You’ve done everything you can to improve your advertising and you’re still not getting the results you want. You’ve fine-tuned your audience targeting, A/B tested your messages, used great CTAs, and even offered discounted pricing. Your customer service is ranked well above average, and you deliver on what you promise. Well, maybe it’s not your advertising. Maybe it’s your product or pricing – even if your price is the lowest around.

It is not infrequent to find companies that have been so successful with a particular product (or service) line that they don’t notice subtle changes in the market. Even subtle changes can have a dramatic effect on your sales. Product development is a critical aspect of the marketing program of every strong business. Markets change, customers change, their needs and pain points change, technology changes, and competition changes. Product development is the lifeblood of every company, and yet it is not typically included as part of the overall marketing program. It should be.

When new technology comes onto the market or other new market forces are at play, the value of any specific solution may change. And the change may be something that is only indirectly related to your product. Knowing the market, your own products, other related products, and the customers’ changing needs, and making sure your own product development keeps pace with the market is crucial. That requires understanding the competitive landscape, and doing some market research with customers, prospects, and even those who will never convert to customers. Understanding why someone will always say no to your products can be more beneficial than knowing why customers say yes.

Another potential non-advertising issue is pricing. This can happen when your price is too high, misaligned with the value provided, or even too low. Underpricing can reduce conversions even more than being overpriced, because, while it is true that everyone likes a bargain, setting a price too low can signal a lack of confidence in your product. Once again, pricing is a marketing activity – and, just like product development, rarely thought of as such by many companies.

Even before your efforts fall short of your goals, you need to be proactive about product development and pricing to see if either of these is an issue or may become one. These are the questions to answer:

• Does your product line match the needs of your ideal prospect?
• Are the pain points your solution addresses still as important to the customer or have their pain points changed?
• Have new products or solutions come onto the market that more completely address the need of the customer?
• Have new products or solutions that are related to your product come onto the market and, if so, are your offerings compatible with these?
• Are you inadvertently signaling a lack of confidence in your product with bargain basement pricing?

Product development is one area most business owners do not think of when they hear “marketing” but it really should be part of your overall marketing program and strategy. Are you interested in learning more about how and when you can easily incorporate product development and pricing into your marketing program? Schedule a complimentary business meeting with me.