Which products should we promote

[Datesand]

We have a large catalogue of products some are selling well so must be popular and some not so well. As a general rule which should be be promoting?

Should we try and get the best out of the popular products or try and push the not so popular products?

Many thanks
Mark

 

[Leo Salazar]

It depends entirely on your strategy.

• Is it to be more profitable by improving your efficiency?
• Is it to grow in your home market?
• Is it to grow by entering new markets?
• Is it to counter new entrants into your existing market who may be a competitive threat?

Depending on which strategy you are focusing on depends on what products you should promote.

PS: Please don't say, "All of the above." Not focusing on a valid strategic choice is a choice for failure.

 

[Datesand]

Thanks for your reply Leo.
Our strategy is grow our home market and maintain our position as market leader.

 

[iDigLocal]

What about promoting the products that you know you will get a good ROI and use that footfall to increase cross sells

 

[Rima C]

What about Increasing the Branding of the Products online?

 

[Datesand]

Thanks iDiglocal, we do some cross selling of relevant products but maybe we should look to include the less performing products.
Thanks Rima C, All these products are online, how would you suggest increasing the brand?

 

[fisicx]

Our strategy is grow our home market and maintain our position as market leader.

Selling what to whom? Socks? Sofas? Saddlebags? Stringvests?

 

[Datesand]

we service the life sciences market.

 

[fisicx]

I've just googled you and man that is a slooooooow site.

I'd have thought it's the business you need to promote not the products. You need to make labs aware of your extensive (but slow) catalogue and let them search for the stuff you need. You help them along the way with the if you like this then you made want that to go with it. When they get their order do you include a catalogue?

PS: now the site has finally loaded there are loads of things you could to to promote your products. Getting some decent descriptions and images would be a good start. Consider joining UKBF as a full member and get a website review.

 

[Datesand]

We are aware of the speed and we trying to sort it out, but appreciate your thoughts.
Thanks. It depends what the order is, we include a catalogue when we know its going direct to a person. Sometimes it goes to a warehouse and they just get binned. Ill take a look at improving the descriptions. We are currently working on images and video's.

 

[bmt Promotions]

Depending on which strategy you are focusing.

 

[Andrew Kozman]

Hi Datesand,

So I have a couple of thoughts here:

1. Are you promoting all of your products equally at the moment?

If that's the case, then why are some products performing better than others? Could it be because your market is responding more positively to those particular products?

If this is the case, then that may mean your market is telling you that they're not really interested in those products.

2. If you're not promoting your products equally, why is that? Have you identified, through market research that some of your products would be more popular than others and so you're currently pushing those products more?

If that's the case, look for opportunities to cross and up-sell products that are related or relevant. Even on your website, you can do like Amazon:

"People who bought this also bought this"

or

"Related products"

etc.

3. Where is your most popular sales channel? Is it online through your website? Offline at your store/location?

If it's online, you can track where people are visiting your site and where they spend the most time. You can use this valuable data to map out the flow in which your visitors take and how they end up at the purchase page on your site.

It may be that they find you through Search Engines? Maybe some of your products are just ranking better on Google than other products and so they get more exposure?

Maybe people are finding your website online through social media, your posts or through Ads and they just take interest in a particular product or promotion. Either way, this is something you need to monitor!

If it's offline, then what are your salespeople saying to your potential customers? Is there a product they get asked about the most by people visiting your store?

Bottom line is, you need to respond to your market needs and give them what they want as well as try to find opportunities to bolt on your related or less popular products to increase your overall revenue.

I hope that helps!

Andrew

 

[Ashley_Price]

Let's not get confused here... what do you mean by "less popular"? Are these simply items that are slow to shift, that few people want; or are they high-price items, where only a few are sold, but in reality actually have a high profit margin?

I don't know the life sciences market, so take the following as purely an example, but if the margin was high enough, I would rather sell one blood sampling machine every couple of months (the less popular item), than 1000 petrie dishes per week.