How to Create Demand For Unique Products

12 min read

Imagine someone just told you to buy a smart fragrance diffuser for $100. Now, imagine you have no idea what that is, what it does or why it’s worth $100. There’s not much chance you’re rushing out your door to buy a smart fragrance diffuser right now.

You might think that if you had a new, revolutionary idea, it would be easy to find customers to buy in. But the truth is, sometimes new and innovative products can be some of the hardest to sell. What if consumers don’t understand the product? What if they aren’t aware of the problem your product can solve? How do you sell something your customers don’t understand?

Well the good news is, that’s exactly the question we’re gonna answer here today. Let’s talk about how to create demand for new and unique products.

Typically, your product will fall into one of two categories:

You’re selling a product or brand that is known abroad but not in your country.
You’re selling a brand-new product, e.g. your own invention.

Let’s continue with our example, and imagine you’re now selling smart fragrance diffusers. We’ll say 10 people per month search for this specific item. This means that very few people are aware of — or currently see a need for — your particular diffuser product. We would say product awareness is low, therefore demand is also low. So what do you do?

Demand for unique products can be low

How To Prepare for Launch

To get started, you’ll need to answer a few important questions:

Who are your customers?
Why should they buy your product?
Why is your product better than other alternative products already on the market?

To get the answers, you need to…

1. Define your audience

If we’re using a smart fragrance diffuser as our example, what do we know about it? We can say it’s a device that can be turned on and controlled with a smartphone, a tablet, or a PC. It fills the room with pleasant scents, and it helps remove the not-so-pleasant scents.

With that information, we can assume that our potential customers might include:

people who already use fragrance diffusers and might be attracted by a more convenient option;
people who love technology and enjoy trying new products, gadgets, and smart devices;
businesses like restaurants or office spaces with a lot of foot traffic to remotely control the atmosphere and prevent unfriendly odors.

Once you define your target audience, it will be much easier to choose the appropriate marketing channels to promote your new gadget.

2. Study your competition

Your product might be unique, but chances are, your customers will still have some alternatives. For our example, we might identify ordinary fragrance diffusers or even scented candles as competition. Watch how those alternative products are marketed. Highlight their pros and cons. This will help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your own product.

After that, you need to come up with unique selling proposition — a USP.

For example, some regular fragrance diffusers spray the substance every 9, 18 and 36 minutes. Some consumers might think that’s too frequent. With a smart fragrance diffuser, you can set the time yourself with your smartphone. So that’s your key advantage.

When it comes to new and unique products, position them relative to known competitors. Don’t present the innovation out of context — give consumers a reference point to understand the benefits of your new product.

How to Generate Traffic to Your Store

People often use search engines like Google to find products they know they need. But can they use search engines to find products they DON’T know they need? That’s a little more difficult. Let’s figure out how to make it happen.

1. Search advertising

Search ads can work if you use related search queries. For example, “best oil diffuser”.

To find related search queries for your product, think about goods and services that solve the same or a similar problem to yours. Then use special tools like Keywords Everywhere to see which keywords correspond with these goods and services. In the case of a smart fragrance diffuser, you can work with keywords for air fresheners, air purifiers, or odor removal services.

Additionally, you can use other related search queries, like “fragrance diffusers for a cafe,” “fragrance diffusers for offices,” and so on. You will need a separate list of keywords for each case. Think about your customers’ related interests and use them to narrow your focus.

Queries you can use:

substitute products, like incense sticks;
products with similar functionality — in our case, ordinary fragrance diffusers;
competitor brands and product names — for example, well-known brands of fragrance diffusers;
related interests — for example, technology for a smart home.

Search advertising allows you to reach out to customers who are already interested in items similar to your product. Here’s how they do it at CakeSafe, a company that sells unique boxes to transport large cakes:

With Google Shopping, it’s not that delayed, they’re purchasing immediately because they’re already looking for what we have. The keywords that we put into our shopping campaign are “cake transportation,” “how to deliver a cake.” All the versions of that. So if someone is googling those words, they’re looking for a solution right now and they’re going to purchase at the moment. Whereas social media, it’s still wonderful to build that following, but they might not be immediate purchasers.

Learn more on the Ecwid E-commerce Show: CakeSafe: Marketing and Instagram Tips

If your product is complex, expensive, or completely unknown, your customers need time to think before they make a purchase decision. So, be sure to set up retargeting — display ads on Google or Facebook to shoppers who visited your website but left without a purchase. Discounts or special offers will attract more visitors to return.

For example, we can target our ads to people who were looking for automatic diffusers or people who are interested in the Internet of Things. After they enter those items in the search bar, other websites will show them your ads.

2. Social media

Since most people aren’t familiar with your product, it’s important to raise awareness. Companies with a large budget can promote with the help of influencers. Instagram and YouTube are especially effective: you can show the product in detail in videos or photos.

In addition to social media, you can post articles on third-party websites your audience reads, or make posts on forums.

How to Sell a Unique Product on Your Website

Your website should provide information that teaches a potential customer about the product, how it works, and why it’s better than traditional alternatives.

1. Show, don’t tell

Use videos and quality photos to help your customers understand how the product works.

You’ll probably have to make several videos to see what works better for your customers. Andrea and Donna from FlipZees sell glasses that help you to put makeup on. That’s how they found their perfect format:

The first video we made for our website was a demonstration video just to show customers how the product works. It was about 50 seconds long. And then we realize it looks great, however, people didn’t know what it was. So basically, we realized: “Oh, we don’t have a problem that shows the problem and then the solution, now it’s just the solution”. So we made another video with an actual professional model to show a problem and the solution. And a shorter version, because then we found out that for social media like Facebook or Instagram it can’t be longer than 15 seconds before people’s attention span disappears.

Learn more on the Ecwid E-commerce Show: From Friends to Inventors to Brand Builders

Videos can be placed on the homepage and on product pages too.

FlipZees display a video on the home page

Add schemes or infographics to a video, they will help to make a decision for those people who can’t watch the video at the moment.

Sleep Number demonstrates the layers of their bed on a picture

If you sell complex products, you can make a series of training videos and upload them on your website or a Youtube channel. The video should show the product in use and explain its advantages.

You can make a tab for those videos on the website to upload videos about the product.

2. Complement your video

Describe advantages and ways of use on the page. For example, tell how and why smart fragrance diffusers are useful at home, in an office, in a cafe.

SmartyPans describes the advantages of their product

As opposed to ordinary products, template descriptions won’t work here, as you need specific information about the product or a comparison with a well-known alternative.

3. Start a blog

In your store’s blog, you can tell how the product works and answer the most common questions.

Write not only about the product itself, but also about related topics that your target audience is interested in. This will help to attract search traffic. For example, you can write how to choose fragrances for different purposes or about danger/safety of aromatic compounds.

4. Show the product in use

If you sell technical solutions or custom-made products, make case studies that demonstrate your work. They can be placed both on a blog and on a separate page on your website. Examples will help customers understand how your product works.

Sleep Number offers different solutions for sleeping problems

Now you know how to successfully sell a product even if no one’s heard about it. Maybe you already sell such goods? Are you planning to strike the market with something innovative like CakeSafe or FlipZees did? Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and ideas in comments!