The Product is the Marketing

I’ve been working with an online retailer recently who operates in the NZ and Australian markets. They have built up a reputation for quality products at affordable prices. Halfway through the discovery day in Auckland we had identified a number of areas they could improve their marketing and overall performance. One of the directors said “With all these things we have to improve, it’s amazing we got this far”.

The reason they have built up a multi-million dollar online business with thousands of customers is they have a very good product. From design to manufacturing to customer service they are good across the board. Sure, none of their marketing is ‘perfect’ and the changes we will make will add over $500k in sales in the next 12 months but they have such a strong base that working with me is just accelerating their growth.

Businesses are being presented with such a vast number of options these days to market and reach customers that the focus on the product is sometimes lost.

In a hyper connected consumer world the old cliche that ‘you can’t polish a turd’ has never been more true.

Using frameworks like the Value Proposition Canvas not only steer you towards the right way to market your product, they highlight areas that your product could be falling down.

Rather than thinking about the next marketing tactic stop and think about how you can improve your product. The marketing will be vastly more successful.