Developing and launching new products is crucial for your business growth. However, the success of your new products relies heavily on how well you market them.
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Marketing a new product to potential customers is only one side of the spectrum. You must focus just as much effort, if not more, on your existing customers. Your current customers are more likely to buy your new products than potential customers. Hence why making them the center of your new product’s marketing strategy is vital.
What is the key to marketing a new product to existing customers? Well, there’s more than one. Let’s start with four of them here.
Learn All You Can About Your Existing Customers
One key to marketing a new product to existing customers is knowing them inside and out. You must know who your existing customers are, what they need, and how they do things. Customer analytics can help you learn a ton about your current customers.
Specifically, you want to familiarize yourself with product-focused information like:
- The types of products your existing customers want.
- How you can best deliver those products to them.
- What products they’ve already bought from you.
- Their reaction to previous new product launches.
- New product marketing messages that resonate most.
- How your existing customers engaged with other new products.
All in all, the insights you get from customer analytics tools can help you make informed, data-driven decisions about how to best market your new product to existing customers.
The success of your marketing efforts is also tied to how well you keep your existing customers at the forefront of your launch strategy.
Prepare Your Product Launch With Your Existing Customers in Mind
Many marketers focus solely on attracting and engaging new customers when it comes to launching a new product. As a result, they neglect to think about their existing customers when drafting the marketing messaging, visuals, and so forth.
And that means campaigns aren’t likely to resonate with existing customers at all, and they won’t be on the edge of their seats, waiting to purchase your new product.
So, ensure no task is overlooked by using a product launch checklist. A product launch checklist will help you organize your product launch strategy. It will also help you identify how you’re going to engage your existing customers.
Address the following before launching a new product to ensure you’re existing customers are excited about your new product from the moment it’s introduced:
- The product design and features that your existing customers will love most.
- Operational and logistic requirements for the new product.
- How you’re going to introduce and promote your new product to your new and existing customers.
- The role your other internal teams play in a successful product launch.
Another key to marketing a new product to existing customers is implementing upselling and cross-selling strategies.
Implement Upselling and Cross-Selling Strategies
One of the best ways to market a new product to existing customers is to show how well it compliments the product or products they already have. In other words, how does the value of their existing products go up when they buy your new product?
Depending on the products your customers already have, you can:
- Position your new product as an upgrade.
- Present it as a must-have add-on to their recent purchase.
- Put your new product in a special bundle with other products that complement what the customer already has and offer a discount price.
- Package your new product with another as a special offer.
Furthermore, you can create various email campaigns that explain how your new product compliments each product you already have. Then, based on the product your customer already purchased, they’d be enrolled in the email campaign that explains how their specific product works with the new product.
Lastly, be diligent and consistent in your conversation with your existing customers about your new product.
Continue the Dialogue
Even though they’ve already bought into your brand, your existing customers aren’t going to jump right away when you introduce a new product. The hope is that you’ll have them hooked with the first marketing message or video. But that just isn’t reality.
Think long-term when it comes to the dialogue you have with your existing customers about your new product.
For example, you could create an email marketing strategy that spans a few months before your product hits the market. This will help you build up excitement about your new product without the pushy salesman vibe. Another suggestion is to talk about your new product via a series of social media posts after its launch and drive traffic to a specific landing page on your website to learn more.
It’s also a good idea to have a strategy for continuing the conversation after your existing customers buy your new product. The last thing you want to do is make customers feel like all you wanted was a sale. Instead, continue engaging with your customers by sending them resources that help them best use their new product with those they’ve already bought from you.
Whichever way you decide to continue the dialogue with your customers, do so genuinely and consistently.
Conclusion
Marketing a new product to existing customers requires a solid strategy and a genuine appreciation for how important existing customers are to a business’s bottom line. Start with the tips above to design a strategy that successfully helps you market a new product to existing customers.