event is a way to give money, basically without having to give as much of your time. Sometimes you might also want to go to events that you are sponsoring but you don’t always have to. Having your name in a brochure and mentioned throughout any event that your audience likes to attend can generate a lot of traffic and buzz. The event you sponsor can be a regular business event such as those put on by the Chamber of Commerce, or it could be a charity that you really care about.
10. Update Your Social Media
No promotion can ever be complete without taking the time to update all your social media profiles. Using social media to market your business is essential today. Your audience uses social media. Even people who don’t own computers still own smartphones these days, and due to that they get on platforms like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, Instagram, and others.
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By investing in a well-rounded marketing strategy when you promote your products and services, your expenditure will be worth it. This is called return on investment (ROI). But don’t just assume a course of action you are about to take is going to be error-free and perfect. Sometimes failures lead to big successes, but when you know how to promote a product to customers correctly, you can save a lot of time and money.
For more tips on how to market a product online, download my free checklist, The Top 10 Mistakes in Online Business, and avoid the false moves and slipups that even veteran online entrepreneurs make.