When building a brand, what exactly is a good product?

Whether a brand can be favored by consumers in the market depends on whether the brand's products are of high quality. This article judges whether a product is of high quality from the perspective of consumers and is recommended for brand and product-related practitioners to read~

Brands often come to me with their products and ask: "How about this product?", "Is there any chance of success?", or, "This product is so good, why is it not selling well?", etc.

This article will discuss what is a good product from the perspective of content marketing, and what kind of products are more likely to be launched through content?

On the brand side, every founder thinks that his product is particularly good.

Even if the competitor is top-tier, with high sales and good consumer reputation, 99% of bosses are mysteriously confident and think their products are better than those of the competitor.

Delicious/smells good/absorbs well/fragrant/whitens skin/comfortable/anti-slip, etc.

Such a good product must be able to sell well, but the reality is that it always doesn’t sell well.

Many bosses would wonder why consumers don’t buy the products when they are so good; they find anchors to promote the products, but the results are not good; they try to communicate with channels, but the channels are not very interested.

1. Is a good product in the boss’s eyes really a good product?

The ultimate definition of a product is not the product manager or the boss, but the consumer. The consumer is the product user.

1. Case

A brand once developed a low-calorie, low-fat biscuit. Compared with the current products on the market, it is very suitable and competitive for people who want to lose weight and reduce fat.

But the cookies were not selling well.

The founder was very puzzled. Isn't this product perfect for people who want to lose weight and reduce fat? Although it doesn't taste good, it is at least a good substitute for other biscuits. Would people rather buy high-calorie biscuits than buy theirs?

The founder couldn’t figure it out at first. He overlooked two points:

1. Biscuits are not a necessity. During the period of weight loss and fat reduction, it is completely possible not to eat biscuits. Consumers have many other foods to choose from.
2. People eat delicious food not only for physical needs, but also for spiritual needs. They enjoy the spiritual pleasure brought by delicious food. If the food is not delicious, why should consumers torture themselves? Taking Chinese medicine is to cure diseases. After all, life is important. What's the point of eating unpalatable food? You can just not eat it.

Therefore, the quality of a product does not lie in its advantages over competing products, but in whether consumers have reasons to buy it.

There was a boss of a lipstick brand before. He positioned his product as a national trend lipstick, so he put a lot of effort into the shape, visuals, and packaging. Of course, because of the complete differentiation, the product cost is high, and the price of the lipstick is also relatively expensive, more than 100 yuan per stick, which is basically close to Mac lipstick.

The product packaging material is good, the same as XX big brand, the design also has national trend and style IP, and there is a brand story extracted from Chinese traditional culture.

But consumers and channels were not willing to pay for it, thinking that the product was too expensive and could not be sold. He felt a little aggrieved because the cost was high and the gross profit was actually lower than those cheap lipsticks.

The lipstick uses a relatively good paste, the IP also comes from a very culturally rich character in ancient times, and the leather used for the packaging is very textured, the same as that of foreign big brands.

He overlooked four points:

1. No matter how good the cream is, consumers will not feel much when applying it on their lips, and it is difficult for them to intuitively understand why the product is expensive;
2. Consumers buy lipstick for the color, but there is little differentiation in shades;
3. Lipstick is a cosmetic, but because the ancient IP is put on the product, the connection with the product itself is far-fetched;
4. The price is quite high, almost catching up with Mac, so why don't consumers spend a little more money to buy Mac, an international brand?

So what exactly is a good product?

1. Good products should be different

When it comes to differentiation, many bosses' self-confidence suddenly explodes, and they can talk endlessly about how their products taste better, smell better, feel better on the skin, are more cost-effective, etc. than others.

Compared with competitors, your product is better. This betterness comes from comparison, and comparison must be because the product itself is differentiated.

This differentiation can be reflected in the differences in appearance, packaging, taste, and skin feel. This difference must be the main reason why consumers pay for it.

Taste is the most powerless difference. If the differentiation of a product comes from the subjective feelings of users, such differentiation is difficult to become real differentiation, unless your product is so delicious that it can surprise everyone and make everyone's taste buds have a clear perception.

Moreover, taste varies from person to person, and most people find it difficult to perceive subtle changes in taste.

The biscuit brands mentioned above also have differentiation, but why are they not good products?

1. What is good differentiation?

• Either provide consumers with better basic needs, such as better taste, better effect, and better skin feel;
• This kind of differentiation will only be meaningful if it adds icing on the cake to the basic needs of the product and gives users a better experience.
• Or it is the subjective differentiation of product manufacturing, for example, the same product, one is the same as Sam's Club, one is not, one is developed by doctors, one is not. There may not be differences in themselves, but the perception given to consumers is completely different.

If the basic needs of the product cannot be met, such differentiation is meaningless.

I once met a boss who said that the oranges grown in his garden were sweeter than navel oranges. In fact, this kind of subjective difference is either very obvious or imperceptible to consumers.

2. A good product must have content

Content marketing is to introduce products to consumers in the form of content. Consumers are moved by the content and have a desire to buy the product.

What is a content point?

1. Most of the content points are to generate trust

• Awesome endorsements are content points. For example, research and development by the Chinese Academy of Sciences is a content point that can convince users.
• Sub-brands of big brands are content points;
• The significant effect contrast is the point of the content, which makes consumers believe through the presentation of content.
• The unique visual style is the content that makes consumers who are obsessed with appearance fall in love with it instantly.
• The differentiation mentioned above is more of a content point;

Content cannot be created out of nothing. It is about tapping into the advantages of the product itself and reaching consumers through content. Otherwise, it will be empty and fail to impress consumers.

2. Case

There is a skin care brand whose core function is whitening, but the previous content has always been about ingredients. As a new brand, this function has no highlights among all the skin care products. In addition, the brand’s own budget is limited, so the effect of planting grass is not good.

At this point, no matter how much you emphasize the ingredients and whitening effects, you cannot create a gap with competitors in terms of content.

But in fact, their founder used to be a senior scientist at a top skin care brand and published professional books in the industry. He is a true formulator brand. This point alone is a very good content point for the brand, but it has been overlooked in terms of content expression.

Therefore, a good product is not just about ingredients and parameters, but should be considered from the consumer's perspective. Only when it is "good" for consumers and can be experienced and measured, or even felt good, can it be considered a good product.

Author: Keny Wei, WeChat public account: Marketing Lao Wang