The Buyer’s Triangle: What to Do With Your Marketing if Your Product Flops
Not everything you promote is a winner — but why?
Not everything you promote is a winner — but why?
“It didn’t do great. I put everything into that product launch, and to be honest, watching it fail has put me into a downward spiral.” My friend told me that last week when discussing his recent product release.
His previous releases did great. He had a recipe for success and all he had to do was bake a fresh batch of awesome. So how did it go so wrong?
Not Everything You Sell Is a Winner — Here’s Why
I like to think of selling a product like the famous fire triangle.
For fire, you need fuel, oxygen, and heat. Lose one of those things and you can’t create or sustain the fire.
No heat, no fire.
No oxygen, it’ll die.
No fuel, it’ll fade into oblivion.
Sales are like fire. Much like fire, you need all three of these things to get something to sell incredibly well.
Let’s call it the “buyer triangle” — see what I did there?
The buyer triangle is made up of:
Good product
Great promotion
Correct price. (That means it’s in line with who you’re selling it to and what the quality dictates)
If any of these things are broken in the triangle, your product won’t sell well. It’ll bomb… hard.
So it stands to reason that tweaking, changing or improving any one of these components would have an opposite effect. It would increase sales, right?
Let’s go over these one at a time.
Broken products
If you feel like your product bombing is because it’s not good quality. You can either improve the quality of the product or lower the price until the new price reflects the expectations of customers.
This will fix the triangle to bring it all back to stasis.
Broken promotion
If your promotion/marketing is bad, you’ll need to find new markets or a new message to surround your product with.
Did you promote it to mothers instead of parents and alienate all fathers?
Did you say he, when girls are gamers too?
Did you sell it as “cool” when it’s supposed to be “practical”?
Re-define who you’re selling your product to and why. Make sure the product is good and the price will suit your new target audience. The buyer triangle will be restored.
BONUS: Did you spend any money advertising? Sometimes, you can just promote the same message MORE.
Broken price
Lowering the price will almost always cause a spike in sales. That’s why periods of discount are called “sales” — because they go through the roof.
If your product isn’t selling well, or fast, but it’s good quality and you’ve marketed it well, perhaps the bad conversion rate is down to price. Be honest — is it overpriced for what it is?
If you’re selling something in a crowded market, you can either be:
The first.
The best.
The cheapest.
If your t-shirts are the same quality, from the same manufacturer with the same high standard of design as someone else — it probably won’t sell well.
Especially if it’s the same price or higher.
Why? Because everyone is doing it.
Companies in crowded markets either go super high-end (if you choose to do this, you need better quality than what they sell).
Or super low (if you choose to do this, you need to be cheaper).
Those in the middle disappear.
If you’re suffering from bad sales, or your product has bombed ask yourself “which part of the triangle can I adjust to re-ignite interest and invigorate buyers?”
WHAT IF THE PRODUCT IS JUST TERRIBLE?
In the words of Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank…
“Take it out behind the barn and shoot it.”
There is such a thing as a bad product
Don’t dig yourself deeper by putting more money into something that’s failed if it doesn’t deserve to survive.
It’s kinder to let it die in peace and move on.
I’ve seen many businesses that have been built on a multitude of products — but destroyed by a single one.