5 Ways to Promote Your Product and Drive More Sales

In marketing, promotion refers to any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or issue. The promotion aims to increase awareness, create interest, generate sales or create brand loyalty. It is one of the basic elements of the market mix, which includes the four P's: price, product, promotion, and place.

Promotion is also one of the elements in the promotional mix or promotional plan. These are personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing publicity and may also include event marketing, exhibitions, and trade shows. A promotional plan specifies how much attention to pay to each of the elements in the promotional mix, and what proportion of the budget should be allocated to each element.

The promotion covers the methods of communication that a marketer uses to provide information about its product. Information can be both verbal and visual.

Ways to promote and increase sales

Creating a new item or launching a new service for your store is challenging enough, but to promote a product you’ll need a broader plan. As an entrepreneur, you’re doing everything: creating products, working with clients and customers, and building your online store and social following. This can be daunting. It can also be incredibly rewarding, and even fun. So how do you effectively promote a product in 2018?

Below, we’ve outlined the most effective ways to promote a product. You might be surprised: while these strategies require some labor, they are often simpler than they appear on the surface and just require some strategy and focus on starting bringing in returns.

Land your business in the press

Getting publicity is a great way to reach new customers and help more people discover your product. It’s also notoriously difficult to do. Mainstream journalists are inundated with press releases and pitches for stories. Improve your odds by targeting bloggers instead.

Instead of sending bloggers press releases, reach out with a personal email and ask if you can send them a sample. You can target bloggers in your industry, product-focused websites, and even social media influencers.

Pinterest

Pinterest is the place to be if you want to buy or sell products online. 93% of active pinners say they use Pinterest to plan purchases. Not surprisingly, many people use Pinterest to build wish lists. This makes it a great place to promote products—especially well-designed products that photograph well.

What’s even better is that pins tend to stick around for a long time. It’s not uncommon for pins to get viewed for months after they’re posted. Optimize your pins by posting when more people are online, using the right keywords, and using captivating images. You can even run contests to extend your reach. Make sure you enable Rich Pins to have additional product information included.

Send an email to your list

Email marketing is #1 on our online marketing basics guide and is likely to remain there. Email marketing consistently converts at a higher rate than any social media. Why? On social, you’re competing for attention with a huge amount of distractions.

Other brands, personal posts, direct messages, and more are all attempting to catch the eye of the same individuals you are working to reach. Email inboxes are more streamlined, and potential customers have already shown interest in your product by giving you their email address.

So an email list is full of people who are (to one degree or another) already invested in your product. If you aren’t already, start utilizing free content to educate and engage them. When your customers are used to receiving valuable content from you, an email about your latest release is more likely to be effective and result in sales. Email is a vital aspect of your marketing platform, but don’t stop there.

Find a good brand ambassador

Do you have a product or service that your customers love to gush about? Do you notice that some of your customers rave about you on social media without any prompting from you? They might be a natural brand ambassador that can carry your new product into spaces you couldn’t reach on your own. Consider paying — or exchanging product — with your brand ambassadors for their help in sharing your product with their networks.

Offer subscribers discount

Build discounts into your business strategy and use them wisely. Remember, you want to reach new customers and encourage repeat business without cutting too far into your profits. Let’s say you want to build your email list to share and promote a product.

Providing a discount code for opting in can be a great way to build your list and grow your bottom line. Remember that free shipping has a high perceived value, as do buy-one-get-one-free (BOGO) offers.

Affiliate programs

If you’re struggling to make sales and you don’t have the cash to hire sales or marketing help, consider adding an affiliate program to your store. Affiliate marketing programs enable other people to promote your product for a commission. You’ll only have to pay them if they make a sale.

Affiliate programs typically work by creating a custom URL for each person promoting your products. They can share this link on social media, in a blog post reviewing your product, or even in a YouTube video where they’re showing it off.

Through the custom links, you’ll be able to track who is driving sales for you so you can compensate them.

A little bit of education is usually helpful if you plan on introducing affiliates. Remember: they’re promoting your products for you, so in some sense, they’re handling a marketing function of your business. If you don’t provide the best practices, they’ll make up their own.

Credit: The Custom Boxes

Max is a digital marketing manager at TheCustomBoxesUK. An absolute packaging and printing solution catering their worldwide. Max strengths include creativity, drive and leadership. He has 10 year of experience in various multinational organizat.....