We know the product is good, so why isn’t it selling as well as it should?
It is a familiar and frustrating question for any product marketing manager. You have confidence in the product. It works, it solves a genuine problem and perhaps it even performs better than some of the alternatives. Yet the sales figures are not reflecting that.
The temptation is to look at the product itself. But the problem could just as easily sit somewhere else: in the packaging, the price, the message, the visibility, the audience, the brand or the way the product compares with everything around it.
A product marketing manager is, in some ways, a puppet master. Price, packaging, communication, distribution and promotion are among the strings available to them. The challenge is knowing which one to pull.
We saw this with QwickHose.
They came to us because sales weren’t meeting expectations, and they couldn’t work out what was going wrong. We started by looking at the product and everything surrounding it.
The underlying product was excellent: a hose connector designed to remove the frustration of traditional fittings. It was easier to use and solved a recognisable problem. The product itself was not the issue.
Its most compelling reason to believe had become buried beneath a long list of features. The brand blended into a crowded category instead of standing out. Its personality was schizophrenic, shifting between different styles and tones, none of which reflected the confident, distinctive brand the company wanted to create.
There was no clearly defined ideal customer either, so the communication had become broad and generic. It was trying to speak to everyone and, as a result, was not speaking particularly strongly to anyone.
The product was good. The things surrounding it were making that product harder to choose.
Why the best product doesn’t always win
Home and garden categories are generally crowded. Unless you have developed something genuinely unique, your product is likely to be surrounded by several credible alternatives that appear to do broadly the same job.
That creates an uncomfortable reality: the best product doesn’t always win.
A shopper cannot necessarily judge how well a product performs before they buy it. They can look at its features, read the claims and compare the price, but they are still making a judgement based on limited information.
Before product quality can have much influence, the product has to be noticed and understood. The shopper needs to recognise that it is relevant to them, believe what it is promising and feel sufficiently confident to choose it.
Even then, it’s not being considered in isolation. It’s being compared with everything else on the shelf, on the retailer’s website or in the search results.
Businesses often place a great deal of confidence in one particular strength:
- The product is excellent, so it should sell.
- The brand is well known, so it should sell.
- The packaging looks great, so it should sell.
- We are cheaper than the competition, so it should sell.
Each statement may contain some truth. None guarantees it gets chosen.
A beautiful pack cannot rescue a product nobody understands. A low price may not overcome doubts about quality. A recognised brand can still lose if another product appears easier to use or more suitable for the job.
Product quality is essential, but it is only one part of the decision.
When a good product is underperforming, look beyond the product itself. Something else may be making it harder to choose.
It’s a bit like Top Trumps. Well, sort of.
Choosing between products can feel a little like a game of Top Trumps.
Price, brand recognition, trust, ease of use, pack size, value, reviews, packaging and product claims might all appear on the cards. Each product will be stronger in some areas and weaker in others.
But there is a crucial difference.
In Top Trumps, everyone agrees which number wins. If one car has a higher top speed than another, that round is settled.
Shoppers don’t play by the same rules.
One person may place the greatest importance on price. Another wants a brand they recognise. Someone else may prefer the product that explains itself most clearly, has better reviews or simply feels easier to use.
The importance attached to each factor can also change with the situation. A shopper might take time researching an expensive garden tool but make a much quicker decision about a small accessory. They may choose a familiar brand when buying a gift, but focus on price when replacing something in a hurry.
This makes “the best product” difficult to define. Best according to whom, and against which criteria?
A technically superior product can still lose if its advantages are difficult to understand. A cheaper product may lose if it feels less trustworthy. A well-known brand may lose if its packaging makes the product look dated or unsuitable for the shopper’s particular need.
This is why identifying the audience matters.
Without a clear idea of who the product is for, the marketing team cannot make confident decisions about which strengths to emphasise. Every feature looks important. Every possible audience needs to be included. The message becomes broader, longer and less distinctive.
QwickHose had plenty of features it could talk about. The challenge was identifying the one idea that would make the product immediately relevant and believable to the people most likely to buy it.
The same principle applies to any product that is not selling as well as expected. You cannot control the importance every shopper places on every criterion. But you can decide what you want the product to stand for, who it needs to appeal to and which reasons for choosing it deserve the greatest emphasis.
That brings us back to the product marketing manager as puppet master.
There are several strings available. The answer is not necessarily to pull all of them harder. It is to work out which one is most likely to be holding the product back.
The puppet master
A product marketing manager has a surprising number of strings available to pull.
There is the product itself: its features, format, size or range. There is the price and the offer. There is distribution, visibility and retailer support. Then there are the things that shape how the product is perceived: the brand, packaging, message, personality, claims, reviews and evidence of effectiveness.
Some strings can be pulled relatively quickly. A promotional price can be trialled. A message can be changed on a retailer’s website. Different advertising creative can be tested.
But others are going to take more time. Packaging often can’t be replaced immediately. A brand doesn’t become more distinctive overnight. Trust has to be earned through repeated communication and good experiences.
The skill lies in deciding which string is most likely to make a difference.
And that does not mean every underperforming product has one simple fault waiting to be discovered. Several factors may be working together. Poor visibility can make unclear packaging even more damaging. A generic message can make an unfamiliar brand easier to overlook. A low price can fail to reassure someone who is worried about efficacy or quality.
Trying to change everything at once rarely helps, it costs more, makes the results difficult to interpret and can lead to a complete relaunch when the real problem might have been much simpler.
With QwickHose, the product didn’t need to be reinvented. The work around it needed greater focus.
We identified the audience the brand most needed to appeal to and agreed a personality that would feel relevant to them. From there, we created a graphic look and feel that stood apart from the competition and gave the product a stronger, more consistent presence.
The design also had to support the product’s premium price. It needed to feel like the more considered, better-quality option rather than simply another hose connector on the shelf.
We created campaign headlines that grabbed attention and brought the central selling point to the front, rather than allowing it to disappear among a long list of features. We also gave the team ideas for social advertising and point-of-sale material, all using the same recognisable brand style.
The analysis only became useful when it was translated into things the customer would actually see and respond to. The audience, personality, message and commercial positioning shaped the creative work; the creative work then made those decisions tangible.
This is where marketing judgement matters. Once you have identified what may be holding the product back, the answer must be expressed clearly and convincingly. That might mean working on the product story, creating a more distinctive brand personality, changing the visual presentation or finding a stronger way to communicate the main reason to choose it.
We explored some of the reasons behind this in our article How people choose: emotion, reason and the power of creative marketing. Shoppers don’t score every available option against an agreed set of criteria. Familiarity, emotion, appearance and previous experience can all influence which information they notice and how they interpret it.
The puppet master cannot control the shopper. But they can improve the way the product seen and enters that decision.
Testing, testing
Ideally, every marketing team would have the budget and time for extensive customer research before making a change.
In reality, that’s a fairytale. Many smaller consumer brands don’t have that kind of budget.
They may have sales figures, retailer feedback, website data, customer reviews and observations from the team. All of those can be useful, but on their own, they won’t provide a definitive answer.
That shouldn’t become a reason to do nothing.
Analyse what you can, form a reasonable hypothesis, then test it in the market.
Perhaps your initial review suggests that price is the main obstacle. You might trial a promotion or test a stronger value message with one retailer.
Perhaps people are seeing the product but not understanding it. You could simplify the main claim, give the key benefit more prominence or change the order in which the information is presented.
Perhaps the product is understood but not trusted. Reviews, demonstrations, evidence, guarantees or a more confident presentation of the brand might help.
Perhaps it is simply being overlooked. The answer could lie in stronger packaging, improved product imagery, better placement or greater visibility.
The test doesn’t have to be elaborate, but it should be deliberate.
Start with a clear idea of what you believe is holding the product back. Decide what you are going to change and what result you would reasonably expect to see. Where possible, avoid changing several unrelated things at the same time. Otherwise, even an improvement may tell you very little about what worked.
Not every test will produce the hoped-for result. That doesn’t necessarily make it a failure.
If a price promotion creates little change, price may not be the main obstacle. If more visibility increases visits but not purchases, the issue may sit further along the decision process. If a clearer message improves response, you have evidence that understanding was part of the problem.
Each test tells you a little more about which string to pull next.
This is a more practical route for many smaller brands than waiting for certainty. The research may happen through the activity itself, provided the team measures what it can and learns from the result.
There is still a need for judgement. Live testing should not become a series of random changes. Pulling strings without a hypothesis is not experimentation; it’s guesswork.
The purpose is to replace assumptions with better evidence, one sensible step at a time.
Give the product its best chance
When a product underperforms, it is tempting to conclude that people simply do not want it.
Sometimes that conclusion will be right. A product may not solve a meaningful need, may be poorly timed or may have been overtaken by better alternatives.
But product quality is only one part of the buying decision. Before abandoning the product or changing it fundamentally, it is worth examining everything that surrounds the choice.
- Is it being noticed?
- Do people understand what it does and why it matters?
- Does it feel relevant to the audience you want to reach?
- Do shoppers trust the product and the brand behind it?
- How does it compare with the alternatives on the criteria that matter most?
- And which string could you pull to test your thinking?
In a crowded home or garden category, even a genuinely good product has to work hard for attention. It needs a clear role, a convincing reason to believe and a presentation that helps the shopper feel confident about choosing it.
The answer will depend on the product, the category, the retailer and the audience. It might be price. It might be visibility. It might be packaging, communication, brand personality or a muddled understanding of who the product is really for.
The important thing is not to assume that one strength should be enough.
When a good product is underperforming, look beyond the product itself. Something else may be making it harder to choose.
Analyse what you can, form a reasonable hypothesis, then test it in the market.
A good product deserves the best possible chance to sell. Sometimes the product needs to change. Just as often, the opportunity lies in removing the obstacles around it.
If you have a product or range that deserves to be selling better, WrightObara can help you look beyond the product itself, identify which string may be holding it back and turn that thinking into a stronger brand and creative response.