What’s New?


 


I always thought that a powerful brand name would be called NEW. 

 It seems like consumers are in love with the latest thing that must be better than what came just a few minutes ago.

New is an interesting thing. Texting to an 85 year old is new but old school for a 13 year old. Send a letter via the post office is new for a 13 year old but old hat for an 85 year old. Making something new may be how you repackage cookies into a different structure or design, how you add a QR code to your label or where you sell your product. Something seen as new can have lots of levers. 

Peas in a Can was once a new idea 

How can you refresh your brand, your product or services? These ideas apply if you are an accountant, a dry cleaner or you market homemade brownies. They apply if you are in B2B (selling to other businesses) or B2C (to consumers). 

 I have five ideas for you.

MINIATURIZE
You say tomato
Can you make your product smaller or sell a service in a tiny unit like 15 minutes of time? When you take something big like renting a car for a day and reduce it to renting a car for 30 minutes, you have something NEW.

ENLARGE  
Big idea
Can you do the opposite of miniaturizing and offer something much bigger? What happens when instead of selling services by the day you sell a subscription for 1000 hours over the year? What happens when you take a category (chocolate candy) and instead of following the crowd, you make over sized truffles for three?

DIFFERENT SEGMENT 

Finding gold 
 If you already sell a product that meets the qualification for a special segment (Gluten Free Crackers), maybe you market them to people who aren’t wheat or gluten sensitive but package them for a different audience. (Eg. consumers who want low-calorie crackers). If you are a financial planner, maybe instead of going after people with high net worth, you focus on seniors in college who are at top schools and have the potential to become high net worth clients.

HABLA ESPANOL?
Habla Espanol 
Maybe you can repackage exactly what you offer but you do it in a new language trying to reach a portion of the market who you literally don’t talk to? What happens if you sell graphic design services but you target Hispanic business owners? If you speak a second language, don’t miss out on a secondary market that could be a new customer base.

MAKE IT MORE EXPENSIVE

Driven to a higher end of the market
Some products and services are stripped down to make more affordable. What happens if you add some bells & whistles to service the high end of a market. If you are a car wash, could you offer to pick up a car, do the detailed cleaning and return by the end of the day? Are there folks who would pay for the convenience (and status) of having their car (and ego) shined up?  Could a Heating & Air Conditioning company have Silver Elite service that costs extra but provides 24/7 priority service like first class on an overseas flight?

Making something new out of something old is just a matter of repurposing, repositioning or rethinking through the challenge. 

So, what's new with you? 





If you enjoy reading my blog, can you pass it along to one friend interested in marketing? These ideas may be old school to you but perhaps they would be new to a small business owner trying to grow or expand. They can receive these posts via email by signing up at the top right hand corner of the blog. Thanks. 

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