Products are born, and then they evolve, and some just die after a few years. As marketers, we know that we are under consistent pressure to grow our sales year after year. How do you keep brands growing continuously? Here are 5 tips:
1) Continue to improve the product. If you have the best lawnmower version 1.0, produce an even better version 2.0 in 2 years time. This way your competitors are kept far away from your pot of gold always.
2) Produce line extensions. They help to leverage on existing brand power to sell more products, and gain more sales. One note of caution, don’t over line extend to stuffs that don’t share brand equities with the parent brand.
3) Promote awareness when the products are newly launched. Then, focus on differentiating them vs. other competitors. Bring out your unique benefits and USPs.
4) Grow your ‘question mark’ products (BCG Matrix) to Stars, with fast growth in market shares. Once you are the dominant player, you can ease a little on your investments, and reap the profits with your cash cows.
5) Divest off products that are not making money. These are usually products in non-growing categories, or where competitors fight fiercely with price wars. You are also facing slow market shares growth despite large advertising expenditures.
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