When people hear the word “product development,” they think of inventions, and coming up with the next “million dollar idea” for something that everyone in America needs. Unfortunately though, an article in the Harvard Business Review tells us that more than 30,000 new products are introduced every year and about 90 percent of them fail. These are products that usually miss the mark in the ways you would expect, such as the audience not being well defined, the product not supporting its claims, or the creator being unable to sustain the demand or growth for the product.
As the CEO of a successful marketing agency for the past fourteen years and publishing company for the last 6 years, I’ve developed a different view of product development that has become a successful part of my toolbox of marketing strategies for my clients. I call it brand marketing product development.
I’m not talking about putting someone’s logo on something already in existence—like a coffee cup or a tote bag. I mean developing a thoughtful, custom product that directly fulfills the need or “pain” for their client with a creative product solution. The products I develop for my clients enhance their customers’ lives while providing a new revenue stream for them. My clients either resell the product we develop for them or distribute it to their clients to help develop relationships or new business.
Offering brand product marketing solutions personally satisfies my need to create new, beautiful things and my overall life mission to impact lives. So when I am with a client and distilling their marketing needs, I will often envision a solution for them embedded in a brand product if one is available. Best of all, because the audience for the product is already well-defined, estimated, and viable (my client and/or my client’s customers), the risk of product development is drastically reduced.
For example, recently we secured a contract to help a boutique financial management and investment firm market themselves. After helping with their overall branding and updating their website, we engaged them in a conversation about how to help their clients on a deeper level. One of the thoughts they expressed was that their clients often came to them unfocused and unsettled in their financial goals and desires. This made it harder for the firm’s advisors to develop a plan. Immediately we recognized that developing a tool to help their clients would benefit two brand audiences: our client, as well as theirs. It was a prime brand product marketing opportunity!
We ended up developing an exquisitely designed, fun, inspirational journal branded with the company’s logo and information that allowed their clients to think about their legacy. Our client now distributes them to their own customers, who delight in having an engaging, dynamic tool to record their financial goals in correlation to their legacy. In turn, the journal simplifies the advisor’s conversations with their clients since the information is usually contained in the journal.
When I launched my anthology book series, Today’s Inspired Latina, my goal was to elevate self-made women who overcame all kinds of adversity to find success in life and work. As the series grew (we are now on the eighth volume), a distinct audience of hundreds of women grew with a goal to support each other’s endeavors and inspire others to achieve their own goals. A creative spark led to the development of a Today’s Inspired Latina board game, which makes players consider their dreams and ideals for the future with thought-provoking questions and challenges them to speak extemporaneously about surprise topics. It is selling successfully among our audience, but also delivering the brand message to anybody who plays the game, allowing me to enhance even more lives.
I have even done some creative brand product marketing for my own firm. Clients may come to me for one service without knowing about all the other services I offer. For my agency, we created a “Marketing Deck” of playing cards to distribute to customers, which we eventually turned into a phone app. The irresistibly designed and packaged deck contains a different marketing tool on each card, i.e., social media marketing, SEO marketing, etc. and educates the client while challenging them to think about the possibilities for their marketing strategies. It has made my conversations with clients easier and increased my brand awareness, two goals that have helped grow my business and provided important marketing education to clients, colleagues, and even students.
Brand product development can create a rich opportunity to help clients. When there is a viable audience and a clear need, brand product development is typically ripe opportunity and to unleash your creativity and bring something unique to the world. With a well-defined audience and production monitored to a reasonable scale, there’s nowhere to go but up, up, up into the ten percent of products that successfully make it to market!
Jacqueline Camacho-Ruiz is the CEO of JJR Marketing (www.jjrmarketing.com) and Fig Factor Media LLC international book publishing company (www.figfactormedia.com), founder of The Fig Factor Foundation (www.thefigfactor.org), creator of Today’s Inspired Latina book series and international movement (http://www.todayslatina.com), author of thirteen books (www.jackiecamacho.com), international speaker, and pilot. Jacqueline speaks to hundreds of audiences about marketing, servant leadership, finding your passion, and achieving success in business. She has addressed the United States Army, BP International, United Airlines, Allstate, and Farmers Insurance among other corporations to share her inspiration.
If you or an organization you know needs as speaker, please get in touch with us at https://www.jackiecamacho.com/contact.