|
What are your products and/or services? Why will potential customers buy from your business?
Clearly defining your products or services and why your target customers will want or need them is critical for a business owner. This is often easier said than done. A clear definition of what you will be selling and why cusstomers will purchase from your business is important to:
- Finding investors
- Conducting market research
- Selling to customers
Additional products or services you could offer?
Companies that enjoy successful expansion are often good at:
- Predicting what their customers will need next. By staying in touch with the wants and needs of yours customers, companies can often get ideas for new products or services that their current customers need – new product or service development. For example, McDonalds is constantly developing and testing new products to offer to its customers
- Predicting new ways to present their existing products or services that make them more desirable to your existing customer base or allows you to target a new target market. For example, movie companies started making their movies available for people to watch at home, at a lower price, through cable TV and movie rentals allowing them to target an audience that chooses not to pay the high price of a movie theater ticket
- Finding new uses for existing products. For example, baking soda, which used to be marketed mainly as a baking product, is now also sold as a deodorizer.
- Offering products or services that already exist in the market place to your customers because it is easier for them to buy from you. For example, stores that sold earrings started piercing customer’s ears in the store and U-Haul started selling boxes.
Next Steps:
1. If you don’t know yet what product or service you want to sell or you need help defining it, we encourage you to take the JumpStart series or the NxLevel workshop series.
2. If you wish to discuss product or service line expansion, make an appointment with a WBDC counselor by calling 312 853 3477 x0.
3. For more in-depth information about developing your product strategy visit the Online Women’s Business Center Marketing Mall.
|
