Hello!
My name is Ruslana, I’m a content marketer at Solve Marketing. Today I talked to our team to find out what production marketing should look like.
— How do manufacturers differ from distributors?
Kateryna, COO of Solve Marketing:
A manufacturer is a company that invents and manufactures a certain product. Manufacturers of mass-market goods usually do not sell to the end customer themselves. Or they do it in small volumes. Instead, they look for distributors to take over this process.
— So, what is the purpose of promoting production?
Serhii, Head of Marketing:
There are 2 main goals of product promotion:
- to show the benefits of a certain product so that end consumers want to buy it from a distributor;
- to make more distributors learn about the manufacturer, become its partners and sell the product.
When a product is popular, many distributors want to sell it. For example, a Tesla car is quite popular, so there is no shortage of people willing to become an official Tesla seller in their region 🙂
— What are the specifics of production promotion?
Serhii, Head of Marketing:
The difficulty of promoting manufacturers is that there are many other companies that produce the same product. It may look a little different, have a different name, but provide the same function.
A little-known company has little chance that its products will be bought at a high price right away. Therefore, the manufacturer follows a simple logic and sets low prices for its product. As a result, margins drop significantly. Such companies do not have money for marketing and development of new products, and they cannot retain qualified specialists.
This creates a closed circle, and the manufacturer has nothing else to tempt customers except the price. Sooner or later, another company is found that offers the product even cheaper. The production becomes unprofitable and closes down. Many manufacturers fall into this circle.
But if you invest in brand development from the very beginning, you can, on the contrary, raise the price and remain attractive to consumers. People choose not only by price.
Alyona, Head of Design:
It is also important to keep in mind that the quality of the product alone does not ensure the success of its sales. It also depends on the presentable appearance of the packaging, the comprehensive and understandable content of the instructions, the modernity of the logo, and colors that are close in meaning to the brand’s values.
Everything a potential client sees matters — from the design of the office to the letterhead.
Therefore, if you invest at least a small percentage of the company’s total volume in marketing, you can significantly improve the situation, at least at the expense of an attractive packaging appearance.
Serhii, Head of Marketing:
A product should not only fulfill its main function, but also be convenient, useful, and aesthetically pleasing. And most importantly, the use of the product should evoke positive emotions.
There is a concept of design thinking for creating such a product. Thanks to this method, you can create something that will solve the user’s problems and provide them with good emotions.
What does marketing have to do with it? The marketing department should be in touch with customers and collect their feedback to improve the product in a timely manner.
Kateryna, COO of Solve Marketing:
We recommend that manufacturers set up a systematic collection of user feedback to improve the product. It happens that users complain about obvious things that are very easy to improve. And the manufacturer doesn’t do it.
Therefore, the specifics of promotion are aimed at the following tasks :
- to attract distributors who will be interested and ready to sell the manufacturer’s product;
- to interest end consumers in advertising so that they have a desire to purchase the product;
- set up feedback to improve the product.
As a result, we get an ecosystem where the manufacturer produces, the distributor sells, and the user learns about the product and looks for someone to sell it to him in a certain city.
— How is online marketing used to promote production?
Kateryna, COO of Solve Marketing:
First, we need to conduct research to better understand the needs of the target audience and what is happening in the market. That is, we have to find answers to the following questions:
+ In what situations do people choose this product?
+ What are the common features of people who choose this product?
+ What types of choices exist in these situations?
+ What are the companies that provide these solutions and how do they differ?
+ What are the criteria for comparing the choices?
+ What are the strengths and weaknesses of each option?
+ What increases the probability of choosing our option?
+ Where exactly do potential customers look for options?
…and a number of other questions.
After that, we build communication aimed at creating a clear relationship between the product that the manufacturer provides and the needs that the user has.
Andrii, Marketer, Traffic Manager:
When promoting an online store or SaaS, the user immediately goes to the desired page and performs a certain targeted action after contacting the advertisement.
It is difficult to track such a conversion when promoting manufacturing, as brand advertising is used. It is aimed at attracting more dealers and familiarizing more consumers with the manufacturer’s product. Conversion to purchase is delayed for a certain period of time, and improvements can be seen later when more people start buying from distributors.
Violetta, Head of PM:
How to determine the growth of brand awareness? There are many methods, but each of them is based on a survey of people’s opinions about which company is associated with the area in which the brand operates. Cars, computers, and soda — there are better known brands in each of the many industries. This is also true for any product.
What is the conclusion?
It is possible to promote industries that occupy a narrow niche and have little competition at low cost with the help of modern digital marketing tools.
How can this be done? For example, you can spread information about the brand among communities that use products in the desired category. There are many strategies to reach and appeal to a brand’s audience.
When promoting the production of consumer goods, many competitors appear, so we recommend:
- expand dealer networks;
- invest in improving the visual design of the product;
- maintain contact with the consumer.
This contact should be long-term — at least a year, as there are many competitors in the FMCG niche that the audience remembers well. So get ready to keep in touch with consumers on a regular basis so that your brand is remembered and recalled when they see it in stores.
Do you want to get a basic strategy for promoting your production? Sign up for a preliminary consultation.
