If you have a great idea for a new product, then it makes sense to start a business and start selling it. Whether you want to do this as a small sideline in your spare time or want to leave your current job to focus on your idea full time, you will need to know some of the basics to ensure that your idea has what it takes to succeed.

While no product is every truly original or unique, what you do with it can make a huge difference to the way you stand out in the crowd and attract consumers. This means that your idea can’t just be okay, it needs to be brilliant with an advertising and marketing strategy to go with it, as well as room for development.

Though there are no set rules for what makes something go from okay to best-seller, there are a few things you should be thinking about while you get set up and start selling.

Find Your Niche

Whatever your idea is, you will need to find a niche in the market that you can fill. Finding a niche can be quite tricky though as the global market means that there are new ideas popping up all the time and, since nothing is truly unique, you might have to think quite hard about what sets you apart.

The first thing to do is consider who you would like to attract to your product. Age, gender, location, interests, education level, political inclination, marital status, family – there are all sorts of factors you could use to define your target audience. This means that you really can narrow down your options to stand out more in the aisles.

You should also consider which problem your product is solving. Though your product might be similar to lots of others on offer, in order to stand out it needs a unique selling point (USP) that solves a slightly different problem. For example, your product might be cheaper or more efficient; maybe it is eco-friendly or designed to be lighter. Whatever your USP is, it needs to appeal to your audience and do something different to other similar products on offer.

Your target audience and niche can be as weird as you like just as long as both will allow you room to show how your product is different to others around it.

Build Your Brand

One of the main things that customers look for is a recognisable brand and persuading them to switch from one to another is a tough game. This is because people tend to build a relationship with a brand. They like to be able to trust the brand to deliver the same quality every time and to recognise them as a valued customer. People also like to be able to interact with a brand when they need to and get a good response back.

This is why branding is so important: it will define you and form the beginning of the relationship with your target audience.

The first thing that most people will notice about your product will be the packaging. This means that you need to make sure that your box stands out on the shelf, but also that you are aiming for a clear market. If you go to any store, you will notice that similar products often use a similar style of packaging but there is always something to make each one catch your eye. But, you will probably buy the same product you always get without really thinking about it.

As a new product, this means that you need to find a way for your packaging to distract people from their usual product and take an interest in yours. Highlighting your USP is a good way to do this but there are other, more creative methods that an agency might come up with. Consulting a branding and creative packaging designer like Smashbrand is a good plan as they will have all sorts of ideas you could use.

Advertising and Marketing (Sell, Sell, Sell!)

Once you have a USP, a target audience and a brand – and all are tied up together to complete the package – you will need to create an advertising and marketing strategy in order to raise awareness of your product. At this point, you should know your product and target audience inside and out so your strategy should be suited to both.

You now need to decide who you are going to market to: direct to the consumer or to a larger store in order to persuade them to stock your product. There’s no need to worry about choosing one over the other just yet, but you will need different strategies for each.

Marketing directly to the consumer is about reaching out with the message they want to hear. Social media marketing is especially effective for raising awareness like this as you can refine your audience to ensure that you are getting to your particular target market without wasting your budget on people who won’t be interested. If you have a larger budget to play with, then you might also like to try making a commercial for TV or YouTube as well as using targeted ads on Google and affiliate websites.

To market to a store, you will need a slightly different approach. You will need to be able to present all the reasons that the customers of that store will be interested in buying your product, but you will also need to spell out how much the store will profit. Bear in mind, that you are also selling in bulk now, rather than just the one product at a time. This means that your profits will be slightly different here, so you need to do all the calculations before you go in to make sure that you will still be making enough from your product.

Combining your great product idea with a brand and an advertising and marketing strategy is the best way to approach a new business idea. Now all you need to do is sell, sell, sell!