how to offer products and services that will sell
Creating a product or offering a service that you think is awesome can be easy… but, does your target audience think it’s awesome? And, more importantly, is it what your audience wants or needs?
You may think you know what your audience is looking for, but the difference between thinking and knowing is the difference between a product or service that flops and a product or service that sells without even trying.
The ultimate goal for any business is to offer something that will make their ideal customer exclaim, “That’s exactly what I was looking for!”
So, how do you create something just like that? Follow these steps.
listen to the problems your audience has
The best way to create what your audience wants is to listen to what they have to say. If you’re looking to start offering PR services, speak with your target market and find out:
What their budget might be
What PR placements they’re looking to get
What they’re looking for by working with a PR professional
By expressing what they need help with the most, you’re able to create PR packages that directly speak to what they’re seeking:
You can offer services that fit within their budget and even have a range of services so that you can adhere to various price points.
You can create a list of publications, journalists, mediums, etc. that you know you’ll be able to reach and have connections to, in order to help land press for your future clients.
You can identify areas that may be lacking in other PR firms that would be a good opportunity for you to step in and serve your audience.
If someone knows that something that you offer will effectively and efficiently solve the struggle they’ve been facing, it will be easy for them to believe in the investment of your product or service and therefore have no problem moving forward.
create something that solves that problem
Once you know what your audience is looking for, you can use that information to actually create your product or service. Let’s use the example of the PR firm above to help paint the picture on what the next steps would be.
Say that you spoke to 25 ideal clients who would be looking for PR services like yours, and you found out the following information from them:
Budget: These business owners are able to afford around $1,000 per month for PR services.
Placements: Your ideal clients are female entrepreneurs who mainly own service-based businesses. They’re really interested in working with someone to get them featured in podcasts and online publications that have a target market who are also female entrepreneurs. This means that you’ll need to build up a wide network of these podcasts and online publications, if you don’t have one already, that will feature your future clients.
Requirements: These women have shared that this is what they’re really looking for in a PR professional:
Someone who will help them to craft their story in a way that’s unique and interesting
Someone who has all of the connections for getting featured in relevant, exciting places
Someone who can guarantee results
Someone who provides monthly status reports to identify which pitches have been sent, and out of those, which ones have been rejected or are in the queue
When you take all of these components into consideration, you’re able to create the exact service that they’re looking for: ongoing PR support that falls under $1,000 per month and guarantees placement in online publications and on podcasts.
adjust your current offerings
After solidifying your new service, you’ll need to adjust your current offerings to include it. It’s important to not offer too many options, as that can overwhelm someone when navigating through your site, and it also takes time away from the services that you’re really good at.
Do an inventory check of your current services and ask yourself:
Are any of these services much less popular than the others?
Do any of these services consistently bring me difficult clients?
Do I not enjoy any of these services?
Are any of these services not making me enough money?
Do any of these services not benefit my target market as intended?
Your answers will help you to narrow down what you can let go of and what you can keep, and it also allows more room for that new shiny service to come through.
When your service is officially ready to start offering to the world, make sure you put it on your website, announce it on social media, and share it with your email list or contacts so that you can get as many eyeballs on it as possible!
test the waters and monitor over time
Although we wish something could be “one and done,” that’s not exactly the case, which means that you’ll need to consistently monitor your services over time to see how they’re panning out. Once per quarter, you’ll want to ask yourself the same questions listed above, but you’ll also want to focus on this new service and ask:
Is it getting a lot of traction?
Is it helping my clients the way I intended?
Is there anything I can add to the service to make it even better?
You’ll want to give yourself some time before determining if the service isn’t working the way it should, but as you’re working with your clients, you might find gaps that could provide really great opportunities for you to support them even more--and make more money!
No matter what types of products or services you decide to move forward with, always ask yourself if it’s what your audience is looking for, what they need, and what they want — and if it fits all three requirements, you’ll be golden.