Positioning Your Product

It could be said that if a product is good enough it could sell itself. Theoretically, that might be true, but even with the most ‘must-have’ products the potential for easy sales can be sabotaged by the simplest of moves. Should you misjudge the positioning for your product, you can undermine its quality, uniqueness and desirability very quickly. Identifying your target market is key to getting your product out to the right places. You need to know where your customers shop or where they do business and therefore where they are likely to come across your product. Whether it is a geographical location, a type of store or a location within a store, a specialist market or a trade show, you need to decide where best to position your wares. Getting your product in front of a customer is one thing, but getting them to stop and notice it and pick it up is quite another. Packaging can make or break a potential sale. It doesn’t have to fly in the face of environmental concerns and be elaborately wasteful. It just has to cleverly catch the eye of the customer and speak to them as something they may want, or better still, need. So you have what you think is the right packaging to appeal to your target audience and you have identified outlets for its sale, but what harm can be done if it is placed near the wrong goods? If your product is a high-end quality item with a price tag to match, it may get quickly dismissed as too expensive if it is placed alongside similar but lower-value products. Similarly, if you are selling direct from a fair and showcasing your quality hand-made items but your pitch is squashed in between bric-a-brac and jumble, then you are not positioning your offering correctly. The environment will be one of low-value bargain hunting, with people unlikely to appreciate the value of your goods. Knowing how to position and present products can be the realm of the marketing department or the sales professionals, depending on individual company organisational structures or the type of product you are selling. Within the whole sales process there can be discrete jobs for different stages of the sales and marketing cycle, with professionals focussing on different areas of expertise such as packaging design, account management, promotion or market analysis, to name just a few. If you are a small or start-up business, you may find yourself doing all of this yourself. If you are just starting up a business, you might find that the selling can be a bit of a mine field, so your big decision will be whether you should persevere trying to sell it yourself or whether you should call in the professionals. Planned correctly, hiring sales staff can quickly start to pay for itself as the orders start rolling in. However, you need to ensure you have hired the right people — those who can effectively bring in the business. If this is new to you, then you could benefit from using the services of expert sales recruitment agencies in Staffordshire. Good sales recruitment agencies in Staffordshire will continue to work with you after you hire to ensure that the placement is successful.