Another #FollowAlongFriday to help you and your peers pivot your biz from fear to opportunity. Check out the rest of Raman’s tactics here. Take it away, Raman!
When brands first started asking opinions of their followers using Instagram’s poll feature, they came to understand it was the next best thing to having access to a traditional focus group. Polls and questions quickly became a space where brands started including their followers in small business decisions, but soon realized how impactful the opinion of their customer can be when it comes to putting new products or services into the market.
Whether you are a service or product based business, if you’re currently gathering research for a new product formulation or service idea, it’s imperative to start including your social followers by asking them to get involved in the creative process.
The commonality in human behaviour, no matter the roles we play is, when asked a question, people love sharing their opinion. I predict one of the greatest shifts we’re going to witness moving forward in NPD’s (new product development) will include brands collaborating with their followers to create consumer products, formulations, cosmetic colours, and services together.
Followers and paying customers love being taking on a behind the scenes journey of the brands they support. It’s now time to bring customers into your idea conception to launch strategy as well.
To help you get started, here’s an example I would love for you all to gain inspiration from:
On Wednesday, March 20th this year an influencer named, Teni Panosian, launched her brand, Monday Born, in the midst of all this chaos and started pre-sales for her first product named, Rebirth. Rebirth is a vegan based lactic acid skin resurfacing face serum that won’t be available for shipping until June of this year.
If you visit Teni’s Instagram, she’s taking her community through the entire journey of how she conceived the idea of her first product, Rebirth, from start to finish. Even at a time when frivolous spending and retail closures abruptly shook the economy, Teni, as a namesake social brand and an influencer, leaned into her community and her community responded back… with pre-sales.
By the way, 100% of pre-sale bottles have been sold. In the beauty industry, initial runs can start anywhere between 5,000-10,000 units per order.
I don’t see many brands taking advantage of this strategy just yet; however, we will quickly see this shifting as influencers, now too, are branching into launching their own brands beyond limited edition collection drops or collaborations.
Here is a platform brands can start using immediately by asking fans to help create the next product or service they will be excited to purchase in the future: click here.
xx
Raman