HomeTrend Forecast
Important Trends, Relevant news, Useful Tools and Interesting Facts
about the World of Housewares and Home Goods Marketing

From A.J. Riedel, Sr. Partner
Riedel Marketing Group
Actionable Insight, Measurable Results

How to Increase the Odds that Your New Products Will Sell Well

You greatly increase the odds that your new products will not just meet but will exceed your sales expectations when you systematically consult the people who actually buy and use those products throughout the design and development process.

Why? Because as Philip Kotler, the world's foremost expert on the strategic practice of marketing, put it in his book Marketing Management, "selling, to be effective, must be PRECEDED by several marketing activities such as needs assessment [and] marketing research. ... If the marketer does a good job of identifying consumer needs, developing appropriate products, and pricing, distributing and promoting them effectively, these products will sell very easily."

One company that followed Kotler’s advice is Zibra. The company identified an unmet consumer need -- getting clamshell packages open – and developed an appropriate product -- the Open It, a multi-tool that safely opens clamshell packages (and other types of packages).

Zibra did the marketing activities that Kotler says must precede product development in order for a product to sell easily. They did their needs assessment and market research to identify a consumer need and develop the appropriate product.

First, they gathered together groups of women in several different cities and giving them free rein to brainstorm about the household activities that bother and frustrate them. Out of that brainstorming came the idea for the Open It.

Then they involved those same women in every aspect of the design and development process from product concept to final production.

Zibra did the marketing activities that Kotler says must precede product development in order for a product to sell easily…and sell easily they do. Starting with a test in 1,000 stores in late 2006, the Open It is now in more than 25,000 retailers.