What’s wrong with your product?

What’s wrong with our marketing? – asks the CEO, disappointed with growth falling short of expectations, and everyone lowers their eyes, searching for answers. If you’re in marketing or run a company, you’ve faced a similar situation. Why aren’t your marketing campaigns delivering the expected results?

Maybe the problem lies not in how you promote your products, but in the products themselves?

It’s easy to say (ok, it’s always tough to say it to the CEO’s face), but how can you easily check?

Here are four basic marketing paradigms that have historically played an important role and can help you understand what needs to be improved. Although each of them emerged at different times and in different contexts, I’m convinced that each can shed real light on your situation. You just need to ask yourself the right questions, which you’ll find later in this article.

I am convinced that your product or service has immense potential, but perhaps you know it too well and have lost sight of the big picture. Therefore, to help you find it, I will use very simple yet timeless questions in this article. And a simple but tasty example – a Mexican tuna salad in a can, which recently caught my attention on a store shelf.

In our “Effective Product Checklist,” we have included over 150 questions and tips invaluable for verifying your product/service – download now for free!

1. Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

 Let’s say you’re selling a Mexican tuna salad. What makes your salad stand out from the competition? It could be, for instance, that your cans contain 20% more tuna than the standard cans on the market, giving customers more value for their money. This is your USP – something that makes your product unique.

Questions for your product:

• Does your product have a USP?
• Is it consistent with the brand? 
• Is it relevant to the customer, or does it just seem that way to you?

2. Unique Value Proposition (UVP) 

Now consider the UVP. Maybe your salad not only contains more tuna but is also made from organic ingredients, which matters to eco-conscious customers. Additionally, your cans might be made from recycled material. And delivered the next day to the door. All these elements make up your unique value proposition. It’s a set of attributes that make your product the first choice for the customer.

Questions for your product:

• Does your product have a defined value proposition on key dimensions (e.g., price, availability, reliability, speed, safety)? 
• Are there dimensions in which it has a visible advantage over the competition? 
• Are they relevant to the customer?

3. Positioning 

How is your tuna salad brand perceived by consumers, or how does it position itself in their minds? Maybe you want it to be known as “the best choice for eco-conscious consumers.” In that case, you need to ensure that your marketing actions support this positioning – from packaging, through messages, to CSR activities.

Questions for your product:

• How big is the gap between your positioning concept and what consumers think? 
• Does your brand have a promise that is delivered by the product? 
• Is this image consistent with customer perception?

4. Distinctiveness

Distinctiveness is a key element of success, as research shows. Your cans of tuna salad must be easily recognizable on the store shelf because, as the newly rediscovered truth goes – “people don’t buy products, they buy packaging.”

This could be a unique can design, special label, or colors that stand out from the competition. It’s important that customers immediately know it’s your brand when they see the product on the shelf.

Questions for your product:

• Does your product have distinguishable, visible elements at first glance? 
• Are they within acceptable boundaries for the category (in other words – will the customer not think, at a glance, that a tuna salad is an eye cream)? 

Summary 

We’ve gone through key marketing paradigms: USP, UVP, positioning, and distinctiveness, using the example of a Mexican tuna salad in a can.

Are the answers to the questions listed here clear-cut for your product or service? Is your brand an integral part of your product?

If yes, you are on the right track to success. If not, maybe it’s time for deeper reflection and adjustment of your promotion and product strategy. Marketing is not just promotion, but building lasting value that benefits your customers and your brand. Which I certainly wish you.

If the questions described here keep you awake at night – write to me, let’s talk.